mighty_aphrodite

On my freshman-level myth quiz this week, I asked my students,

"Of the 12 Olympian Gods, there are three virgin goddesses. Name TWO:"

I'm not even kidding, four (FOUR!!!) students out of my 55 answered "Aphrodite"

*facepalm*

It's beginning to warm up 'round here... it actually got above freezing today. Heat wave! Woot! I hear it's going to get above 50 don south back in Burlington. Lucky bastiges.

Not much else new besides that. My dad's tests last week were inconclusive. I did nothing over the weekend. I have groceries in the house.

I have 20 really bad papers to grade, which puts me in a grumpy mood. Undergrads seriously don't know how to write a friggin' paper. Sigh.

Current Mood: meh.

Back to class again today. Yawn. Professor Nappa managed to talk for 75 minutes about all the scholarly difficulties of studying Catullus. I thought I was going to have to prop my eyelids open with my Mirado Black Warrior pencils. Tomorrow I get 50 minutes of Greek religious texts. Hopefully Professor Sellew is not so inflamed with love for the subject matter and I'll get out of there early.

I start TAing Myth again on Thursday. I'm not saying it won't be nice to get back to work and have something to do, but honestly? The novelty of TAing has long ago worn off. Being the Myth bitch is a totally thankless task, after all. Not like teaching my own Latin class. Totally over it. Oh well. The most I'll ever have to do of it is three semesters.

In other news, my puppy is fabulously cuddly and I am tired.

Well, things have gotten very slightly better. The DGS has granted me a $500 advance on my summer stipend to pay my insurance bill off (mostly), I have extensions on my Greek paper and exam, and I've resolved the issue with my plagiarizing student to both our satisfactions. Things are looking slightly up.

For your amusement...

Things you can't do in mythology:

1. If you are a beautiful princess, do not go flower-picking. You will be kidnapped, probably by a god. No, it isn't as cool as it sounds. (Persephone, Europa, etc.)
2. If you have an unwanted infant, do not leave it on the hillside to die. Shepherds will rescue it and it will come back to destroy the kingdom when it grows up. (Paris, Oedipus)
3. Don't ever claim to be better than any god at anything whatsoever. This generally turns out badly. (Arachne, etc)
4. That said, the gods do not appreciate mama jokes either. (Niobe)
5. Don't attempt to avoid fulfilling a prophecy. Seriously, just let it go. (Oedipus)
6. Kin murder is bad. Don't do it. (Orestes, Clytemnestra, Agamemnon)
7. And especially don't try to feed your slain kinsman to the gods. They have been known to get rather nasty about it. (Tantalus)
8. Don't be rude to strangers. Be a good host. Bad hosts have been known to bring about the destruction of mankind. Or at the very least a small village. (Lycaon, Baucis and Philemon's village)
9. Don't renege on a promise to a god/demigod. Hercules has an especially nasty streak. (Poseidon, Hercules)
10. And never hit on a goddess or somehow manage to inadvertently see her naked. (Actaeon, Orion)

Current Mood: awake

Busy busy busy. Now, anyway. Over the weekend I did abso-fucking-lutely nothing and it was fabulous!!!! I watched 20 episodes of Grey's Anatomy on DVD and played with an adorable puppy at PetLand. That was as active as I got. I vegetated. And it was good.
And today? Today is different. I have Plato for tomorrow (and a quiz) and I actually need to do the reading I assigned to my students. Okay, okay. I know. I DID read it... three years ago. /me ducks objects being chucked at me. I'm a bad TA. My students are not enthused by me. Oh well, F's for everyone. /me grins evilly. I need to make their next quiz, too. And do the reading for the class I am auditing because we are discussing it tomorrow morning.

T-minus three days, six hours, and four minutes til the season premeire of Grey's Anatomy.

Current Music: Coldplay-- "Yellow"

Good:
My first discussion section went off okay, but felt really weird
Propertius doesn't look that bad
I made and gave away two dozen scones today. I am a shameless self promoter

Bad:
Plato is kicking my ass (again)
Some jerk bumped into me at the union, causing me to wear the lunch I had intended to eat. Cheese all over my new shirt. And my grad book. Not happy.

Yawn. Tomorrow I embark on my first day as a graduate student. Wednesday I teach my first class. I plan to give them a power point presentation as an overview... including a warning of material that may be considered obscene. I'm going to tell them where garden gnomes come from Teehee. They will never look at them the same way again.

Also tomorrow... I am taking a pregnancy test. My boobs are all weird and my digestive system has decided it doesn't work for me anymore. It's either a fetus or a tapeworm. Meh. They both suck the life out of you from within. But at least babies are cute and cuddly. Babies are wonderfulness! Ah... the funny things that childless people say.

Yes, I am actually back in Iowa for the weekend, sponging off of the family and getting free groceries. On tuesday, I embark on my grad school career, and on Wednesday... I actually get to teach. It's actually pretty cool. I only have one discussion section, but I have pretty much free rein to do whatever I want during my seventy-five minutes a week. I get to assign seperate readings of my choice and make my own quizzes, assignments, and syllabus with my own grading and attendance policy.

I am taking a heavier course load than usual for a new student right now, at the advice of my advisor-- basically, if I take extra now, I'll have more free time at the end to work on my dissertation while I'm still funded. They are also trying to streamline the program and get students through a little faster. I have one greek course (Plato) , one latin course (Propertius), an archaeology course (required for the degree) and two one-hour non-graded discussion groups. One is a new grad student seminar to help guide us on our academic and professional careers, and the second is a Latin sight-reading group (material to be decided, but it will be from the PhD reading list).

They have finally finalized my TA appointment. Instead of two sections, I am doing only one and getting a fellowship to make up for the salary and benefits I would otherwise have received. Yay for free money. Boo for only getting to torture 27 undergrads instead of 54. Oh well. I probably would have been overwhelmed or something if I had had two. And I still get all those free books for TAing. This is especially cool becasue I once had all the books for the course (the booklist is almost identical to Nani's) and had to sell them for spare cash. Now I have only to decide what courses to take myself before I meet with Prof. Sellew on Tuesday. My options are somewhat limited.

Woot woot! I actually get to teach this semester! They are giving me two discussion sections of Greek and Roman Myth. Which is pretty damn sweet. I looked at the book list, and it's basically the same as Nani's... but I can't for the life of me figure out why we are doing The Epic of Gilgamesh. Don't get me wrong, I like o' Gilgamesh. He has quite a way with the ladies... but he is neither Greek nor Roman.

Apparently, they consider me promising or something... I looked through all the instructors names for all the other undergrad courses and didn't recognize any names as being those of the other three newbies I visited with... and one of them already has her MA from UCSB. (Though maybe she isn't TAing at all because she's on research grant). /me hopes they never realize I'm not as smart as they think I am.

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September 2009

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