Latin Lives!

Here's a little fact about me you probably didn't know.... I technically took Latin for 8 years and even took the AP Latin exam. What makes this interesting is that our school only has 4 official years of latin study (5-8 grade). BUT, one of my all-time favorite teachers Mrs. Gannon went the extra mile for a few of us latin-lovers.

She decided that since a few of us wanted to continue our study of Caecilius and his family at the time Mt. Vesuvius erupted, Roman culture, and conjugating latin verbs, she would volunteer to teach us Latin at 7am every morning. That's right, for 4 years, we all got up and started our days off right, with some latin grammer! The best part is that we took class out in the portables which were not very weather resilient- when it was cold, it we froze, and when it was hot, we suffocated. Looking back, I'm not sure why we were all that crazy and while I really look back on those mornings fondly, I'm sure if you asked Mrs. Gannon, I probably complained about it every.single.morning.

Poor Mrs. Gannon even took on attempting to teach us AP Latin our senior year. This meant reading Virgil's Aeneid in its original Latin... If you've ever tried to read the Aeneid in English, you'll realize how much of a challenge it was to not only read it, but read it in a foreign language! While we all put forth a valiant effort, the AP test was a joke. We didn't even understand the essay questions- one girl wrote her testimony in Chinese instead to pass the time.

Sadly, the school didn't really like out 0 hour latin experiment and they no longer offer it for the latin lovers of TCA. I like that its something special the few of us and Mrs. Gannon have to always remember. It was crazy, some days we all hated it, some days we loved it, but I will always be grateful that Mrs. Gannon was willing to go out on a limb for us and let us continue our latin studies. Plus, I'm sure that is the reason all of our SAT scores were so high : )

Here is our little group (and yes, we are in fact all wearing AP Latin sweatshirts that we had specially made!)

On a separate note, yes I know that President Obama had a townhall meeting on the GW campus this evening, and no, we weren't invited to attend... surprise surprise. The worst part was that they blockaded my building off before he arrived so I couldn't get to my class until 2 minutes before it started. While I waited, I had to listen to the crowd chant "O-BAM-A!" for several moments and I got to watch the "protestors" hold up signs that said things like "don't tax me bro" or "obama on campus is the best propaganda your tuititon can buy" or "students want jobs not taxes" or "the unemployment line starts here." Pretty classy if you ask me. And no, despite Caleb's encouragement, I was not one of the protestors. Well, I better get back to cheering on my Rangers.... (fingers crossed!)