Citoyenne la traductrice jacobine

Why? Because this exists. ^__^

In other news, I'm dropping Architecture of the Enlightenment. I had to do it; my professor believes, with the Frankfort School, that "Enlightenment is totalitarian." Ironically, this class doesn't really offer any space for disagreement... In any case, I'm trying to replace it with History of Greece, but I've been wait-listed. Horrors. :O Hopefully I'll get in anyway.

Latin, meanwhile, continues to go well; I got a 91 on my final, which is pretty good, I have to say, considering I learned the entire semester in three weeks. I've got a quiz tomorrow, but it's only on comparatives and superlatives, so really, I should be golden.

As for my other classes... Well, I haven't been in them long enough yet to know. My Jewish history class should be fine, as far as surveys go. There's an option of doing a research paper instead of the final exam, and I'm definitely doing it on Jews in the French Revolution. I know, I'm so predictable. XD;

My historical performance, music of France, class isn't on as high a level as I expected. My old French prof came to give a lecture on the tension between the heart and mind in the 17th century. Which led, if nothing else, to my learning a lot of random things about the Jansenists. And Pascal.

The next class we basically watched a bunch of clips from movies featuring 18th century aristos (all of which I had already seen, but whatever, Ridicule and Dangerous Liaisons remain good movies), so we could get a sense of who the audience for French baroque music actually was. This was to explain why it's largely so formal and unemotional. It's a pity this class doesn't cover classical music in France, because that started having a lot more sentamentalism in it....

The worst was probably when one of the historical performance profs felt the need to read from A Tale of Two Cities, of all things. Fortunately, it was from the beginning part, of which a fair paraphrase would be "aristos are useless/ridiculous, especially if they're French," which, that last part aside, is really okay in my book. (Maybe if Dickens had stuck to that, A Tale of Two Cities wouldn't be such an awful book. Then again, maybe not; he doesn't exactly have the most fortunate way of expressing himself, does he?) In the same class, this same prof made a comment which amused me greatly: he said that he didn't (of course) want to make assumptions, but that he presumed, given Oberlin's political leanings, that we would be on the side of the Revolution. Come to think of it, I suppose it's a bit sad the way he thought it was necessary to qualify that statement in order to avoid potentially stepping on anyone's toes. >.>

Also, one of the French profs helped me defend Robespierre against another prof from the conservatory (who called him a Jansenist, which I assume is the French equivalent of calling him a Puritan--*sighs*) at our French breakfast today. It pwned. :D

(One more thing: I joined an exco ("experimental college") class on the tv series "Rome." I resent its portrayal of the senators who assassinated Julius Caesar. Especially the implication that Brutus only participated because his mother wanted him to, and his mother only wanted Caesar dead because he had spurned her. Whatever. I know they want everyone to think they're the new "I, Claudius," but really, that series was much better, even if it did give Claudius a much more sympathetic portrayal than he probably deserved. The one thing I will given "Rome" credit for, however, is the fact that it portrays more or less "ordinary" Romans, in a way that "I, Claudius" failed to... But still, it really can't compare.)