Fortunate Son

I find myself these days to be utterly content without a relationship. This is a new phase in my life, one that I could not have understood if it were explained to me beforehand. I had often wondered why married men encouraged me to remain a bachelor for as long as I could, but now I wonder no more. I think Crowded House probably said it best, "There is freedom within; there is freedom without." I don't know if they were referring to the situation that I am describing, but the words nevertheless ring true. Within a relationship, one is freed from the hassle of finding a relationship; moreover, if the relationship is healthy, one has a kind of emotional freedom to relax, and let your partner keep you anchored. On the flip side, an anchor can become a ball-and-chain. Outside of a relationship, one has unlimited freedom of motion and potential, but the lack of an anchor that is provided by a soul-mate means that one could potentially drift far, both in a physical sense and a metaphorical one. If I might continue with the nautical metaphors, compare a relationship to a boat anchored in a harbor, and bachelorhood as a boat adrift on the sea. There is no particular advantage to one or the other, the decision depends upon the individual. The tendency has always been for people to pair off, but why should one feel excluded if he or she does not, especially when it is clear that the majority of relationships are unhealthy or forced? From what I have experienced, perhaps 2 of 3 relationships (among my peers) are built of matchwood and convenience, ever in danger of collapse if some disintegrating influence presents itself. No, the truly fortunate are not those who are necessaily in relationships, but who know what a good relationship should look like. In my experience, this means that the relationship generally strengthens you in all areas, and provides no significant hindrance. Unfortunately, it's hard to know a healthy relationship if you've never been in one. This is presumably why people are not advised to marry their first sweetheart. But hey, sometimes it works. Myself, I know what I'm looking for. I'm often asked what I find attractive in a woman. I may as well answer it here, because it requires unpacking and is not suited for short conversation. First off, to say what I find physically attractive is almost irrelevant, because it's misleading. A lot of women are physically attractive, but a great many of them could be outmaneuvered by some type of festive door ornament. That's not to say I don't like attractive women; it's the first level of attraction. So what do I look for? That's vague. I like red hair and pale skin, but those may as well be bonus points, because they're not that big a factor. What I like is essentially the girl-next-door look; feminine form and nice features. Through comparative analysis (and reality), I've also discovered that I tend toards the thinner end of the spectrum, possibly beyond what other men would consider attractive. Other than that, I'm not a fan of the petite or those who are taller than myself, though this is generally not a problem with a 6'2" guy. There, some vague markers for physical attraction. Now we move into the more important 'strength of character' section. Number one is always, loyalty/stability/staying power. I want the genuine article, meaning a real relationship, with the accepted possibility of the long-term. Women I judge to be questionable in their loyalties, especially those in relationships, are generally held in low regard and are worthy of suspicion. Number two: intelligence. Higher than average, let's say on a similar level to myself. I might be intimidated by a woman far beyond me in intelligence. Similar interests are also desirable. Number three: Maturity. I'd like a woman who's in a similar place to me in life. And finally: self-assuredness. If there's nothing worse than loyalty issues on my attraction scale, confidence issues are a close second. I don't want to prop up some cowering wreck of a woman, if I dish it out, I want her to throw it right back. To do so is to gain my respect. To bring all of this back to the original topic, I'm content to be single because the woman I have described is a rarity. She is the key to the ideal, and to settle for less would be to knowingly do so. To get to the very heart of the matter, I'd rather be alone, enjoying my Freedom Without, than coupled with the wrong person, denied my Freedom Within. Go listen to that song now.

Penance

So I've decided to atone for my sins by staying up late into the night to work on Greek. Why I'm undergoing penance is something I'll discuss some other time. I have 7 passages to do, although it's not likely I'll get them all done tonight. Five would be great, and it would put me way ahead of the game in Greek studying (the exam is almost a week away). If I'm serious about this, I should get some coffee. We'll see.

On Moths and The Flame

You can spend all your time makin' money;
You can spend all your love makin' time.
If it all fell to pieces tomorrow
Would you still be mine?

And when you're lookin' for your freedom
[Nobody seems to care]
And you can't find the door
[Can't find it anywhere]
When there's nothing to believe in
Still you're comin' back
[You're comin' back]
You're runnin' back for more...

So put me on a highway
And show me a sign,
And take it to the limit
One more time...

Truer word were never spoken, I think.

