there is absolutely no reason for me to sound jolly, and in fact, given the events of the day, every reason to be quite the opposite, but bob reeder, who has been teaching romeo and juliet to his enlt class, commenting on my unreasonable cheer, shrewdly handed me this passage:
How oft when men are at the point of death Have they been merry! which their keepers call A lightning before death (V iii i don't know what line)
bob comforts that i'll get through my midterms, but i told him that was an unrealistic hope, and, in the language of merchant of venice, although i am going to have to hazard all i have, it's most likely i'll get exactly what i deserve, and that would probably not be what all men desire. today's latin, as expected went well. not a breeze, but not immoderately difficult either, and i did an equally competent job of it. that, i suppose, is the best kind of paper. easy papers leave you thoroughly unsatisfied, and impossible ones leave you feeling unfairly assessed, whereas a well-set paper means that you are constantly using your brain and working through the exam, but you come out of the exam hall feeling pleased at having risen to the challenge. the only quibble was with the way the paper was printed (lines printed on one side of paper, scansion to be done on the other side, hence a lot of paper flipping. also, not enough lines for my sprawling handwriting.) on the other hand, magnificently failed roman civilisations, because i hadn't been studying. fact of the matter was i wasn't too worried about it, been going to class (well, okay, been *mostly* going to class) and done all my readings although retained imperfectly, and doing very well on the short papers. naturally if you treat everything like a lit text it's pie to write essays. (i am told the expression easy as pie comes from printing terminology, that if you drop your composing stick or whatever it is and all the letters become a confused heap that is known as pie.) on the other hand, that's not the way to take an exam that requires names events dates to be thrown out rapidly. you need to do the kind of studying that involves making timelines and diagrams, and jotting down points and looking them over, the way we used to study history 5!!!! although, having said that, i can't remember a single reform richelieu introduced, or what the result of the treaty of westphalia was, or when the revolt of the netherlands was, or who the 7 electors of the holy roman empire were (erm, wait. i shall try. there were three archbishops, that would be, cologne and trier and and erm. and the king of bohemia, on whom everything rested, obviously, and the elector of saxony (frederick the winter king in our period) and erm. damn. two years of my life gone to waste) i just remember totally random things, like charles v abdicating and sitting in a monastery tinkering with clocks, or henry iii being described in green (or whoever - maybe i saw it in one of those nifty little blue history books) as being given to "orgiastic excesses" and that henry ii died from falling off a horse onto his own lance. alas. at any rate it's easier and more interesting to write something on livy as historian than erm, the etruscan kings' contribution to rome? (i think there was a ceremonial toga involved. well okay and urbanisation and a temple to jupiter and new offices and that sort of thing, but not the kind of thing i'll be able to recite.) anyway, on questions the variety of "how roman is roman comedy" i dashed off a good bit happily. on the other hand, the other 90% of the paper was factual roman history of which my memory can only produce a confusion of names generals and wars. ah well.

in exchange for cancelling our friday afternoon english class so people can leave for break, we're having a make-up class tonight in bowers' library, which would also serve as a midterm review. i wish i could get out of it, because i could get more done if i stayed home and caught up a little with the reading i haven't done, and study greek!!!!! but this isn't an optional review but a class, so i have to go, and i do not look forward to this snow and icing times like that i firmly come down on the side of anne fadiman's husband in preferring fern-spawning rainforests to white antartica with a lone polar bear in the distance.

i shall go in search of food and go to class.