Confederate Wing

It’s been said that no one spends their entire waking life doing something productive, and certainly that’s true. But surely to do something productive at least once per waking hour, or even just once per day, is feasible.

In the summer, my productivity grinds to a halt. I lose all track of time, struggle to find a sense of purpose, and find myself being aware of all I’m squandering without really being bothered to do anything about it. During the academic expanse before summer, I tell myself I’m going to spend May through August getting on top of things. Yet once it’s over, I find myself reflecting on all the nothing I accomplished. My time feels worthless.

We’re a little past the midway point of July, and what have I done so far this summer? A crappy six week science course for a bloody useless distribution credit, and that’s about it. Sure, I read some Aristophanes, Aeschylus, and Petronius, but that’s not what I need to be doing. What I need to be doing is cracking down on a pair of dead languages, my proficiency in which will determine exactly just how viable my post undergraduate academic prospects are.

I was told that by autumn midterms (so essentially mid-late October), I’ll know for sure whether or not I’m cut out for graduate school in my program of study. That means I have three months to prepare for a (presumably) week long batch of exams that will effectively determine my future.

Somehow, I don’t think dividing the bulk of my time between work and Fallout: New Vegas/Team Fortress 2 is helping my chances. I’m starting to think I might not even deserve the opportunity.

Nevertheless, I’ve got two years of undergraduate study to go (it’s back up from 1.5 years because of the way the department offers its courses) , and 6.5 credits left to earn. Here, for no one’s benefit except my own, is my fourth year plan of action:

Fall:
GRK343 – Greek Prose Authors
GRK351 – Greek Comedy
LAT443 – Latin Prose Authors
LAT453 – Latin Verse Authors

Winter:
GRK341 – Greek Historians
LAT430 – Advance Latin Language Study
LAT441 – Latin Historians
LAT451 – Latin Drama

Highlights for me are Greek Comedy (because it’s awesome), Greek Historians (because I’m told it’s easy), and Latin Drama (because I enjoy the professor). I’m worried about Latin Prose Authors and Latin Verse Authors because I’ve had the professors before and feel that they were impressed neither by my performance nor by my diligence. And Greek Prose Authors deeply worries me because I made it abundantly clear that I did not like that particular professor because of her awful Women in Antiquity course two years ago. I really hope she doesn’t remember me.

As for my fifth year, that will be entirely comprised of Greek language courses (Philosophers, Orators, Epic, Tragedy, and Advanced Greek Language Study) in a schedule I cannot predict. All I know is that it will be two courses in the fall and two courses in the winter, with Advanced Greek Language Study somewhere along the line. After that, my undergraduate career will be finished and I’ll hopefully be on my way to graduate school.

The above breakdown is assuming I commit to the idea of graduate school in Classics, of course. However if that doesn’t go according to plan, I’ll probably switch from a Classics Specialist to a double major in Classical Civilizations and Latin, take my bachelor’s degree, and run. After all, they say that a bachelor’s in classical studies prepares you for the real world just as well as any other degree from the humanities, which is a fairly sad truth I’m inclined to believe.

It seems that no matter what happens – no matter what you’ve done in the past or what distance exists in the present – you just can’t keep a good bridge burned. I find the extent to which the past bears on the future rather worrying, personally. And considering certain recent events, it’s an especially immediate topic and rather pressing.

To be brief, I don’t think it’s an earth-shattering revelation to say that I pride myself on being emotionally detached and comparatively independent. I don’t like living in the past and I’m always keen to move on with my life. Everyone else, however… not so much, it seems.

I was buying dinner on Monday night when the guy who was, for all intents and purposes, my best friend in high school walked in as I was walking out. And although it’s been more than two years since I’ve last seen him, it was almost as if nothing had ever changed. We picked up where we left off, reminisced about what we used to do, and talked about what we’re doing now. When we went our separate ways, we did that whole send-me-a-text-and-we’ll-grab-a-pint dialogue, and that was it.

I thought this link to the past was fairly well broken. Not because I had broken it willingly, but because time had run its course and we fell out of contact, as had happened to pretty much everyone I used to know.

