A lot has happened this past semester. A lot of good, and a lot of bad. My uncle passed away at the beginning of the semester, and I was devastated. I had seen him when I went home for Christmas, and I am glad I decided to go with my family for the visit because that was the last time I would ever see him. It was impossible for me to do anything from Las Vegas because he was in New Jersey, and I couldn't afford to fly back home again. He was one of my biggest allies for both my gender identity as a non-binary transgender person and for my sexuality as a pansexual person. He was one of the people who finally got my family to use "they" pronouns. I'm going to miss him terribly. It took a lot out of me, and I decided to throw myself as much into my work and coursework as possible to distract myself.
This semester was particularly challenging because Ancient Historiography was the most challenging course I have ever taken. I thought History of Latin Literature was difficult, but I found Ancient Historiography to be far worse for me. The subject matter was not the issue in particular, but it was the sheer amount of information that I was expected to take in for each week. The course load was overwhelming to me, and I felt like I did not retain a lot of it because there was just so much to read and absorb, both primary and secondary sources, that I felt buried under the assignments. Each week was over 100 pages of reading, and as much as I am interested in the content, the presentation of the content made it tough to get through without frustration. The most foreboding message should have been the fact that I obtained a lot of my historiography textbooks from a co-worker who gave them to me with the statement, "My historiography course was when I discovered that I didn't want to be a historian." Yay free books! was probably why I didn't heed her warning as much as I should have.
The course itself was enjoyable. The professor was helpful and made the material engaging during the lectures; it was the homework that really did me in with this course. We had a lot of different things to do, but I was just relieved when I did not have to do more than a final paper (we had four assignments total for it: an annotated bibliography, a presentation, a rough draft of our final, and the final paper) due for the course. I find it much more difficult when I have to worry about both a final paper and a final exam. I also find I'm much more likely to retain material we focused on in the class through a final paper because I'm working on it over a more extended period of time, whereas with an exam, I feel like my anxiety makes me forget everything as soon as the final exam has been completed.
The topic I had for my final paper was epic and historiography. This was a broad topic in general, but I thought I had found a way to narrow it down with fate and hubris of the players in both epic and historiography in relation to how they interpreted the oracles and prophecies given to them. However, this was still apparently too broad because I did not focus intently on only a few texts and ended up having a pretty frazzled paper that jumped between too many sources, according to the feedback of my professor. I had even taken a week off of work to be able to focus my energy on finals, and I was spending the majority of my time in both the college library by my house and the public libraries in other parts of town.
Roman Elegy was far more interesting to me, and although there was a lot to read, I was able to handle the assignments much more easily. The assignments were a lot of poems and secondary source readings, but the poems weren't too difficult to get through. The only real issue I had was reading the poems in translation and not knowing for sure what the meaning of the poem was; sometimes the translations are using language that is supposed to evoke the original Latin meaning, but it took a lot of analysis and finding extra complimentary readings to help me understand the material better. I could have also read the original Latin, but as I was taking the course in translation, I found it to be less time-consuming to find other analyses in addition to my assigned readings.
The final for Roman Elegy ended up being one of my favorite papers thus far: it was an analysis of the offerings to the goddess Venus in Roman elegiac poetry, for which I only found four specific sacrifice or offerings mentioned explicitly in all of the elegiac poetry (all of which I read through in case we did not go over the poem during class) and then compared it to how and what sacrifices and offerings the Romans gave to the goddess Venus according to their religion. As religion in the ancient world is one of my main research interest, I was excited to pursue this as I had not really come across any publications thus far with a similar subject, so most of my sources were material culture reports, books, textbooks, and only a few articles. It took me a long time to get it finished, but overall I was pleased with the final result of the paper, which is more than I can say about the Ancient Historiography paper, which I was just relieved to be finished and never have to think about again (at least, probably, until I either tried to rework the paper for publication, or when I begin my Ph.D. program).
The real challenge towards the end of the semester was trying to catch up on my Tuition Scholar work because I fell behind due to nonsense at work on top of trying to keep up with my assignments in general. I managed to do a gargantuan amount of work in a few weeks (one assignment left that I will be tackling tonight or tomorrow) because of the other obstacles. Once I had 99% of that completed, I felt extremely relieved.
The wait for my grades for this semester was not as long as it was in the Fall because my Ancient Historiography course ended on a Thursday and the grades were posted on the following Monday. I was anxious the entire time because again I did not know where I stood in the courses because there were no grades along the way, but I managed to end the semester with an A in Roman Elegy and an A- in Ancient Historiography (a higher grade than I expected, to be quite honest). So, I did not manage to preserve my 4.0 that I began my Classical Studies program with, but a 3.92 is not that bad to have!
My next course is Roman Drama, which I'm taking over the summer, after which I'll officially be halfway done my degree! I'm excited to see what that course will be like and I think it'll be a little easier for me to tackle as the only course for that semester. The most challenging semester will be Fall because I will be taking three classes and working full-time. I think I've gotten used to what I need to do with my courses and work life to make it balance and taking the vacation time for my research was a good idea. I think what I need to do when I have the courses in the Fall is I might have to take a little bit more vacation time than I'm used to taking, but because I don't really take vacation time off, I should be able to handle it. I just have to plan everything for it. I'm excited and anxious, as always, and am [im]patiently waiting for the course materials and textbooks to be listed so I can get started on the next part of my education adventure.
