Can anyone tell me why I decided, ever so smartly, to undertake Latin again?

Scenario # 1: Embarrassment

"And the next person [me], can you tell me what the verb is?"

"Um. Um. Pendentem?"

"No, that's a participle. La la la. It's adiuvistis."

"Oh."

"Can you give me the number and order?"

"Um. Um. Well, it's obviously singular. And, um..."

"No, it's actually plural. La la la, genitives tis, la la la."

"Oh."

"Can you translate it for me?"

"No, I can't."

A+ for effort, don't you think? I should have gone with my first instinct, which was that it meant 'to help' [which it did]. Oh well. It's no wonder the language died; it's utterly incomprehensible. The rules only apply half the time, the verb is at the end of the sentence and you don't translate the first part of the sentence first, you use the verb and then find the object and then find the participle and then find the subject and then find the subject modifier and by the time you're done translating a sentence you're 80 years old and eating mushy peas.

Which brings me to two points: one, Latin royally screwed my writing for two years. I'd end up putting clauses and clauses into my sentences, putting the verb in the middle, and then continuing on. I got great grades in my English 12 class because, I think, my teacher thought my writing was so complex it was over her head. In fact, it was just wrong and confusing. Anyway, my American lit professor last year called me out on it, so it doesn't even work with everyone.

And two: Latin teachers are crazy. You have to be to dedicate your time not only to a dead language, but to one that doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

Example: Ms. Eaglin, my sixth and seventh grade Latin teacher. She had deranged white hair and this lopsided smile. She promised to teach us "Latin swear words" when we got to eighth grade [she left the year before, so we never got to learn them] and had this shirt with a map of the Mediterranean on it.

"You can remember where Rome and Greece are because Rome is on the left nipple and Greece is on the right."

She'd stand on her desk and tell us stories about her childhood. I think one day she was changing on the desk, the type of changing where you slip on your clothes under your clothes -- and she fell. This was in another class. Anyway, they had to use the speaker things to call someone to help. Because she was changing on a desk. Ms. Eaglin was the most wonderful teacher in the world.

Then there was Ms. Perry-Hill, who I think was a bit more sane than Ms. Eaglin. But that's not saying much. All I remember from her class is watching The Princess Bride because it's an epic, and fighting with light-sabers with my classmates. So let's move on to high school.

Ms. Eller was fantastic. She was off the wall and completely tangential. If we hadn't done our homework we would get her talking about her kid or her ex-husband, with whom she was in this massive custody battle. He was dating some 20-year-old or something named Kitty, or Barbie, or something like that. She would get so emotional, but she was really very sweet and we offered to egg her ex's house. We learned Catullus and Ovid and Virgil, who I loathed and still do.

Catullus is wonderful. If you ever get a chance to read his poems, please do. He was a nutter.

A few favorites

2

3

8

9

11

This one, in which someone stole his napkin

This one, in which Romans are very explicit

This one, in which Catullus is extremely lustful

All the Romans were bisexual

This one, in which the English use English phrases in Latin poems

In other news, Existentialism is creeping me out. My very Russian professor -- who pronounces her v's like w's and is masculine and scary, but nice -- told us existentialists believe in the freedom to define themselves. We have unlimited freedom to act, wish and think as we want. Wizard. We've been taught, since childhood, that we can't do this, or that, and we must do this. While they also realize there are consequences for our actions, what she said freaked me out. Obviously, I know we have freedom. But literally -- we're free. There is nothing stopping us from doing anything; we are not bound, we are not forced. Yes yes, morality, yes, religion, yes, money. It's not so much what we can do that scares me; it's that we can do it. Maybe I was just very closed-minded until now, but I am genuinely... afraid.

Additionally, she posed this question: what is the purpose of living when we're only working toward death?

In some respects, I prefer simplicity and ignorance. I can't handle this.