591 days until graduation.

Although terrifying, there are days when I wish the number were smaller. Today is one of those days.

I’m sure I’ll look back on this in incredulity one day. I can’t help but think that college is one of those things you don’t appreciate until it’s over. 

In other news, my nails look disgusting, e.g. my pinky is bleeding. 

Also, it’s really cold in my dorm. 

I am convinced that dead languages are wrathful…they are bitter about being dead, so they take innocent victims in order to feel better about themselves. 

Latin and Greek have completely ruined language for me. I can’t think, write, or say a word or phrase without contemplating its grammatical function. I notice myself changing my English so that it might be more easily translated into Latin or Greek. I try to throw in participles wherever I can and I overuse relative clauses and the passive voice. I think about ablatives and datives, subjunctives and optatives, aorists and middles, way too often for someone whose native language forsake all such conventions long, long ago. 

The worst part is, I think my brain is ruined forever. I don’t think I can ever look at a sentence again and not think about its grammar.

It has been said that learning a foreign language will color your perception of the world around you, and that bilingual people have a different way of understanding than those who only know one language, but I never expected to be so greatly affected by learning languages I will never speak. 

What a wonderfully horrifying thing to realize. 

My dead languages are slowly reverting me to the mindset (at least linguistically, I don’t claim to understand all of the cultural mores of the ancient world) of a learned ancient, or at the very least a learned Victorian. 

When I think about all of this I feel so pretentious and snooty, but I can’t help it because dead languages are overpowering my brain. 

And with that, I’m off to bed.

I really need to abduct a French person (who speaks both fluent French and English), and drag them around with me wherever I go. This will not only solve my problem of having a limited number of friends at Kenyon right now (because obviously my French slave will love me and be my best friend), but it will also solve all of my problems when it comes to choosing the right French prepositions, learning real French idioms instead of making them up/scouring wordreference like my life depends on it, and actually learning the difference between les gens vs. les personnes (I know there’s a difference, but honestly I don’t understand when to use them, so basically I just guess)…also in my perfect world my new French bff would make me crêpes, sing to me in French, and have an adorable little cousin (preferably aged between 3 and 7) who skypes with her all of the time…just so I can hear a little kid speaking French whenever I feel like it (they are so cute).

The moral: I suck at French.

Goal for Life (and health): Get at least 7.5 hours of sleep a night. This means that I should be getting ready for bed 8 hours before I plan on waking up. I have determined that it is far more important to me to maintain my health than it is for me to stay up extra late needlessly toiling over nothing.

Being sick is the worst…being sick and sleep deprived is debilitating. 

There’s no point in staying up late to finish my homework if I can’t even go to class to turn it in. 

Let’s hope I’ve actually learned my lesson. (Early in the semester, too!)

Sleep tight :)

Img source: Pretty Smart Girl Art