Fall Samhain Moon
An inch of rain, a pinch of snow, some sleet and the weather’s gonna cool down this week. We’ll have some sun though and that’ll be good weather for finishing the orchard and harvesting the leeks and any stray raspberries that survive the freeze(s). Closing the door on all but the flowers.
Yesterday was mostly outside, today mostly inside. Lotsa Latin, some MOOC work, too. I decided to hop on the Latin after my tutoring session with Greg because I had a tendency to go, yeah! I’m done and not pick up the Latin again until the next Monday. By then I’d forgotten some of the key things Greg taught me. This time I pounded away it afterward and, by golly, I did get better. Back, maybe, to where I was before the break.
My goal over the next few months is to pick up my speed so I can translate several verses a day, eventually I’d like to hit at least 30 if not 50 a day. That way I can actually contemplate translating the whole Metamorphoses in a reasonable time frame. It will take practice and lots of it.
I did start reading the introduction to Unbending Gender, a reading for next week in Modern and Post Modern. It’s saying something important about gender but the author’s academic style drove me nuts. It’s the most poorly written thing I’ve read in the class. Its ideas aren’t hard, but deciphering the prose is. It’s supposed to be the other way around.
The general idea though is a big one. It positions gender as necessary for a livable life and shows how difficult life can be if gender becomes an issue. This lifts gender questions out of the realm of morality where they do not belong and places them squarely in the realm of basic human need; in this case, the need to live comfortably in one’s own skin. How fundamental is that? And how clear a way to underline the agony of having to explain your own self to others.