40% to M.A. in Classical Studies Complete
This semester was particularly challenging because Ancient Historiography was the most challenging course I have ever taken. I thought History of Latin Literature was difficult, but I found Ancient Historiography to be far worse for me. The subject matter was not the issue in particular, but it was the sheer amount of information that I was expected to take in for each week. The course load was overwhelming to me, and I felt like I did not retain a lot of it because there was just so much to read and absorb, both primary and secondary sources, that I felt buried under the assignments. Each week was over 100 pages of reading, and as much as I am interested in the content, the presentation of the content made it tough to get through without frustration. The most foreboding message should have been the fact that I obtained a lot of my historiography textbooks from a co-worker who gave them to me with the statement, "My historiography course was when I discovered that I didn't want to be a historian." Yay free books! was probably why I didn't heed her warning as much as I should have.
The course itself was enjoyable. The professor was helpful and made the material engaging during the lectures; it was the homework that really did me in with this course. We had a lot of different things to do, but I was just relieved when I did not have to do more than a final paper (we had four assignments total for it: an annotated bibliography, a presentation, a rough draft of our final, and the final paper) due for the course. I find it much more difficult when I have to worry about both a final paper and a final exam. I also find I'm much more likely to retain material we focused on in the class through a final paper because I'm working on it over a more extended period of time, whereas with an exam, I feel like my anxiety makes me forget everything as soon as the final exam has been completed.
The topic I had for my final paper was epic and historiography. This was a broad topic in general, but I thought I had found a way to narrow it down with fate and hubris of the players in both epic and historiography in relation to how they interpreted the oracles and prophecies given to them. However, this was still apparently too broad because I did not focus intently on only a few texts and ended up having a pretty frazzled paper that jumped between too many sources, according to the feedback of my professor. I had even taken a week off of work to be able to focus my energy on finals, and I was spending the majority of my time in both the college library by my house and the public libraries in other parts of town.
Roman Elegy was far more interesting to me, and although there was a lot to read, I was able to handle the assignments much more easily. The assignments were a lot of poems and secondary source readings, but the poems weren't too difficult to get through. The only real issue I had was reading the poems in translation and not knowing for sure what the meaning of the poem was; sometimes the translations are using language that is supposed to evoke the original Latin meaning, but it took a lot of analysis and finding extra complimentary readings to help me understand the material better. I could have also read the original Latin, but as I was taking the course in translation, I found it to be less time-consuming to find other analyses in addition to my assigned readings.
The final for Roman Elegy ended up being one of my favorite papers thus far: it was an analysis of the offerings to the goddess Venus in Roman elegiac poetry, for which I only found four specific sacrifice or offerings mentioned explicitly in all of the elegiac poetry (all of which I read through in case we did not go over the poem during class) and then compared it to how and what sacrifices and offerings the Romans gave to the goddess Venus according to their religion. As religion in the ancient world is one of my main research interest, I was excited to pursue this as I had not really come across any publications thus far with a similar subject, so most of my sources were material culture reports, books, textbooks, and only a few articles. It took me a long time to get it finished, but overall I was pleased with the final result of the paper, which is more than I can say about the Ancient Historiography paper, which I was just relieved to be finished and never have to think about again (at least, probably, until I either tried to rework the paper for publication, or when I begin my Ph.D. program).
The real challenge towards the end of the semester was trying to catch up on my Tuition Scholar work because I fell behind due to nonsense at work on top of trying to keep up with my assignments in general. I managed to do a gargantuan amount of work in a few weeks (one assignment left that I will be tackling tonight or tomorrow) because of the other obstacles. Once I had 99% of that completed, I felt extremely relieved.
The wait for my grades for this semester was not as long as it was in the Fall because my Ancient Historiography course ended on a Thursday and the grades were posted on the following Monday. I was anxious the entire time because again I did not know where I stood in the courses because there were no grades along the way, but I managed to end the semester with an A in Roman Elegy and an A- in Ancient Historiography (a higher grade than I expected, to be quite honest). So, I did not manage to preserve my 4.0 that I began my Classical Studies program with, but a 3.92 is not that bad to have!
My next course is Roman Drama, which I'm taking over the summer, after which I'll officially be halfway done my degree! I'm excited to see what that course will be like and I think it'll be a little easier for me to tackle as the only course for that semester. The most challenging semester will be Fall because I will be taking three classes and working full-time. I think I've gotten used to what I need to do with my courses and work life to make it balance and taking the vacation time for my research was a good idea. I think what I need to do when I have the courses in the Fall is I might have to take a little bit more vacation time than I'm used to taking, but because I don't really take vacation time off, I should be able to handle it. I just have to plan everything for it. I'm excited and anxious, as always, and am [im]patiently waiting for the course materials and textbooks to be listed so I can get started on the next part of my education adventure.
40% to M.A. in Classical Studies Complete
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