June 3, 2025

Retrospective

CWs: work, personal history, mental health

I’ve been out of academia for nearly 6 years at this point (2019). At that point I was on the tail end of a teaching gig in middle/high school. It feels weird, like a different life entirely. But it’s in my past and that’s OK. I loved the time I spent working on my degrees, and all the learning that involved, and presenting and sharing knowledge with others as much as I felt like I could. I had a lot of interesting friends over the years, many fleeting and transient, as grad school/academic colleagues are wont to be, but they were in my life as long as they needed to be. That’s OK. Sometimes I miss the spoken Latin cena my colleague would host when I was teaching middle/high school most weeks. We had a lot of laughs, practiced speaking Latin, had a good meal, and read some interesting Latin off the beaten path. Those nights were fun. You might say, well, why not reach out, rekindle that connection? I suppose I could, but it would never be the same. I would always feel like the outsider, even though Latin would connect us. It’s a little melancholy losing those sorts of things, but again, it’s OK.

May 22, 2025

Commixta Grandine

CWs: alcohol, food, work mention

Interea magno misceri murmure caelum
incipit, insequitur commixta grandine nimbus
- Vergil, Aeneid 4.160-61

Meanwhile, the heavens began to be mixed up
With a great murmuring, and followed
A cloud with hail mixed in…

That passage from the Aeneid has stuck with me for a long time. Whenever I think of hail, I often think of that passage, which is from the 4th book, where the Trojans, particularly Aeneas and Dido, get stuck in a raging storm. I am thinking of hail because we drove through a hailstorm this weekend. It was an intense one. Probably the thickest rainstorm we’ve been in with the new car. My spouse was worried it would crack the windshield, and I was just hoping for the best, honestly.

May 16, 2025

Emulation is a Form of Time Travel

Many of us have dreamt of time travel in some form or another. And why not? You could be an eyewitness at crucial historical events, perhaps even change them? But as we’ve seen from many sci-fi stories (and what are sci-fi authors if not a type of prophet?), the risks far outweigh the benefits. However, there is a form of time travel accessible to us that is completely, AFAIK, safe. I would argue that emulation is a form of time travel.

May 6, 2025

Welcome to Tuesday

CWs: work, mental health-adjacent, tea mention

Well, here we are. Barely into the week. It’s already been a busy one. I took Friday off, so it’s a short week, but there’s a lot to do before we get there. And I have a training on Thursday that will be most of the day. I signed up for it months ago and I’m looking forward to it, though, so it will be great. The training is on how to practice good self-care and avoid burnout, which is something I very much need for my job and life.

May 2, 2025

Genethliakon

CWs: food, work, us politics (oblique trump/musk mention)

τὸ γενεθλιακόν (sc. θέμα) (to genethliakon thema), “birth-chart, nativity”

It’s my birthday week. I don’t really celebrate a “birthday week” per se, but just giving that as a temporal marker. Except my birthday is a boring weekday this year, so we are celebrating tomorrow with friends, and then we are doing something fun next week as well. It’s been an incredibly busy week; I was on phones for two days, for example. However, phones were thankfully calmer than usual; steady, but not overwhelming. Most people were pretty nice.

April 25, 2025

Late Spring

We’re slouching towards summer now, it’s approaching too quickly for my taste. I’m tired after a long week (“they’re all long weeks” yep). It was lovely and gloomy today and cold, a nice Oregon-style day. We don’t get many of those here, as it’s sunny most of the year, even in the depths of winter with snow and ice. Supposed to be sunny and warmer this weekend, which is fine.

April 18, 2025

Air Pocket

CWs: weird dreams (animal death, gore), food, mental health

I find nights and weekends to be “air pockets,” shelters from the storms of everyday life. I remember pretty vividly the first time I learned of the concept of an “air pocket.” In the early levels of the NES game Tiny Toon Adventures, there were some watery parts of the levels, and some sections were “air pockets” where you could find items or hide briefly from enemies in the water below. I’ve said this a lot, and it will continue to be a perennial phrase I drag out: “it was a long week.” My colleague in grad school said “you say that every week.” But it’s true. Every week is a long week. The weirdness of the world at large, and a stressful and intellectually and emotionally demanding job, coalesce into weird, long weeks. And it’s OK. It is all worth it. I love it, despite the stress and weirdness. But at the same time, then I safeguard and consecrate my free time away from at least the work side of things.

April 11, 2025

Almost April's Ides

CWs: physical health, work, food, alcohol

Today is 11 April 2025, or, as the Romans would say, a.d. III idus Apriles (i.e., “3 days before the Ides of April”). The Romans counted inclusively, so we’re including today in that count (Friday, Saturday, Sunday). I kinda enjoy the Julian dates, and had to teach myself them for translating 17th-century Latin letters, where they were often still using Julian, rather than Gregorian, dates. Hence you’ll often see “S.V.” (stylo vetere), “Old Style,” and “S.N.” (stylo nouo), “New Style,” for dates. IIRC, the dates are about 10 days off, so you’ll often see dates like 11/21 Oct. 1650, the first date being Julian and the second being Gregorian. Apparently there was quite a bit of variation, however.

April 4, 2025

Spring Song

CWs: mental health, oblique politics

Well, here we are, a couple of weeks into Spring proper (at least in the Northern hemisphere). Yesterday we had light snow and rain most of the day, and today there was a decent amount of light snow, but as is the case with most spring snow, a few hours later it’s like it never happened. I’m OK with that. I love the winter but I’ve had enough snow over the past few months, and I’d like it to stay cold for a little while longer before we get into the ardor of summer.

March 26, 2025

Prorsum Sursumque

CWs: impostor syndrome, work

I was thinking about the phrase “onward and upward” just now and wondered how that would work in Latin. Well, prorsum sursumque (“straight on and upward”) is probably the closest to that phrase. It’s a little trite but also perennially apt, the idea of moving on and leaving unpleasantry behind as well as one can. So it’s OK.

This has been a very long week, or at least has felt that way. I was on phones two days last week, then Monday, which is always emotionally exhausting, although most people were friendly, thankfully. And the past couple of days have been very busy as well, but I feel like I rocked Tuesday and today somehow, which is encouraging. I often have the worst bouts of impostor syndrome in my job, but days like yesterday and today make me feel good about myself and that I’m doing OK. And we’re halfway through the week, and the next couple of days will be pretty calm, as far as I know. And hopefully a calm weekend. My spouse has to work on Saturday, so I’ll be working on getting more Latin done for much of that day, but that’s OK. Maybe we’ll have a calm Sunday.