By all accounts, I should never have gone to Oxford for a graduate degree in Classical Archaeology. First off, I’m too cynical to have ever seriously dreamed of becoming the next Indiana Jones/Lara Croft for longer than it took for their respective movies to finish. The reality of going on a dig- spending 12 hours a day sitting on my ass in a ditch, carefully removing quarter inch layers of dirt at a time with a teeny tiny brush in the searing heat, makes me want to poke my eyes out. More importantly, I have a thing about getting my hands dirty. As in, I carry baby wipes with me. Everywhere. For example, I played softball in college and only scored as many runs as I did because sprinting around the bases brought me closer to crossing home plate, getting a wipe and cleaning off the dirt from sliding.
I wish I were kidding.
Given this information, you might be a. diagnosing me with a mild form of OCD and b. wondering what possessed me to ever pursue such a course. Far beyond being counter-intuitive, it just seems like a very expensive fools errand. And to you I say, no one likes a smart ass, thanks.
Now that you’ve got me feeling all defensive, let me huffily explain myself. I started reading Latin about 13 years ago in the 7th grade. Though it was a requirement, not only did I like it, but I was pretty good at it. However, as I’m thinking about it now, this might have been mostly due to my teacher, Mr. Heinze. In the absence of a legal method to literally drill declensions and conjugations into our pre-pubescent heads, Mr. Heinze would instead walk into class every day with a ruler, smack the desk of that day’s victim and yell out a random Latin word or verb for them to decline/conjugate. Class could and would not officially begin until he was satisfied with the answer. Mess up, start over. On the other hand, answer correctly too quickly and The Heinze would deem the victim cocky and demand they recite three or four more words. It was terrifying…but effective. Because I was that kid, I ended up studying my vocab lists religiously and practicing my recitations at juuust the right speed. By the end of 8th grade I had never received a grade lower than a 99 in his class but to this day the words puella, amicus, mare, amo and sum are triggers for unpleasant episodes. Mention any one of them and my eyes roll back into my head while I visibly fight the urge to word vomit Latin all over myself. Before you get any ideas, I will punch you when I’ve cleaned myself up, so don’t try it.
Thus began what I affectionately refer to as my junkie period. In high school I couldn’t get enough of Rome. I studied all the Vergil, Ovid and the clean poems of Catullus I could get my hands on. In fact, at the risk of revealing just how close I came to overdosing on Nerd, the license plate on my first car read, Vivamus- the first word of Catullus’ poem 5. Before you laugh, go look it up, be moved, and know that explaining its meaning to a state cop once got me out of a speeding ticket. Boom. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catullus_5) When you’re done with that, treat yourself to some ancient smut and take a look at poem 16, the first and last lines of which are generally agreed to be some of the filthiest phrases ever written, in any language. Hehehe. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catullus_16)
Now, if you’ll kindly pick your jaw up off the floor, I can continue. By the time I got to college I was beyond help. I picked up Greek, ancient philosophy, art history, etc. I did my semester abroad in Athens and had a semi-religious experience at the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi. I was so far gone I actually thought, “but Daaaaad, didn’t you always say do what you love, not what will pay the most,” was a legitimate answer to “what the hell are you going to do with that?!?” when I ever so caaasually called my parents to let them know they were going to drop about 200k to fund a Classics degree.
Until this very moment I may have had what some might refer to as an “addiction” to all things Greek, Roman, Near Eastern and a bit of Byzantine (for something slightly more modern, of course), but it was innocent. I swear. At that point, however, I took a turn. I had made a serious life decision- one of those things that goes on your resume that people see and judge you by for the foreseeable future…all based on my academic addiction.
Shit got real, real fast. All of a sudden I was introduced to the concept of “the future,” and “making a living.” My parents, Zeus love them, gave up any notion of staging an intervention almost immediately after hanging up the phone sophomore year. The rest of my family, Hades keep them, never quite learned- though I think I’ve explained Classics on every major holiday since 2004. (Classics, like, classic books?) Soon, I was applying for summer internships and found myself defending my choice of major to hiring managers in interviews for jobs I would not get. And truthfully, sometimes it really can be hard to justify reading for an obscure and almost extinct liberal arts degree when it just doesn’t seem relevant to anything and your career plans are hazy at best.
What was perhaps most vexing was that I even had trouble with my college career center. According to my career lady, Classics majors went on to be professors or lawyers. When I told her I wanted to be neither, she waved her arms around and said, “DOES NOT COMPUTE. DOES NOT COMPUTE.” And then her head exploded.
What to do then? Well, for a while after graduation I did some serious soul searching over Czech beer (cheaper than water!) and goulash while teaching English on the side. And then, I applied and was accepted to graduate school. For Classical Archaeology. At Oxford. And I did it knowing full well that I did not want to be a teacher, a lawyer, a Lara Croft, or a real archaeologist. So, why did I continue studying antiquity- the course I had started on 13 years ago?
Because I just fucking love it. That’s why.
Vale,
Queen Boudicca
