5 posts tagged “cicero”
Today, just about the coolest thing happened to me: an old friend contacted me to say that she'd been following my blog for ages.
You've gotta realize that I grew up with a certain group of kids. We went to elementary school together, then middle school, then high school; this was because only a few schools in the district had real Gifted & Talented programs, and so especially in elementary school there were only a couple of options available for our parents.
Leaving aside the question of "are Gifted and Talented programs really the best way to educate extremely intelligent children" (I would say no, but they may be the best of bad options), I had a pretty idyllic experience in school. Sure, I didn't like middle school -- who did? -- and I never really realized how much everyone in our elementary school class actually got along, and I definitely could have made more of high school if I wasn't so focused on the Gay-Straight Alliance (and Harry Potter fanfiction, but that's a different matter). But overall? I wasn't bullied; I wasn't a bully; I had great teachers and great classmates.
The thing is, I pretty much left school (at mid-year, no less) and was out. Gone. Like a rocket. I didn't want to have anything to do with high school or anything in it, including a lot of my old friends. I pretty much even didn't keep in contact with Steph, who'd been my best friend since we were four years old. And now I'm kind of regretting it. My senior yearbook barely has any signatures in it -- sure, the ones it does have are really meaningful, but nonetheless. People talk about parties in Sacramento over breaks, but I don't go to any of them, and I certainly don't blame people for not inviting me; it's not like I've ever reached out.
And that all's a long-winded way of saying: It totally made my day when Deni messaged me, and I hope we keep in touch, and I'm being somewhat passive-aggressive but in a good way by posting this in my blog, but I think everyone will forgive me, won't you?
...on another note...
I've kind of stopped talking about my qual here. I should keep this somewhat up to date, anyway! So here's the thesis statement as it currently stands: In the first and second Catilinarian orations, Cicero uses language of illness and poisoning to describe both Catiline's followers and their effect on the state, thus casting himself as the healer who will cure Rome. What's really cool about this focus on illness is that the most important other source we have on the second conspiracy of Catiline also uses images of illness, probably at least somewhat lifted from Cicero's speech, but he focuses on how Catiline's group represents a cancer which has metastasized -- that the Roman Republic cannot be saved. It highlights the two different attitudes in Rome at the time perfectly: Cicero the Republican, Sallust the Julian.
Anyhow, I ought to work on my qual, not write blog posts about it. In our next installment: my new computer, and my Halloween costume, and why my digital camera is a piece of crap!
Edited to add: This day just keeps getting better! Kati discovered that one of my favorite places in Portland is actually where the Decemberists did their publicity photo shoot for Picaresque. So cool! It's this park on a hill which is basically a miniature open-air fortress, called Rocky Butte. There are pictures of me there on my flickr. OK, this is definitely geeky, but it's very exciting if you're... uh... me, Kati, or Stacia!
does any photographer that i know want to take photos of me in my halloween costume some sunny day?
i'm really proud of it, and it's pretty much done, and i want to be able to put it online with project notes. i think i might be (gasp!) getting into costuming. i just am afeared that this is going to turn into cosplay, which is a little geekier than i think i'm prepared for.
waugha! but... if i grow out my hair, i'll be able to do so many cool things!
What is your earliest memory?
Submitted by Megan.
i remember being about three or four years old. we still lived in lincoln, ne. i was bothering my father to play with me (i was an only child) but he was balancing the checkbook. he said, "in five minutes." so i went to the other room and loudly counted "ONE -- TWO -- THREE -- FOUR -- FIVE," because (a) i thought maybe i could fool him and (b) i didn't really know how to figure out what five minutes was.
----
in other news, i really think this historical fiction novel i was talking about is going somewhere. maybe somewhere big, somewhere worth going. i haven't figured out quite yet what its heart is, you know, what its point is, but i've got a damn good story. and it's even pretty closely within the bounds of history; i love it when characters just disappear from our knowledge of history and you can therefore do what you please with them, as long as it doesn't involve starting world wars or anything!
i'm slightly leery of reading sylvia's play, now, though, because it kind of is talking about the same exact time period that i'm writing about. when i've got my first draft down, maybe i'll read it, just to see what she did with it.
also, i'm channeling a bit of prospero in parts ("now i'll drown my book --") and i'm not sure how i feel about that. that is, i'm not sure whether my main character really would behave like i have her down as. guess we'll have to see.
as for myself, in my qual, i'm addressing this thesis: in the catilinarian orations, cicero constructs the body as a microcosm of the state through his sexual invective. this principle carries through to the "pro caelio," in which he attacks publius clodius pulcher through his sister clodia by using their relationship as a metaphor for clodius' negative effect on roman politics. the famous "slip" cicero made in that speech regarding clodia and clodius' relationship -- "her husband, oops! i mean her brother, i always make that mistake" -- is the central issue here.
in any case, i'm addressing a point both of cicero's philosophy and his rhetoric, and these things can only be properly understood within the context of his time and position (he walked the line between the optimates and the populares, ultimately trying to find the best way to preserve the dying republic).
the more i read about the late republic the more frightened i become. our nation is in that same period, the period of decline just as it appears to have reached the height of its power. i hope we produce a cicero, so that at least in future, we have someone's correspondence and their life to follow. unfortunately, in this digital age, i doubt that much will be left for people two thousand years from now to understand the details of our political machinations.
1) it makes me excruciatingly happy that stephanie (my best friend from, uh, the age of four on up) got back in contact with me! we completely lost contact over college but hoorah, it seems like we still have a ton in common, and were basically being nerfherders about the whole thing. anyway, when i woke up this morning and saw her email, i just about jumped out of my skin in a good way!
2) i have gotten addicted to crossword puzzles. allie had this problem because the l.a. times has a daily crossword that is relatively easy and awesome. what really got me is when i learned a new word ("ort") for the first time in about two years. now i've got two crosswords that are half-finished at my library desk and two at my desk at home and the l.a. times one every day and it's really bad. i need to go buy me a "1001 new york times crosswords" book or something, so i can stop photocopying allie's.
3) i'm qualling on cicero! cicero, cicero, cicero. i'm so excited and mom and dad must be sick of hearing me babble. but i'm thinking the his orations against catiline. i mean, come on:
We must war with luxury, with madness, with wickedness. For this war, O citizens, I offer myself as the general. I take on myself the enmity of profligate men. What can be cured, I will cure, by whatever means it may be possible. What must be cut away, I will not suffer to spread, to the ruin of the republic.
he is so very, very, very, very much an asshole! and he goes on (and on, and on) like that, but with all these fantastic anecdotes about people vomiting and having sex (and sometimes both, in drunken orgies) and then he extends it to the entirety of rome. oh, i'm in love with his bizarre morality of the body.
