About

dē mēmetipsō / περὶ ἐμαυτοῦ

Hello there, and thank you for stopping by! I really enjoy computers, music, reading, movies, languages, and learning of all kinds.

I spent most of my academic career studying to be a classicist (scholar of Latin, Greek, and the ancient Mediterranean world), and earned my Ph.D. in Classical Studies in 2014. My B.A. and M.A. are both in Classics as well, but I almost had a career in computer science, my original major. I couldn’t figure out the math, especially discrete math, and found I was way better at ancient languages overall.

I have been obsessed with computers for most of my life; my parents got our first family computer when I was 9 in 1993. I grew up on DOS 5.0 and Win 3.11, and lived through all the weirdness that was Windows in the ’90s and early 2000s. I dabbled with Linux back in the ’90s (Slackware, which was a really difficult learning curve at the time, and still mostly is), but switched to it full-time in 2007 when I found out about Ubuntu (I think it was Hardy Heron but don’t remember). I really like Xubuntu in particular.

I’d like to work on (re)learning C; I took a class on it back in 2000 when I was finishing high school, and briefly took some Java but wasn’t really a fan. I’m slacking on it these days. I haven’t made the time to work on C lately though. I’m working on teaching myself Markdown right now too. Both things are going very slowly, unfortunately, and I haven’t devoted as much time to them as I’d like.

I adore Latin and Greek. I haven’t spent enough time on it lately, but I’ve been studying Latin since 2001 and Greek since 2003, so it’s been a long but wonderful road. I taught for a number of years as a graduate student and then an adjunct, and then taught middle and high school Latin and Greek for 3 years, but ultimately academia was not for me. I translate as much as I can in my spare time, and I need to make more time to read both languages.

I am much happier in my current job, where I have the opportunity to help people every day in various ways. Thankfully it’s a 9-5 sort of job, so once I go home, my time is my own and I can pursue whatever I choose to. And no class prep on weekends has been super nice. I need to keep working on my Latin and Greek, of course, and reading whatever I can get my hands and eyes on, but that’s always a work-in-progress.

I also have more time to work on computing stuff, writing, studying on my own, and relaxing a little more. My work-life balance has been far, far better these days…

This is a living document and will be updated here and there.