Internet, the Third

The internet is officially back up, thanks to a newer and sexier router. It seems that the older one only died some type of half-death, because it still half-works. We still have it, but in the age of digital information, a half-working router is like a half-working gas mask. It's just better to have a new one. And so it is. I attented a guest lecture this evening on 'The Romans and Ritual Murder." I enjoyed it as far as a student more interested in ancient Greece could, I suppose. Afterwards, there was a wine and cheese reception that was far too classy for the Humanities lounge in which it was held. I ducked out at about 10pm, having been on campus a good twelve hours. I'm not complaining though; I got a good deal of work done. The walk home was less than freezing, and the new router awaited me on my triumphant return. Good times. I suppose I'll now make an effort to finish my reading of Thucydides and the Sicilian Expedition. If I finish that, I can work on my paper proposal tomorrow. I have the feeling there's going to be some drastic changes between proposal and final paper, especially given the absence of most good sources from the library (for the moment). I'm actually feeling kind of limited by the topic, as I can't really make my paper too original without exponentially increasing the difficulty. I suppose I'll just try to write the kind of unoriginal second-year paper that they're expecting. Whee.

Internet II

The internet currently works via router. I don't know why. I suspect that it may be temporary, possibly because only two computers are on right now. It's also possible that my fixes actually worked. But unlikely. I'll keep you posted.

Internet

The system is down, man. For what seems to be no particular reason, out wireless router has decided to take control of the number of computers that can access the internet at a given time. Currently, that number is zero. I can connect by running the modem directly into my computer, but I'll have to share the connection with the rest of the house when they need it. Hopefully I'll get the problem sorted out soon, so we can return to the days of Plentiful Internet. Needless to say, my virtual correspondence will be minimal until then.

Barfly

Yes, I'm some sort of pub-going insect. What really tipped me off was the other-than-Thursday-night drinking that seems to happen a lot. No matter. I knows what I likes. I had intended to do (some) work tonight, but the committee that makes up my social self voted against it. I can't really say it was unexpected; the day was rather epic in its length. Yes, that adjective was not necessary. Anyways, I know the prospect of poring over a French etymological dictionary may sounds like buckets and buckets of illicit fun, but I assure you it can wait. It's actually going pretty well, considering my French is like Friedrich Engels. Largely forgotten. I actually got my CGS stuff done, which was far more important. I'll hand it in tomorrow, and then relax for approximately 48.3 seconds, after which I'll start work on something else. I'm going to shower now. I hear showering frequently is actually something that is specifically North American. I guess that means that a lot of the world is pretty dirty. Gross.

Update

I haven't posted in awhile, so I should probably try to keep my audience captive. Today was one of those rare days where I was done my homework before 7pm, so I had some spare time. I went to the library and started my Franco-Grecian work on the letter Rho, and then went to the gym with my brother. I was pretty burnt out by the end, experiencing the kind of muscular fatigue I get when I haven't eaten in a good while, so I came home to get some food. I had a bowl of some type of vegetable soup and some cereal, all to no avail. I think I've conclusively proven that my body is fuelled almost exclusively by meat, because three hamburgers later I'm in good shape again. Likewise, one of those Aramark pre-wrapped wraps full of tuna can keep me going for a good long time, while one of egg salad cannot. Maybe I now require more protein to accomodate increased musculature. I blame the gym. Word.

Articulate English, Plodding German, Piecemeal French

I used to wonder how university professors could know so many languages, but now I'm beginnig to understand. I have tentatively agreed to take on a project for one of my professors, reading through a Greek etymological dictionary and marking out words of foreign extraction. I had initially declined, because the text is in French. He actually showed us the text today, however, and I think that the simplicity and grammatical consistency of the book will allow me to suffer through it. Now, I have the standard nine years of French that is required in Ontario, but so does everone else. I always did pretty well, but I never really cared for it. Today I found out that it was, in fact, useful. I can apparently read French much better than I thought, possibly from years of reading cereal boxes, possibly from growing up in a bilingual country. At any rate, I'm using the opportunity to improve my French. I won't actually start the project in earnest until I'm a bit more comfortable, and if I find out that I'm still struggling, I'll tell my professor. He knows my French is weak, so it shouldn't be a problem. Right now, I plan to do an hour or two of French per night. I have lots of language-learning aids, so I'm good to go. My workload will also decrease in about a week (mind you, I usually say that, and it never seems to happen), so hopefully I'll have more time to devote to this.

Hymn to the Dioskouroi

This is one of the Homeric hymns, addressed to the Dioskouroi, literally 'the sons of Zeus.' I'm posting it here because the sons in question are Kastor and Polydeukes (Latin: Castor and Pollux), the twins that make up my astrological sign, Gemini. Enjoy.

