Saturday, December 23, 2006
Rebekah and I left Lubbock (stopping for breakfast at McDonald's- two sausage burritos for me, a McMuffin for her) between six-thirty and seven. We arrived at Brady shortly before eleven, where we consumed sandwiches at a Subway we've patronized before. My meatballs fell out. Rebekah ate a club sub, a less messy option. About eighty miles outside of Houston we stopped again for gas, urination, and McDonald's chocolate shakes.
The drive went well. We talked through most of the time before lunch, listening to various CDs until our arrival in Katy. Rebekah helped carry my stuff into casa Koury before departing.
I brought a gigantic duffel bag full of clothes (I shall remain in Katy two weeks), my backpack and a luggage bag full of presents for the Kourys and my siblings, my purse, and a heavy suitcase full of "work": a couple of notebooks, a pocket Latin dictionary, several library books, and a couple of leisure books I intend to read through (Nietzsche- Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and Ovid's Ars Amatoria in translation). April brought up the idea of going to the library, which I agreed to eagerly, for I cannot concentrate at her house with all its distractions.
First I need to continue Tibullus' elegies for a day or two, copying some (or perhaps all, if I have time) of them for closer examination and practice in Latin translation. Then I should probably read through a few general books about Goethe I checked out from the library before I left town. Before Thanksgiving, I had begun reading Winckelmann, but finals and a research project required immediate attention; thusly, I must finish his essays auf Deutsch and then look them up online auf Englisch. The German edition I found is a book published from Germany, written by a German author with an extremely helpful accompanying commentary (the twenty-to-forty-percent of it I understand). All this research would be much facilitated if I actually spoke and read German fluently, but I am conducting this independent study project in part to build up to that level.
I also brought along some bibliography references from books I have read recently. I'll type those up and e-mail them to myself for later reference. But I can probably find most of the articles online now and print them off at a library here.
I love learning, when not being tested over it.
[Lauree Frances Keith concluded this diatribe at 4:54 PM]