Hah! Lab essay and Greek essay are out of the way, just leaving my don rag this Tuesday and my math essay due just before Christmas break. I realize I neglected to mention what a don rag is in my last post. Since St. John's doesn't emphasize grades (you have to ask to see your grades) don rags are how we get an idea of how we're doing, what we should keep doing, and what we need to work on. The format is once a semester until our senior year we meet all of our tutors, excepting music, and they talk about us in the third person. For instance, "Miss SoandSo is doing well in participation regarding her math class perhaps too well..." etc. After they finish talking you are able to respond to their comments, ranging anywhere from "That's wildly unfair!" or "Yes, I had noticed that I needed to study my Greek paradigms more, I will do so in the future."It's a bit intimidating but most people find it extremely helpful. We don't do it in our senior year unless we request it as the assumption is is that by that time you should be able to assess your own work fairly. I'm not anxious about my don rag but I'm hoping I'll get some useful criticism out of it. There are definitely areas I need to work in but overall I feel I'm doing pretty well, although that assessment might change afterwards.
Regarding academics we've just moved out of biology in Lab and now we're on physics. I'm not sure if I like this change but it's difficult for me to not like Lab. In math I feel like I understand ratios for the first time but I'm still not looking forward to that essay. For Greek I read a work by Nietzsche for the first time even though he's definitely not an ancient Greek. But he wrote an amazing book at the age of 25 titled The Birth of Tragedy. I don't like nihilism but the book is not about nihilism, it examines how Greek tragedy came to be and what it means to man. It's a bit of a downer for college students. "See what he did at 25? Will you be able to write something so astounding in seven years? I thought not." I've read a great deal of Plato lately for seminar even though it's nowhere near the collected works. Meno, Gorgias, Apology, Crito, are fairly short dialogues but The Republic is twelve books (or chapters) long and it has metaphors within metaphors making it easy to get confused. I still have six Platonic works to go before the end of the year and a good portion of Aristotle that we'll continue next year. But it's nicely broken up with the plays including the Oedipus cycle and more history. It's terribly interesting most of the time, a little boring at others, and a lot of hard work. But it's a blast.
The day after my don rag I will be coming home for Thanksgiving with a couple of friends as well! I'm very excited as this is the first big Thanksgiving my family has had in several years. The guest list is coming out to ten people, maybe twelve instead of four or five. My mother has been giving me regular updates of all the work she and my father are doing to clean the house, the yard, and get cars ready. They've been working very hard for over two weeks now and I'm quite proud of them and how our house is going to look. It's rather ridiculous how much I miss my mother's cooking and I'll get to taste some of her best work in just a few days. And I have the pleasure of distributing presents too for even though I'm trying to be miserly with my own wants I find it very difficult to resist buying things for other people.
Nothing earth shattering to report in my own social life other than settling into a comfortable pattern with some of the nicest people I've had the privilege to know. There is the Christmas celebration we're planning even though we won't be spending Christmas time together. One friend suggested that we have a gift exchange on December 6th which is St. Nicholas Day. St. Nicholas Day is when the French used to have their own feasts and gift exchanges since Christmas was a religious holiday. I already have a person who I'm supposed to get something for but I have no idea what to get him/her. Hopefully a thought will occur. I have been introduced to Pablo Neruda recently so I'm having fun getting acquainted with his poems and maybe other Latin American poets later. I'm starting to know Santa Fe and the area around it better but I'm looking forward to further exploration.
I can't wait to see all of you at home, some over Thanksgiving, others over Christmas but it'll be wonderful to see you! If only I could bring home all of my friends from college to meet all of you and then what a party we would have!
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