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tarigwaemirAd Mundo Exteriore,
My professors are an endless source of amusement or inspiration depending on the moment and their oft-changing moods.
Yesterday, for example, in Rome of Augustus, Professor Tarrant enacted Cicero's exposure of Catiline's conspiracy before the Roman Senate. The TFs were the Senate, and the head TF for the course had the misfortune to be Catiline. She was seated in the center and did a marvelous job of looking guilty. ^_^ Professor Tarrant recited, no, declaimed the speech in Latin, in what he interpreted as classic "Ciceronian" (is that a word?) style, full of gesturing and dramatic intonations. "O tempora, o mores!" That was so very fnxoopy. And then he tried to explain to us the artistry of Cicero's speech, which almost built up a metrical rhythm, like poetry, and yet was entirely spoken spontaneously. (Well, I'm sure Cicero planned out what he was going to say, but it still sounds like an achievement to me. I don't exactly know Latin, but I do have a sense of its grammatical complexity, and it can't be easy to organize such a convoluted syntax into poetical rhythms solely in your head. I mean, Latin poets took years to do it.) I suppose I would appreciate it even more if I did know Latin, but I was suitably impressed nevertheless.
On a complete tangent, I think I'm going to do my final paper on Roman rhetoric. No, honestly, rhetorical education under Augustus verged on the bizarre and fantastical. Take for example, the controversia, which were vaguely like legal cases that you had to argue from both perspectives. But! The controversia would tend to run along the lines of this example:
A man killed his brother, who was a tyrant and an adulterer, despite his father's pleas to spare the brother's life. Then he was captured by pirates, who sent a ransom note back to the father. The father said that he would pay the pirates double the ransom demanded if they would cut off his son's hands. The pirates let the son go, who upon returning home, refused to support his aging father. Is he legally obligated to support his father in this case? (Remember, Romans were notoriously obsessed with filial devotion, and for them, law was not so much codified as based on their rather uptight sense of morals.)
Oh, and another priceless example:
If a woman is raped, she can either demand that the rapist marry her (and thus restore her honor) or that he be killed. A man raped two women in the same night. One woman demanded that he marry her, and the other demanded that he be killed. What should be the punishment? (Crude, I know. Rhetoric students were a bunch of teenage boys, and apparently these kinds of scenarios, with lots of sex and violence, appealed to them. Immaturity, particularly in adolescent males, seems to be a constant of human nature.)
By the way, I invite you all to argue any of these cases from any perspective. The cleverest and most witty speech will win a prize, though I don't know what, just yet. Possibly an LJ icon to glorify the achievement? C'mon, I know you're just itching to make those glib sarcastic remarks that HPTF students are famed for. (Seriously, when we were discussing sententiae, I thought immediately of the Hallway and its peculiar brand of humor.)
Oh, and other funny incidents from my classes...well, today in biology, I think Professor Gelbart uttered a total malapropism. He said, "all in one swell foop", instead of "all in one fell swoop". I find this particularly funny, because there's a Piers Anthony book by that title, and although I have a certain grudging half-respect for Piers Anthony, I mostly think of him in terms of his predilection for writing thinly disguised erotica. (Ugh, what was that one book that I picked up by mistake and found sex scene after sex scene after sex scene?) I'll just die laughing if Professor Gelbart has actually read that book. Especially since he has an odd sense of humor when it comes to sex. There was a picture of two frogs mating in one of the transparencies today, and he put bars over the frogs' eyes, in order to "protect their identity" I guess. I suppose it was meant to be some sort of internal joke on censorship. He did it before too, when he had a diagram of the human endocrine system up, with the gonads clearly labeled of course. He blacked out the eyes, but the reproductive organs still remained visible. Rather odd man, Professor Gelbart, but funny in a bewildered way all the same.
