I hate finals.

[timeripple]

Right about now I really miss self-scheduled exams, gratis blue books, Wellesley, and my crazy fiddle-and-other-instrument-playing buddies. Also, I hate finals. I have one in an hour and a half. Whose idea was it to have finals after normal business hours, I'd like to know? *fumes* Luckily it is only German, which is a) not all that hard, grammatically speaking, and b) taught at a very slow pace, so the amount of stuff they can actually use on an exam is rather limited, and c) I know I already mentioned this, but really, it is kind of a piece of yummy German chocolate cake (which btw is apparently not actually supposed to have coconut. According to my TA, who in fact kommt aus Deutschland).

Also, I have really random music running through my head. At the moment it's a beautiful slow air learned from the playing of Hanneke Cassel, so yay, but for a while there it was the theme from Troy.

I really want to watch bad Classics movies now.

In conclusion: finals suck.

Comments

[kayselkiemoon.livejournal.com]

does melanie know german?
german is easy? or just easy compared to greek? *cynical snort* (for surely most european languages are easy compared to greek) I fear I may be a bit bitter (not towards anyone but myself) because greek was so challenging for me. I was really good at french in highschool. and grk 101 was lovely. maybe I should just partially blame prof. colaizzi for being absent for 1/2 of grk 102 (although completely not his fault, bad heart). the rest was skittishness.

I loveadorelove german chocolate cake. hrm. I should try making it.

haven't seen troy yet. have you seen the kingdom of heaven, or tristan & isolde, or casanova, or alexander? haven't seen them either. I can see how they might be hilarious, though.

[timeripple.livejournal.com]

German is easy compared to Greek, but also the pace of the class is so slow that really there's very little to learn at a time. Greek is a pain somewhere painful. I probably only keep at it out of sheer obstinacy, and the vague hope that one day I may get to read Empedocles. Never mind that I am, in fact, rather bad at it. But if I were to throw the towel in now, then I wouldn't know where my towel is, you know? (However, for at least next year I will be in the market for a new towel.)

I've seen Kingdom of Heaven and Casanova, and part of Alexander. The first two were pretty good - ignore the "historical" aspects of the first and it's actually rather good. Casanova was better than I expected: "good-hearted" comes to mind, and I really enjoyed it. In a fluffy, frilly kind of way. Melanie and I saw the first half hour or so of Alexander together with Prof. Rogers' Alexander the Great class, so you can imagine a roomful of snickering people.

Has anybody else read history_spork?

[kayselkiemoon.livejournal.com]

nope, haven't read history_spork.
good to hear about kingdom of heaven; my mom wants to see it. ^_^

[olivia-cochrane.livejournal.com]

german is easy?

My question exactly. Probably 3/4 of all non-native speakers would beg to differ. I've always been pretty good with languages, and when I was learning German, I had to keep track of pages and pages of nouns with their definite articles so I could remember what goes with 'der,' 'die' or 'das.' Now, of course, I have an instinct as to which sounds right, but when you're first learning...oi. Not to mention when you're reading a German newspaper, you might look for the first verb about halfway down the page, if you're lucky :) Fiona, I recommend the essay "The Awful German Language" by Mark Twain.

[timeripple.livejournal.com]

There can be no doubt that the three definite articles are a pain. But at least if you have the article you can tell almost instantly whether the noun is m, f, or n, instead of having to look at everything else in the sentence to figure it out. Of course, when we get to reading actual stuff it'll probably be much, much more difficult.

Thanks for the rec; I'll look it up! Mark Twain is always worthwhile. I think I've had On The Damned Human Race lying around for years and really should read it.

Also, I love your icon. Love love love it! (Bad Fiona. No LOTR or Princess Bride until you've finished Plato!)

[olivia-cochrane.livejournal.com]

"Fezzik, are there rocks ahead?"
"If there are, we all be dead."

Yeah, as with all of my cool icons, I stole it. But I always credit when I steal icons.

[kayselkiemoon.livejournal.com]

that is a super icon. ^_^

[cadragongirl.livejournal.com]

"the Awful German Language" by mark twain is absolutely fabulous & excruciatingly funny, especially for those of us that have studied german. i had to read it in one of my german classes in high school & absolutely loved it.