ginlindzey

BOY HOWDY... I've been looking for a long time for the spiral I wrote notes in at the Latin workshop on Cicero that I went to at the end of last summer. Couldn't figure out where it went. Couldn't even remember what it looked like.

Today I'm stepping over paper my son tore out of a spiral.  Ok, I confess this is the same paper I stepped over last night and noted then that he must have swiped my blue and purple pens.  I'm getting too blind so couldn't see all the way down to my feet to see IT WAS MY OWN WRITING.  Today I decided to pick up the paper.  It's all out of order, but I've found a few weird things I wrote down:

LITTERAE RETRO

Ok, so someone had said (NL?) that you should be able to recite the alphabet in Latin backwards and forwards.  Interesting.  So I apparently made up this rhythm which I scribbled down.  Capital letters are long vowels

zeta ypsilon
ix U tE,
es er cU,
pE O en em el;
kA I hA;
gE ef E;
dE cE bE et A.

what a nutcase.

Now someone tell me why I wrote this down:  agamus igitur pinguI (long i) MinervA, ut aiunt.  FAT???  Fat Minerva??? 

I have a note about making a button that says nihil dIcO amplius: causa dicta est.  OK.  and another that says immO vErO.

And to my amusement I wrote down what I had for meals every day in Latin.

Ah.... septains?

         noun
        adj adj
    verb verb verb
summary sentence
    verb verb verb
        adj adj
         noun.

Yet the first thing I have after this is a cinquain:

         Jonathan
     hilaris, callidus
ludit, pugnat, gaudet
ingeniosus, obstinatus
           Tobin.

(my kids)

                 Holly
         pulchra, lepida
      spectat, servat, silet
Feles familiam meam curant.
     agitat, captat, postulat
          alacer, venusta
                 Boots

(our cats)

In the margins, though, I have haiku.  Was I reading Catullus?  Which one?  I'm just not that good with Catullus yet....

    quamvis puella
nunc euntem revocet,
       viam vorabit.

BUT what I've really been after all these months (when I've thought about looking for the spiral) is this, which is Cicero:

                                                          studia
                                         humanissima, liberalissima
        adulescentiam acuunt, senectutem oblectant, secundas res orant
nam ceterae neque temporam sunt neque aetatem omnium neque locorum
              solacium praebent, delectant domi, non impediunt foris
                                     venustissimae, eruditissimae
                                                          litterae

Wow.  And that's what I've been doing this week. Reading.  Feeling like my old self. Writing too (as you can see here).  School has just been so all consuming this year....will that ever change??

And there's a note with it that I should typeset this with the original going around it in a square.

OPTIME.  Well, if I post it here I shouldn't lose it.

Grand.  I thought these were gone forever. 

Well, if I don't face homework and grading soon, I'll hate myself Sunday night. I haven't posted lesson plans for far too long, and someone will surely notice soon.  ha.