And finally, my math instructor, whom I keep associating with Ichabod Crane. I've told this story to several people before, but I think I'll just share it again. A few weeks ago, he was flinging his arm up to write at the top of the board and his arm apparently popped out of the shoulder socket, leaving it stuck in this incredibly awkward position where it was wrenched on top of his head. He cursed mildly, while we were all staring in shock and wondering if we should call 911. After failing to pop his arm back into the socket, he calmly asked the CA to come up and take over the rest of the lesson while he went for some medical help. So he stood there, for at least five minutes, with one arm stuck up over his head, going over the lesson plan in minute detail with the CA. We were, to say the least, totally flabbergasted. And then suddenly, the shoulder slipped back into the socket, he gave out a sigh of relief and then told us, with a perfectly normal expression on his face, "Ah, you have no idea how much better that feels. [pause] All right then, I can go on with the lesson after all." O_O And he finished the lesson.
The next time we saw him, he told us that he wouldn't be able to use the upper third of the chalkboard, and he was distinctly more careful about flinging his arms in his usual fashion.
You have to admit, he must be either insane or awfully devoted to his profession to be able to do that. (Probably both.) I mean, that was probably pretty painful, but he was explaining the lesson plan to our poor CA as if nothing could possibly be absurd about the situation. All this with the arm stuck up in the air over his head. Anyway, I've always respected my math instructor, but that was positively heroic. ^_^ Even if I laughed hysterically about it afterwards.
I can't hate school even when I really want to. I'm really upset by the fact that I have two lab writeups, a HGDRP module and a quiz next Tuesday, followed by my third biology midterm the day after on Wednesday. But priceless moments like these make me feel it's all worthwhile after all. ^_^
It snowed yesterday (just a sprinkling on the ground) and it's absolutely freezing today. And I have to leave my nice overheated dorm room to go to section in about three minutes. ::sighs:: Must bundle myself up like a penguin again. ^_^
...Tari
My professors are an endless source of amusement or inspiration depending on the moment and their oft-changing moods.
Yesterday, for example, in Rome of Augustus, Professor Tarrant enacted Cicero's exposure of Catiline's conspiracy before the Roman Senate. The TFs were the Senate, and the head TF for the course had the misfortune to be Catiline. She was seated in the center and did a marvelous job of looking guilty. ^_^ Professor Tarrant recited, no, declaimed the speech in Latin, in what he interpreted as classic "Ciceronian" (is that a word?) style, full of gesturing and dramatic intonations. "O tempora, o mores!" That was so very fnxoopy. And then he tried to explain to us the artistry of Cicero's speech, which almost built up a metrical rhythm, like poetry, and yet was entirely spoken spontaneously. (Well, I'm sure Cicero planned out what he was going to say, but it still sounds like an achievement to me. I don't exactly know Latin, but I do have a sense of its grammatical complexity, and it can't be easy to organize such a convoluted syntax into poetical rhythms solely in your head. I mean, Latin poets took years to do it.) I suppose I would appreciate it even more if I did know Latin, but I was suitably impressed nevertheless.
On a complete tangent, I think I'm going to do my final paper on Roman rhetoric. No, honestly, rhetorical education under Augustus verged on the bizarre and fantastical. Take for example, the controversia, which were vaguely like legal cases that you had to argue from both perspectives. But! The controversia would tend to run along the lines of this example:
A man killed his brother, who was a tyrant and an adulterer, despite his father's pleas to spare the brother's life. Then he was captured by pirates, who sent a ransom note back to the father. The father said that he would pay the pirates double the ransom demanded if they would cut off his son's hands. The pirates let the son go, who upon returning home, refused to support his aging father. Is he legally obligated to support his father in this case? (Remember, Romans were notoriously obsessed with filial devotion, and for them, law was not so much codified as based on their rather uptight sense of morals.)
