Mondays

At the end of Mondays, I want to die.

I promise that this will be an optimism update, btw.

But Mondays are rough. I have 3 classes, which means nearly six hours of class in the same 8 hours. They are all in French, so by the end of these 8 hours I can no longer think in any language, never mind process complex information. I usually can't string enough thoughts together to talk.

My first class on Mondays is Latin. Now, that's bad enough; but I study Latin in French. Which means for every on-the-spot translation (which is mostly all we do), I have to think either Latin-English-French or French-English-Latin. Tedious, of course, but also problematic because all three languages have slightly different sentence structures, especially for compound/complex phrases. So, I can't go right along word for word and translate direct English/French, because then I hit a "wh-" clause or "that" clause, and then I'm screwed because that's something you have to foresee before you even open your mouth, because it might have to be placed in an entirely different place in the sentence. Like the beginning, for instance. And my Latin prof just says (very nicely, I might add), "Start by identifying the verb". Which is all well and good, when you can tell which one is a verb. And then you can figure out the subject. And then its modifiers. And then the object(s), and its modifiers. Then put it all in the right order in another language. Then re-order it and translate to another language. Do this all in front of people you don't know, at 8:30 in the morning. Then cry.

To top it all off, today another one of my profs "suggested" we (the certificate minions) go to a history lecture this evening that the Institut was putting on. Which meant of course we had to go because all the profs would be there. What I was able to catch of the talk seemed very interesting, but my brain was so fried that I was only getting about 65% of it. I hadn't eaten dinner, either. So I came home, burned my dinner, tried panickingly to set up a study schedule and Latin noun and verb charts (for which I had to call my little sister, btw), and generally was having a crappy evening.

But then a bunch of girls from the floor came in, chatted with me, and we all sat down and ate dinner together and told funny stories (in English). And I relaxed. And then the night was good.

I'm glad I live in this res.