Toga... toga...!

That's what my Classics professor was wearing to class today! (Hallowe'en, of course!) Well, a toga and a t-shirt. Just so happens we were up to the last century BC when Gaius Julius Caesar was making his move on Rome. So Dr. Bauschatz played the part of Caesar, expounding (with the usual humor and PowerPoint slides) on "his" famous conquests in Gaul and Spain, friends and enemies in Rome, his suspicions, and his ultimate demise. Yes, he was stabbed right there on stage by three of his toga-clad teacher's assistants ("et tu Lauren?").

And there was candy, too... tossed among the 500 students by TAs - only as a reward for sincere laughter. He's a cool prof and makes learning fun. They really oughtta clone him.

Seatbelts anyone?

"America's lenders have slammed on the brakes, and the economy's gone through the windshield."

That's how Liz Pulliam Weston puts it on today's "MSN Money" lead article. Ahem, but some of us were wearing our seatbelts and didn't even hit the dashboard. A bit of discomfort, perhaps, but no real damage. (Okay, enough with the analogy!)

Anyway, it's an interesting article and takes the time to compare some interesting statistics between the state of banking and loans from the 1970s and today. You can read it here:

Need a loan? Borrow like it's 1975

Seems to me this is an adjustment that America needs and has been a long time coming. It's time to return to "conservative banking practices" as quoted in the article. The so-called American Dream is certainly alive and well, but ya gotta EARN it, and that requires more patience and less instant gratification. I hope my young college classmates are paying attention.

Reading

We do a lot of reading in Classics 220. In fact, there's a reading for every day of class (except test days) and they're not short. There are six required books (listed below, in case you're interested) and we'll read ALL of them (not excerpts) before the semester ends. They're paperbacks and average around 235 pages each. There are also 18 online readings which are pdf scans of books and book parts which we (thankfully!) were not required to purchase. I'm sure some are out of print anyway.

I started the semester printing the pdf's but that turned out to be a big waste of printer ink - and you know how much ink costs these days! Now I just read them off the screen... although this aging brain still struggles with comprehension when I can't highlight key phrases or scribble in the margins! Fortunately the professor supplies a 12-question reading guide for each - to help us focus on the things he wants to emphasize.

A lot of the readings are direct translations from Greek or Latin or whatever ancient language they were written in, and, for the most part, are very readable and quite modern translations. I read Homer's "Iliad" in high school but I don't remember it being quite this easy to follow. Some of the prose and poetry is difficult, but worth the effort to fight through.

I've always been an avid reader, but this has really stretched me. It sure doesn't pay to leave reading until the last minute because then I really risk not comprehending while I'm rushing to finish. And, of course, every class period has a potential pop quiz. Even without that extra incentive, it's wise to keep up - otherwise I'd probably have to spend 3 solid days reading before tests! It's better just to review the reading guides.

The test grades were finally posted last week... I did fine, but apparently not everyone was up to speed on the readings. That section of the test accounted for probably 20% of the grade so they decided to "curve" it this time with a threat to not go so easy next time. Students not making the effort are not only hurting their grades, but they're missing out on some really fascinating learning. What a shame.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The books...
~ The Golden Ass: The Transformations of Lucius, by Apuleius, Robert Graves
~ The Essential Iliad by Homer, Stanley Lombardo, and Sheila Murnaghan
~ Four Texts on Socrates: Plato's Euthyphro, Apology, and Crito and Aristophanes' Clouds, Thomas G. West and Grace Starry West
~ The Life of Alexander the Great by Plutarch, Arthur Hugh Clough, Victor Hanson, and John Dryden
~ The Three Theban Plays by Sophocles, Bernard Knox, and Robert Fagles
~ The Twelve Caesars by Suetonius, Michael Grant, and Robert Graves
~ The Essential Aeneid, Publio Maron Virgilio and Stanley Lombardo

And the readings...
(The links here are NOT our pdf versions and might be different translations)
i. Pomeroy, Early Greece
ii. Osborne, Greece in the Making, Chapter 2
iii. Hesiod, Works and Days
iv. West, Greek Lyric Poetry
v. Aristotle, Constitution of the Athenians
vi. Xenophon, Politeia of the Spartans
vii. Herodotus, On the War...
viii. Thucydides, On Justice...
ix. Livy, History of Rome
x. Historia Augusta, Hadrian
xi. Pliny, Letters
xii. Vitruvius, On Architecture
xiii. Martial, On the Spectacles
xiv. Tertullian, On the Spectacles
xv. Ovid, Art of Love
xvi. Pausanias, Description of Greece
xvii. Lucretius, De Rerum Natura
xviii. Galen, On the Sects...

The Good, the Bad, and the Rumors

The Good stuff first: I got an A on my accounting exam! Woohoo!

The Bad is that I didn't get as good a score as I hoped. Yeah, it's still an A, but I need to find out what stuff I messed up on. I'll wait until the first rush is over then visit my prof in office hours. There are other things I want to chat with her about anyway.

The Rumors were, of course, mostly untrue (you knew that, right?). Turns out the early morning class (right before mine) struggled with the test and only three of THEM got an A (out of approximately 240 students).

My class and two other classes did okay and had the expected array of As, Bs, and Cs. We even had two perfect scores (alas, not mine!).

Only the late afternoon class had really disparate exam scores; lots of Bs and Ds, I guess, not so many Cs. Indicates a lot of folks just didn't "get it" and the ones who did were fine. They're still looking at curving it a bit, but that won't really affect me.

The prof says most people do better on the second test coming up at the end of the month, so I'm getting better organized to study hard to make sure I'm one of them who does. It's on inventory and bank reconciliations.

Still waiting

Feedback is pretty important to a college student. Timely feedback even more so. For the most part the educational/administrative cogs grind fairly smoothly and we get results within a reasonable cycle.

But I'm still awaiting grades on two of the three mid-terms I took more than a week ago. It's very frustrating... not knowing.

We've been told that everyone did very poorly on the accounting exam - so poorly they're still trying to figure out what to do about it. It's bad enough that a curve wouldn't even help most people. I heard a rumor that only three students out of 1200 got an A! Don't know how true that is. Applying my profound knowledge of probabilities from stats class, the likelihood of me being one of those possibly fictional three is... ummm... slim! Heck, at this point a B appears to be a wonderful grade.

Evidently (rumor again), last year someone stole the exam they used for several years in Accounting 200, so they had to invent a new one. The stolen test was one of those scantron thingies (remember those where you use a #2 pencil to color in the circle?) that could be graded by machine. I far prefer the kind we took which was a combination of multiple choice and worksheet. Given 20 categories and amounts of a fictional account, we had to create a trial balance, income statement, retained earnings, and balance sheet. Tons more practical than any scantron answer, but it means each test had to be graded by hand, which takes a lot longer. Ten days should be enough time.

...Still waiting!

Settle in

I've learned to enjoy this stage in the semester. It's the point after I've completed that first test in each class. Everyone whines about tests - I think that's universal - but they're really a great way to find out exactly what the professor expects of you and to ascertain whether or not you're meeting their expectations.

The syllabus tries its hardest to convey the expectation level; some try harder than others. Last spring my Latin America class had a 35-page syllabus! Most aren't that long or elaborate and don't need to be, but Dr. Barickman sure did a great job of communicating his expectations. And he was consistent about holding us to them.

That's really all you want from a class or a prof... Just be clear about what you expect and then hold us to it.

So, although I don't know my grades yet on two of the three tests, I really feel I'm progressing sufficiently in all of them. That's a good feeling. That's the part I enjoy the most! My routines are working and I'm settling in.