Oh, and another priceless example:
If a woman is raped, she can either demand that the rapist marry her (and thus restore her honor) or that he be killed. A man raped two women in the same night. One woman demanded that he marry her, and the other demanded that he be killed. What should be the punishment? (Crude, I know. Rhetoric students were a bunch of teenage boys, and apparently these kinds of scenarios, with lots of sex and violence, appealed to them. Immaturity, particularly in adolescent males, seems to be a constant of human nature.)
By the way, I invite you all to argue any of these cases from any perspective. The cleverest and most witty speech will win a prize, though I don't know what, just yet. Possibly an LJ icon to glorify the achievement? C'mon, I know you're just itching to make those glib sarcastic remarks that HPTF students are famed for. (Seriously, when we were discussing sententiae, I thought immediately of the Hallway and its peculiar brand of humor.)
Oh, and other funny incidents from my classes...well, today in biology, I think Professor Gelbart uttered a total malapropism. He said, "all in one swell foop", instead of "all in one fell swoop". I find this particularly funny, because there's a Piers Anthony book by that title, and although I have a certain grudging half-respect for Piers Anthony, I mostly think of him in terms of his predilection for writing thinly disguised erotica. (Ugh, what was that one book that I picked up by mistake and found sex scene after sex scene after sex scene?) I'll just die laughing if Professor Gelbart has actually read that book. Especially since he has an odd sense of humor when it comes to sex. There was a picture of two frogs mating in one of the transparencies today, and he put bars over the frogs' eyes, in order to "protect their identity" I guess. I suppose it was meant to be some sort of internal joke on censorship. He did it before too, when he had a diagram of the human endocrine system up, with the gonads clearly labeled of course. He blacked out the eyes, but the reproductive organs still remained visible. Rather odd man, Professor Gelbart, but funny in a bewildered way all the same.
And finally, my math instructor, whom I keep associating with Ichabod Crane. I've told this story to several people before, but I think I'll just share it again. A few weeks ago, he was flinging his arm up to write at the top of the board and his arm apparently popped out of the shoulder socket, leaving it stuck in this incredibly awkward position where it was wrenched on top of his head. He cursed mildly, while we were all staring in shock and wondering if we should call 911. After failing to pop his arm back into the socket, he calmly asked the CA to come up and take over the rest of the lesson while he went for some medical help. So he stood there, for at least five minutes, with one arm stuck up over his head, going over the lesson plan in minute detail with the CA. We were, to say the least, totally flabbergasted. And then suddenly, the shoulder slipped back into the socket, he gave out a sigh of relief and then told us, with a perfectly normal expression on his face, "Ah, you have no idea how much better that feels. [pause] All right then, I can go on with the lesson after all." O_O And he finished the lesson.
The next time we saw him, he told us that he wouldn't be able to use the upper third of the chalkboard, and he was distinctly more careful about flinging his arms in his usual fashion.
You have to admit, he must be either insane or awfully devoted to his profession to be able to do that. (Probably both.) I mean, that was probably pretty painful, but he was explaining the lesson plan to our poor CA as if nothing could possibly be absurd about the situation. All this with the arm stuck up in the air over his head. Anyway, I've always respected my math instructor, but that was positively heroic. ^_^ Even if I laughed hysterically about it afterwards.
I can't hate school even when I really want to. I'm really upset by the fact that I have two lab writeups, a HGDRP module and a quiz next Tuesday, followed by my third biology midterm the day after on Wednesday. But priceless moments like these make me feel it's all worthwhile after all. ^_^
It snowed yesterday (just a sprinkling on the ground) and it's absolutely freezing today. And I have to leave my nice overheated dorm room to go to section in about three minutes. ::sighs:: Must bundle myself up like a penguin again. ^_^
...Tari
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-03 03:01 pm (UTC)Historical Fiction?
Date: 2003-12-03 04:32 pm (UTC)Re: Historical Fiction?
Date: 2003-12-03 06:25 pm (UTC)...Tari
(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-03 04:39 pm (UTC)Did you even bring it with you? ::sniff::
O.o
(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-03 06:24 pm (UTC)...Tari