Learning Latin, watching out what will happen.

OMG. Am suddenly feeling a great affinity with the Small Child who is still rote learning his times tables as I try to rote learn Latin verb conjugations, noun declensions and wrack my brains to remember what case, voice, tense, mood, gender and number various Latin words are.  Having my life rapidly and even insidiously invaded by long forgotten elements of grammar, and many more elements of grammar that simply don’t have any place in English is proving far more challenging than I was anticipating.

My brain is overflowing with 1st declension, feminine, accusative, present, active, indicative nouns… or 2nd declension masculine, nominative, past tense, passive subjunctive nouns… or 3rd person plural, active pluperfect verbs!  And after three weeks of this – it is entirely possible that NONE of what I just wrote makes any sense at all!  I am trying to stuff tables of information into my head and hope it sticks for I have a progress exam next week… oh joy of joys.

amo, amas, amat, amamus, amatis, amant is about the only thing I can reliable regurgitate and that I have to admit is entirely due to having watched Eddie Izzard’s Unrepeatable way too many times and nothing to do with it being the simplest and first verb they try to smash into a poor little first year’s head!

PS – Eddie Izzard was right… Latin is a dead language for a reason – it’s fucked! :S

Latin Roll Call

Latin is fun, right?  Right?  Every week the lecturer takes attendance … presumably to track the high attrition rate. He calls each students name and the student responds with ‘ADSUM’ which means ‘I am here’.  Simple enough.

Miriam? ‘ADSUM’
Zach? ‘ADSUM’
Liz? ‘ADSUM’
Robyn? ‘ADSUM’
Gina? ‘ADSUM’
Tabitha? ‘Magister, I prefer to be called Seven’
Seven? ‘Yes, as in the number’
Err, Seven? ‘ADSUM’

Seven? Seriously! I mean, seriously?!? Well, if I had known that I could have my lecturers call me anything I wanted I could have spent the last few years being addressed as Bookcase, Guacamole, Purple or maybe even, Madam President! 🙂

Fuck MY Life.

People seem to be saying this all the time nowadays and it’s cropping up everywhere from email, to Facebook and Twitter, to notes to your Gran and in even in actual conversations (grrr…) along with everywhere in between.  People are rolling it out with alarming regularity.

Someone scratched my car and didn’t leave a note… FML
Missed out on a job (you probably weren’t qualified for anyway)… FML
Left my Kindle at home and got stuck on a boring train ride… FML
Found fabulous shoes that don’t come in my size…FML
My boyfriend dumped me and the world is ending… FML
Hard drive crashed and everything is lost… FML

Okay, that last one can be pretty traumatic so we could probably let that slide. I am fond of commenting about how people use the FML acronym just because insignificant things don’t quite go their way and I maintain its overuse is diluting the sentiment entirely. Not so long ago, a friend who was FML’ing about having a crap job but not doing much to improve his situation got my regular ‘suck it up princess’ speech about using the FML tag over such an ultimately controllable aspect of his life. And he sarcastically asked “Well, when do you get to use FML then?”

My response:
You get to say FML after 20 years of chronic back pain, 10 years of infertility… throw in a dead/dying parent of a potentially hereditary terminal illness, emotionally draining sibling marital breakdowns, four or more traumatic car accidents, prescription drug dependency (plus unwanted side effects), unavoidable and despised long term unemployment and a host of psychological bullshit, like obsessive personality traits, PTSD, adjustment disorders, a major chronic depressive disorder, suicidal ideation, social ostracism, mood and anxiety disorders and profitless ergomania.
(You know, come to think of it… I really don’t sound so good on paper!)

But you know, everyone has their own perspective of their own life and with it, their own pert opinions, no matter how misguided. So I guess people can, and will, continue to blurt FML all over the place when there’s not enough chocolate chips in their cookie, regardless about how much I rail against it.

fml depression suicide unhappy lonely

William Shakespeare’s Hokey Pokey.

O proud left foot, that ventures quick within
Then soon upon a backward journey lithe.
Anon, once more the gesture, then begin:
Command sinistral pedestal to writhe.
Commence though then the fervid Hokey-Poke.
A mad gyration, hips in wanton swirl.
To spin! A wilde release from heaven’s yoke.
Blessed dervish! Surely canst go, girl.
The Hoke, the poke – – banish now they doubt
Verily, I say, ’tis what it’s all about.

I got a giggle from it..