-------------------

Quick-glancing Muses, sing the sons of Zeus,
the Tyndaridai, glorious children of fair-ankled Leda,
Kastor, the tamer of horses, and blameless Polydeukes.
Beneath the peak of great Mt. Taygetos
she mingled in love with the dark-clouded son of Kronos
and bore these children, saviors of men upon the earth,
and of swift ships, when wintry storm blasts
rage over the pitiless sea. And the men on the ships
call on the sons of great Zeus offering prayers
with white lambs, as they mount the topmost points
of the stern. The great wind and waves of the sea
force the ship under water, but suddenly they appear,
darting through the air on steady-beating wings,
and at once they check the blasts of harsh winds,
and smooth the waves on the white-capped sea.
For sailors they are fair signs of their toil, and seeing them
they rejoice and stop their painful toil.

Fairwell, Tyndaridai, riders of swift horses.
And I will remember you and another song.

Classes

It occurs to me that a person reading this blog might mistake me for a classicist, that is, a scholar of Greco-Roman studies. While this is true in one sense, it is important to note that Classics is not my major field of study; it is rather my minor. My major area of concentration is history, with a focus specifically on Europe from 1871-1945. That being said, the layout of my classes means that I have exclusively classics classes on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, and a mix of both classics and history on Wednesday. So, 60% (i.e. 3 of 5) of my classes are for Greco-Roman studies, 75% of my school week is exclusively Greco-Roman classes, and 100% of my school week involves classics in some way. Hence all the discussion of ancient Greece, my area of focus (within classics). So, I have two major areas of knowledge: Ancient Greece, and Europe in the late 19th and early 20th century. In terms of my preferred style of history, I like the traditional political/military events to be fleshed out with reference to social history; the history of the people. This way, one gets a fuller historical picture without abandoning traditional historiography to the black hole that is postmodernism (I call practitioners po-mos, and I am generally wary of them). To be fair, postmodernism had led to some interesting approaches to history, but I mistrust it for two reasons:

1) There is an inherent contradiction in a following that states that true history is essentially unknowable, but, at the same time, produces enormous ammounts of literature to seemingly achieve that very end, and

2) Postmodernism has no logical endpoint. With enough followers, it could take historiography so far from tradition that we'd be learning about the history of footnotes (there is actually already work on this), and the notion of equality among different types of fungii. Although I agree that traditional political/military history doesn't go far enough, I still think it's a hell of a lot more relevant to our lives than footnotes and fungus.

Yes, there is a lot more to the discipline of history than most people understand. Battles and dates are not the bread and butter of history, and even they have declined in importance in a way that few non-historians are even aware of. No, ever since Herodotos (the first historian from whom we have written accounts) in the 5th century BC, the purpose of history has not been memorization, but enquiry. Historians do not simply look at past events, they ask the questions 'how?' and 'why?' Even the term 'history' comes from the Greek ἱστορία (historia), meaning an enquiry. The good news is that, as long as the discipline is deemed worthy of teaching, it can produce new works forever. Even a single event, such as the French Revolution, is still being written about, as different interpretations emerge, despite the thousands of books that already exist.

I think I've gone on for long enough. More some other time.

I almost got bitten by the TA bug today. It seems that one of the TAs for Greco-Roman Myth has disappeared, and a new one is needed. Unfortunately for me, I'm currently taking that class, so I cannot also TA it. It seems that I otherwise could have been a paid employee of the university. In retrospect, I don't really have a lot of spare time these days, with six classes, a wife, a mistress, and seventeen children. That's right, seventeen. That's too big a number for me to have randomly made up just now. At any rate I expect to get a similar position either this summer or next school year. Apparently it's not that difficult.

Classics Society

I may have gone out for a few (many) drinks with the Classics Society tonight. I may be drunk (right-drunk) right now. I assure you it was most awesome. I'd suggest that you come out, but I know you won't. It's OK. It's the kind of invitation I'd only offer if I knew you wouldn't actually come out, anyway. I'm just that kind of person. Crafty. Like Odysseus (see: Odyssepus).

Poetry

Under the spreading chestnut tree
I sold you and you sold me:
There lie they, and here lie we
Under the spreading chestnut tree.

This is one of few poems that I could recite off the top of my head. It's in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. I don't know if he wrote it, and I don't care. I find it speaks to the unfortunate condition that is human nature. After my interpretation, it becomes:

We each cheat the other
for personal gain,
but death shall all find us,
one and the same.

