In-Between-itude

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So, I'm all officially graduated, though I'm a little annoyed that it's gonna take 4-6 months for my shiny new diploma to actually be made. I always wondered why my graduated friends seemed to wait for ages before they got theirs. It was always a "Oh, I happened to be in Davis, so I thought I'd pick up my diploma while I was here." Now I know.

The ceremony was long and full of speeches and flapdoodle. Our own Jeff Lee was valedictorian and gave a surprisingly good speech. As a friend of mine said "I think the whole 'My asian dad wanted me to be a doctor but I DIDN'T! SO THERE!' thing endeared him to a good number of the liberal arts majors" of which there were many. How like life, it felt like an eternity waiting for our major to be called up for handshakes, but once I got up there it was all over so fast. I barely had time to tell them how to pronounce my name, shake the hand of so-and-so the semi-hemi-demi vice-provost of the Arts, a quick "Thank you, Chancellor" and some happy hugs to Profs. Albu and Bulman. Then I was returning to my seat with a "UCD Alumni" pin and a pamphlet on "How to Keep in Touch," and another eternity as the other half of the College of L and S wound their way across the stage.

Being the staid fellow that I am, I found it funny that partway through the ceremony, my friend Andrea Jacquith leaned over and said with a chuckle, "James! Don't look so stoic!" I responded with good humor, but after the ceremony my friends and family were like "Wow! You looked so cool and dignified!" I suppose some merrymaking is expected, but I think I was pushed to my usual quietude by the strutting and posturing of a fair amount of the grads. To be sure, they (and I) had just devoted four years of our lives to higher learning, and damn if it didn't feel good to have something to show for it, but my natural aversion to making a show of things won out.

Because I'm such a nerd, I celebrated by buying a bunch of Loebs. For those of you that don't know, these are a collection of dual-language texts from antiquity that give you a side-by side comparison of the original Latin or Greek with an english translation, which is highly useful, even if the translations can sometimes be a little wonky. As you can see by browsing the cataloge, they have a WIDE range of texts to purchase. What interests me is the variations of authors: Sure, you might have heard of the famous Apollonius of Rhodes and his telling of Jason and the Argonauts, but have you heard of the Latin version by Valerius Flaccus? There's usually a reason one hasn't heard of these other tellings: they're usually of poorer quality or are simply re-treads of the original, but not without their own merits.

Even so, I was interested to see how Statius, a Latin poet of the Silver age (never at the head of classical curricula to my knowledge), fared in composing an epic poem recounting the struggle for Thebes by Oedipus' two children, Eteocles and Polynices. As to how good it is, opinion seems varied. Always a fan of more Latin, I snapped up the two volume Loeb edition of the Thebaid, along with a collection of Archaic Inscriptions and Xenophon's Anabasis. The last of these is the text that's used for Greek 100, had I stayed on at UCD and continued to take Greek.

I'm set to move out of Davis tomorrow, and I have the majority of my stuff already at home or near ready to haul out. Since Moose took over Sophia's room, I have the master bedroom all to myself, which I've been enjoying for the past few days. Luckily, there hasn't been a shortage of folk to hang out with: I went to a party with Toes last night and was happily surprised to see some fellow classics folk in attendance, with whom I riffed for a good while. I also finished up Rome, Season 1 with my good friend Cindy, and damn if that's not a great series. The finale was particularly gut-wrenching, and not just because Caesar goes down in a hail of knife-wounds. The rest would be telling, though, so go watch it yourself, you'll like it!

Anyway, I've blathered on long enough. Here, have some Mel Gibson in the final duel from Zeffirelli's Hamlet.



Enough, More Later.
- James