Don’t get me wrong, I still think this is a dead connection. I’m sure as hell not going to contact him (it’s nothing personal; I just don’t contact people unless I need to), and I know from experience that people never tend to follow through on plans written in air or running water. It’s just… odd. The way people will carry on with one another – as they’re accustomed to – after a chance encounter, no matter the space between them.

What’s in the past tends to be in the past for a reason, I find. I don’t like to go poking around my personal history and testing what’s there and what isn’t anymore. Think of it as a combination of “let sleeping dogs lie” and “out of sight, out of mind,” which keeps social interactions fairly straight at the expense of a particularly vibrant existence.

Last night, however, I told another friend that I was on Google+ and asked her if she’d like an invitation to the service. She said she would (who wouldn’t?), but I’m actually quite worried about giving it to her. I’m worried about mixing my Steam/The Escapist friends with my friends from the newspaper. I’m worried about if/when this brings me into contact with old friends from elementary/secondary school and elsewhere who can’t leave well enough alone. I’m worried about what havoc my vulgar and coarse work friends could wreak on the images and reputations I’ve cultivated elsewhere. I have tonnes of anxieties about social navigation, let alone social networking, that worry me endlessly.

I can’t possibly be the only one who thinks this way, can I? I’m still not sure whether or not these anxieties are legitimate and rational. At the same time, I can’t help but view this – social networking, that is – as an inevitable future. Part of me is beginning to see reluctance and obstinacy in logging on as a mark of immaturity, almost as if the ability to navigate such sanely and with a clear head is a sign of personal growth and development. On the other hand, I can’t control what happens. While I’m infinitely conscious of wedging myself into the life of someone else as an unwanted nuisance, in my experience hardly anyone else is as considerate.

A friend of mine is far more optimistic. He can’t wait till the day all boundaries between real life and digital identities are removed and such distinctions are no longer made. I wouldn’t say that such a future genuinely frightens me, but it does leave me uncomfortable.

Still, even though I’m not the social networking type, I’m going to give Google+ a fair shot. The way I see it, it’s the opportunity to jump into the world of social circles and sharing with a clean slate. After all, to rejoin Facebook after three years of principled resistance would be a sign of weakness. To be a part of Google+ from the very beginning? How much more in vogue can you be?

Against my better judgement and pretty much everything I stand for, I’ve joined a social network. No, not Facebook… Christ no… I’d rather give up the internet in its entirety than submit to that nauseating monstrosity.  But rather, the service in question is Google+. I’ve heard whispers about it since Monday, and I managed to snag an invite from a friend earlier tonight, so I’m giving it a shot. This is mostly so I can be one of those early adopters (the thing is only 10 days old) and bow out fairly innocuously and sanely once the floodgates open to the rest of the world.

I also must say that I somewhat enjoy being part of an exclusive social network that’s the current talk of the town without really wanting to be a part of it at all. It’s like being invited to the illustrious premier of Transformers 3 with absolutely no interest in the movie. Countless people would sacrifice so much for the opportunity, and yet I’m there wasting a seat with my head in my hands. In the same way, I’m tinkering around in Google+ hoping to god I don’t accidentally reconnect with some nuisance I used to go to school with.

If you’re familiar with the way Gmail first launched, then you know that Google likes to roll out their services with a limited run of invitations before actually letting it loose into the wild. And while Google+ did have a run of invitations, apparently that’s been disabled owing to the preposterous demand to get into it. At least for the time being. So while some Google+ users may still have invites kicking around and the ability to distribute them, I don’t yet have invitations to give away. However if ever I do get some invitations, feel free to ask me for one and I’ll probably give it to you. Aside from a handful of colleagues and the other handful of people that come across this site regularly, I’ll probably have more than enough to just give away with nary a care in the world.

Assuming they give you something like 10 – 25 invites, and even still that’s like 2 – 5 handfuls right there.

You know, what I’m about to say could be far more ideally conveyed using Twitter. Could it be that I’m finally beginning to understand micro-blogging?