Damn, I could be a poet. Anyways, I like the poem because it's honest. There is a dark side to humanity, and we shouldn't try to pretend that there isn't. Another poem I like for that reason is embedded in the 'Canticle' portion of Simon & Garfunkle's 'Scarborough Fair:'

War bellows
Blazing in scarlet battalions
Generals order their soldiers to kill
And to fight for a cause
they've long ago forgotten.

Yeah, that's good. War, death and swindling are all part of human nature. You should probably just accept it. Be realistic, etc. This is why I look down on idealists, communists, and radical feminists. They tend to view these things as something external to our nature that can be made disappear; they assume that we can rid ourselves of these things, and yet remain human. I think not. It's unfortunate, but it's realistic. Human history is not a story about a bunch of people who get along. Now I suggest that you all get very depressed thinking about this. Myself, I'll be right here, going through your stuff.

Hot Times

From now on, I don't think I'll be drinking on Tuesday mornings. I mean, it's awesome, but it makes me useless for approximately four hours. I talked with Steve (former Greek drinking buddy, now ex-Greek drinking buddy), and we'll try to catch the Classics Society pub night on Thursdays instead. I missed the lunch today, but my sources tell me that no one showed up. It should be noted that my sources are not reliable, nor even corporeal. I pretty much made up some facts to suit me. At any rate, no one was in the lounge when I got back at 1pm, and the limited attendance at 11:20am suggests that people decided to give it a miss today. Unless they secretly partied without me. Also possible.

Back

It seems that I haven't posted in some time. My OGS has been dealt with for almost a week now; I solved my problems with it very shortly after my last post. I've been keeping busy with school and Thanksgiving, but it seems that my assignments this year will be relatively light. This is odd, seeing as I'm in the final year of my undergrad with a course overload, but I'm not complaining. It will likely be the case that my next semester is far heavier. That being said, I'm still occupied with constant low-stress work most of the time, and I have become used to doing homework for at least five hours a day. As a result of this, my weeks have become oddly routine, which is something I don't quite like. At any rate, I have joined the Classics Society, and I plan to attend their weekly lunches and pub nights, so as to get out more. This is useful, as it seems that domestic initiative for fun is all but dead. Not that it was ever lively to begin with. In a typical divergence that has nothing to do with my line of thought thus far, it occurs to me that I haven't told anyone about this blog yet. I figure I'll rack up a bunch of posts and then present it as a fait accompli. Now I'm getting a beer. Cheers.

OGS

The entire process for OGS (Ontario Graduate Scholarships) is somewhat exhausting. Yesterday was long and stressful anyways, and I learned late last night that the OGS web page actually provides you with the wrong forms (i.e. the ones from last year), if you download them from their main page without following the entire process for filling out your application online. Normally I'd just go print out the new ones, except that I have already submitted two of these older forms to my professors to fill out as academic references. I suspect that the dates are important, as the government tends to be anal about such things. I sent an e-mail to both of my referees explaining the situation, and asking for advice. Needless to say, last night did not end well. This morning I have fared better. One replied that he'd fill the new application out online for me, solving that problem. The other e-mailed me and told me to bring him the new forms, just to be safe. I can drop them off in his office or mailbox today, which makes things easy. Those problems are thus solved, but I'm annoyed at the alteration of my gameplan, and I curse the provincial government for it. No matter. This weekend I will have to work on completing my application package, including my statement of interest, and have everything submitted by next Thursday. Then I can look forward to the whole process again for CGS. On to Victory!

This is, in fact, a blog

I have considered creating a blog for some time, but only now am I getting around to it. I have long viewed these things as forums for unimportant people, the purpose of which is to make them feel like someone is listening to their largely unimportant thoughts. I still feel this way, in fact, but I have acknowledged that although I may be unimportant, I find the keeping of some type of journal to be incredibly useful. Not only does it provide me with a forum for my own unimportant thoughts, but it does the job of expelling them from my head, in a manner that can be accessed again at a later time. As a student of history, I find this incredibly satisfying. That, and I managed to snare a wicked-awesome domain name. For those of you who aren't familiar with either ancient Greece or the language, and that's nearly 100% of you, the name 'Agogi' comes from ἡ ἀγωγή, meaning 'a taking away,' which was later used to refer to the initiation that Lacedaimonian boys underwent at the age of seven, in order to enter into the Spartiate warrior elite. Anyone who has seen '300' will have had some introduction to this. Anyways, I started the blog tonight specifically because I came up with this name, and I really wanted to snag it. So, you can thank the Spartans for this blog. This unimportant blog. Anyways, I'm bored now, so I'll post some more thoughts at some other time. Good day.