Summer Latin Institute - DAY 33

Day 33 was yesterday, July 26, 2012.

Not that it's all about me, but I had a FABULOUS day. I was on for second hour of morning drill, Sallust's Bellum Catilinae, section 20, which is the speech of Catiline. My students did a wonderful job and we even took about three minutes at the end to discuss Sallust's characterization of Catiline compared with that of Cicero in the First Oration Against Catiline.Three minutes of Latin Institute time is about 30 minutes of traditional class time, so it was quite an in-depth discussion!

Then in the afternoon I led prose survey reading, selections from Einhard's Life of Charlemagne, where we got a taste of early medieval Latin as well as of the bathing practices of the Frankish nobility. In fact, what with my Petronius passage about Seleucus and his reluctance to bathe daily, bathing seems to be emerging as a major theme of the CUNY Summer Latin Institute. Let's just hope our very busy students are finding time to attend to their own daily hygiene needs! From what I can determine, they have managed it well.

The rest of the day I prepped: for next week's reading of Book 4 of Vergil's Aeneid, for today's afternoon optional sight reading of a passage from Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy.

In the evening I answered questions from students, both in person here at the Grad Center, and on the phone once I got home, where I did manage to watch three episodes of the old Dark Shadows daytime soap opera while my husband Jason fed me a very nice dinner.

Does all of this sound too good to be true? Tell your friends. Tell your students. Just think—You could be doing this next summer!

More soon...

Note: The opinions expressed in this blog entry are those of the blogger, and do not represent the opinions of the CUNY Latin/Greek Institute, its students, faculty, or administration.