At any rate, there’s a new issue out. The first “newsmagazine” of the summer, centred around “loss & gain,” which is roughly five weeks overdue. I could go into more detail about the lateness of it all with my own comments, but it’s nearly 3am and I’d like to go to bed. Perhaps another time. At any rate, you can view the PDF on my sidebar, as well as experience the issue in all its negligible web optimized glory on the newspaper website.

As for my recent contributions, let’s just say that you should visit the website for the new articles, but stay for the old issues. I’ve been spending a lot of time working on the archive, which is beginning to come along rather nicely. Most of 2009/2010 and 2010/2011 have been uploaded, with the missing pieces to be filled in later this weekend. 2003/2004, 2006/2007, and 2007/2008 are  also present.  So once I get 2008/2009 sorted out hopefully by the end of this weekend, the full last five years of the newspaper’s history will be available for all to see online in one place. An arbitrary milestone, to be sure, but something I consider to be impressive nevertheless.

Oh yes, I also did another 21 x 21 crossword. That’s on page 7 of this issue, along with that Purloined Stories article from last month, if you’re interested.

That about does it for now. My summer course ended today, with only the exam left to go. This means that come Tuesday afternoon, I’ll be resuming my planned summer of studying classics and working. Fun, fun, fun…

So what have I been up to lately? I mean I’ve let this place stagnate for around three weeks, so clearly something else has been occupying my time…

#1 – PHY100H1F: Yes, I’m taking a summer course… again. Mostly because I failed CSC104H1F (Computer Science) when I was screwed over on my deferred exam, and still need a damn science credit. Honest to god, if I don’t pass this course, I’ll probably be an undergrad forever. Christ I hate distribution requirements…

The course is called “The Magic in Physics,” by the way. So there’s no math whatsoever and barely any sciences. Just non-technical “stories” about electricity and magnetism, gravity, relativity, and quantum mechanics. I’m actually quite enjoying it because the professor is a joker (in the best possible sense) and my TA constantly reiterates that his goal with the tutorials is to “make the students think that physics is awesome.” Oodles of fun. I’ll be done by the end of June.

#2  - Work: I’m pulling around 32 hours  each week at No Frills, which is netting me some pretty decent scratch. My back is aching, though, so I’ve resolved to do even less work than I’m currently doing. I’m still not sure that’s possible.

#3 – The Newspaper: We’re currently embarking on an archive digitization process, which is an easy if incredibly time consuming project. Naturally as Web Editor/Manager, I’m shouldering most of the efforts. I’ve just finished Fall 2009 to present, which means there’s only 31 more years to go. Have a look in “the archives” section on the website to see how that’s going.

We’re also going to be putting out our first “newsmagazine” issue on Monday… hopefully. This was supposed to be out by the middle of last month, so when exactly this will be done is anyone’s guess.

#4 – Reading: I haven’t been keeping abreast of my academic studies over the summer, so I’m trying to squeeze in refreshers whenever I can. If I’m going to finish my undergrad in 4.5 years (It’s not 5 years anymore! It’s not 4 years either, but at least it’s less shameful and more useful), I’ll definitely need to get cracking on Ancient Greek. Finally learning French would also be nice. Sadly language refreshers haven’t been my focus. Instead, I’ve been reading a lot of drama. The Aristophanes plays again, and some Tragedy since I finally have a decent familiarity with Myth to make it intelligible. Languages will be my focus in July and August once I’ve finished my summer course.

And that’s about it really. Although I’ve also been cutting back on my typical leisure activity of “stay at home in my bedroom and play Team Fortress 2/Minecraft/whatever else” in favour of going out more often. This is mostly because I’ve decided that I don’t want to be like my brother who’s still doing such reclusive things to the detriment of everything else at 27. I’m in the prime of my life, I probably should be doing more with it. That’s the way I see it, at least.

Incidentally, I think the occasion on which I last went a whole 24 hours without an alcoholic drink has been well over a month ago. I wonder if there’s some connection…