Ramadan is over, the new moon's shown her face
I'm halfway round the planet in a most unlikely place
-- Jimmy Buffett, 'Far Side of the World'

The semester has come to an end, and none too soon. I'm rather tired, and there's not much I can do about it at this point if my grades suck. As the papers got turned in, I felt just a little lighter; when Sexton's paper was away, I weighed about six pounds. The hard part was finishing all the stuff for Dave (which is now at http://comp.uark.edu/~jcl08/rof/); that took a lot of work, and I'm not at all happy with the result. Some of the pages are boring, or simply shite. Decent shite maybe, but tiresome all the same.

I made an Epityrum and served it up like the Umbrians do, with lots of oil and sphagetti. It was salty, and more than I think the Romans would have liked; I need to find some decent olives that aren't already pre-spiced in the brine. Still, it was good, and a decent excuse to expand my spices to the Roman side (coriander, cumin, fennel -- if anybody has any rue, I'd love them forever if they were to give me some). I need a little spice shelf now.

Now that the summer is officially here, I have a list of things to do next week while I'm off. Cleaning up is one; I'd like to move some furniture around, but I'm not sure where yet. I need to bracket out my paper for SEMA, and begin reading for it; I target late June or early July for the actual writing to begin, and I'd like to have a list of things to look for whilst I'm at Cambridge. Of course, there's also Latin, Greek, and German to study; I don't want to do too much with French yet, since the class is ultra-basic, and I don't want to get stuck in the 'oh-this-I've-had-this-before-blah' mode which results in nasty things like B's. There's tapes to be cut, and 'big' laundry to the laundro-hut; I've agreed to make bread for Genet, since she made that nasty face at me (I love that nasty face; all her faces are so cute... but don't tell her I said that).

Girls meet boys and boys tease girls
I'm headed out this morning for the far side of the world

Well, enough of this loathing-self whining. It's coming up on finals week now, and I've gotten a draught of the paper to Sexton, and am awaiting her comments. Dave's sent me a few comments on the site as well; I intend to finish those today *after* I write an essay for him on Corbeil's 'Why Do Roman Politicians...?' article; I'd also like to get started on the philosophy paper.

But there's better news ahead: Sturgis came in this week, and, once it was deposited for sure, I purchased a ticket to London for 23 July to 21 August. Man oh man, that's gonna be great. My passport's come in, and I'm thinking of using just a little Sturgis money to get some passport photos and then the International Student ID, which will, so I'm told, be *really* worth it. I also bought the book Quinn and I will use this summer; it's called 'Old English Grammar and Reader', and will be really fun. Along with that I picked up 'A Taste of Ancient Rome', which should be fun. I think I'm done buying things for now (grin).

The relationship with haec ille Clodia has, I hope, come to its natural end; I hope to still be friends with her, but this silly physical relationship has GOT to stop, because neither of our hearts is in it. I mean, she's good people, and we work together really well, but there's just not the right kind of harmonie. Still, somewhere out there, She is drawing closer; I can feel it.

Bah. Enough silliness! To work! I'll see you all in a week. Stay at peace, world.