Academics with a twist

Well, yesterday I had my first Latin tutorial with Maarit (not counting the preliminary tutorial which I discussed in my last post). We met in the Old Lodge at Hertford College, in sight of the Bodleian Library. The tutorial system is more different from the American system than I first realized. On some levels it was similar to the Latin classes I've taken in the states in that the first order of business was to work through the text, going sentence by sentence, with an eye both to grammar and meaning. The major difference I see is that we got incredibly off topic - which to my mind is a good thing. That's not to say that we all of a sudden found ourselves discussing football scores; everything we discussed had to do with Classics. But the tutorial meandered from directly discussing Sallust, to pederasty, to Caesar and to Cicero. Perhaps the fact that she's my tutor for the Homer course as well lent the conversation greater breadth, but whatever the reason was, I liked it! It made the tutorial both more conversational and more informative. I think I've always learned best when I can talk one-on-one with my Professor (that would be the reason why some of you may have noticed that I can be almost obnoxiously vocal in class), and so for the reason, this style of learning is, I feel, particularly well-suited to me. There is an extent to which Maarit and I disagree - for example, she seems to feel that the relationship of Patroclus and Achilles is almost certainly pederastic, while I feel that while it most likely is, it could very easily be read otherwise - but in general, I think we're on the same page in terms of most topics. Which is good - it suggests that my interpretation of the material is most likely reasonable. I was also delighted to have her tell me at the end that I was very good at my translation, although she thought there was room for improvement. A good foundation to begin upon.

Afterwards I decided to do a little investigating; I'd heard from various people that the Sackler Library at Oxford was devoted to Classics and wanted to see for myself. Having first looked it up on a map, I found it nestled in a little side street by the Ashmolean Museum (I'm going to have to write a post on the Ashmolean later - it's well worth it). With its great iron doors and its Doric columns, this particular Classics library was easy to identify. I went in and immediately encountered my first problem: my Bodleian Library card wouldn't get me through the turnstile into the main lobby. I consulted the doorman and he kindly took my card and registered it in the computer system. Then I went back to the turnstile and with a swipe of my card it let me through. I then found myself in rotunda lined with all the ancient authors, from Cicero to Xenophon. Not only that, but the central area was packed with commentaries. As I was soon to discover, however, the Sackler, like so many other libraries in Oxford, is not a lending library - at least not to study abroad students. So any articles or books I make use of will have to remain within the confines of the building. Nevertheless, I'm really excited to have such a great resource at my disposal.