Still around....

So, it's been a little while since I last posted, but I'm still around. I think I've got more homework this summer than I have ever had before.

I'm working on Latin, so I don't get too rusty before classes start in the fall. I'm going to be doing Latin online with one of my professors next semester, so I don't get behind while I'm in Rome. I've got to find textbooks this summer though, because I won't be able to get them once I'm in Europe. For now, I'm working on Ovid's Metamorphoses and Harrius Potter et Philosophi Lapis and trying to make myself parse things. I'm really quite bad at parsing, but I can translate just fine. Figure that one out.

I'm also working on a little Italian, so when I land in Rome in September, I will at least be able to read the street signs and tell when someone is making fun of me. Ever see the scene in Maid in Manhattan when those two French ladies are talking about JLo in the elevator, and Ralph Fiennes tells them off in French (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQkCo4ZoHQE) ? I would love to be able to do that! Anyway, I've studied French, a little Spanish, and now Latin (as well as Greek, but that really doesn't help as much as the other languages do), and I've done some work with Italian for the Digital Pompeii Project at school, which uses an Italian art encyclopedia series as a main source. When it comes to reading signs and stuff like that, I can usually puzzle things out, but it never hurts to practice. I have a phrasebook with grammar and pronunciation sections in it, and I'm going to work on finding something online so I can hear the Italian being spoken. I also have the first few chapters of a couple of my favorite books in Italian, so I'm slowly working my way through those.

"C'era una rampicante bizzarro."

Love it!!