Franz Rises Again

It wasn't actually dead, just sitting untouched in the office for a while.  Franz is my Grove City Compaq, eight years old now, and I've been using John's work computer (which is here, since he's a telecommuter). 

Maybe a week ago, John decided that it was time we got all my files transferred off it.  Maybe we'd sell it for parts.  That was fine with me.  Franz was an excellent computer in its day and never once crashed during my college years.  We'd spent many long hours writing papers together, but it had gotten pretty slow and had a battery life of about 30 seconds (just enough to push the boot button and then quickly plug it in). 

But after fiddling with Franz a bit, John changed his tune.  He ordered a new battery online!  He taught it to understand wireless, so all I have to do is plug in the wireless USB thing we have and, voila, internet!  Perhaps we'll have many more years together . . . just thankfully no more papers.  :-)

Cave Ides Martium?

 Oh, yes

In March, July, October, May
The Ides fall on the fifteenth day,
The Nones the seventh, and all besides
Have two days less for Nones and Ides.

I'm finding that this post is filled with a lot of uncertainties.  First of all, the certain things:
1.  Today is the second holiday of holiday week, the Ides of March!
2.  It was on the Ides of March in 44 B.C. that Julius Caesar was assassinated by Brutus, Cassius, and other members of the Senate.
3.  Yes, as the little poem above states, all the months have Ides and, though lesser-known, Nones!  The Ides of March are just the most famous.
4.  Latin is awesome.  :-)

So, uncertainties abounding . . . firstly, I'm not even sure if the Latin in this post title is correct.  :-\  Secondly, I am positive that I remember hearing that Caesar was NOT assassinated on the Senate steps as is widely believed.  We were in Rome on our honeymoon and I was sure that I heard such a thing.  John can't support me on this, but I typically have the more detailed memory, anyway.

The tour guide whom, I testify, told us that Julius Caesar was not murdered on the Senate steps.  Interestingly, he was from Glasgow.

Why Caesar was stabbed is a bit clearer than whether it was right that he was stabbed.  He had acted as dictator for Rome, leading them in tremendous military victories.  "Dictator" in its original sense did not have all the wretched connotations it has today.  It was meant to be a position taken by a single strong leader to help the Roman Republic through a difficult time.  And it was meant to be temporary.  Certainly Caesar had been an able dictator, but when was pronounced/pronounced himself dictator for life, members of the senate took matters into their own hands.  But, we know how much people look up to a single, strong leader who has helped them through a difficult time.  The result was not a peaceful return to rule by representation, but a breakout of civil war, leading ultimately to the establishment of rule by emperor.  Take that, Brutus.

Anyway, I have fond memories of observing the Ides of March in conjunction with Latin class in high school.  Magistra Sadlon, our teacher, offered 10 bonus points for wearing a black armband to every class and 50 points for wearing a black toga!  She herself wore a handsome black suit/skirt and a pin with the proper rendering of "Cave Ides Martium," whatever it is.  I don't have pictures of those days, but I do recall, senior year, gliding through the halls in my makeshift black toga, grimly celebrating/mourning the death of Julius Caesar.  I was never quite sure which it was supposed to be.  ;-)

The Pantheon in Rome.  Was it here?

Holiday Week is Coming!

One of my Sarahs and I, with pie and the "I love nerds" shirt.  You'll note, however, that it wasn't even close to pi day.  ;-)

And the first holiday is . . . pi day!  3/14 (the first three digits of the number pi) evoked a little "whoop" from me senior year of college at 1:59 (the next three digits of pi) in the afternoon.  I remember that I was in opera workshop class and wearing my "I love nerds" shirt.  :-) 

Pi day was even more useful as a teacher.  In the beginning of my first year teaching at the Christian school, I was duly warned by my students that the previous math teacher had let them bring in pie on pi day!  Even a parent or two asked me if I observed the day during "Back to School Night."  That gave me time to prepare, and now I reminisce. 

 A memory from my old classroom - a circle I drew by hand that came out so well I left it on the board for weeks.  You can also see my students' countdown to my wedding and the caricature of our physics teacher drawn by a talented senior last year.

Today, at school, my calculus and precalculus classes would have had Socratic Seminars on a humorous, fictional article about the state legislature of Louisiana (I think) changing the value of pi to exactly 3.  My algebra 2 and algebra 2 w/trig classes would have had a competition to see who could recite the most digits of pi.  (The prize, of course, was a homemade pie!)  My geometry students would have done a "discovering pi" lab in groups of four.  And there would have been much feasting and a general sugar headache by the end of the day.  :-) 

  

This year, I'm not only not teaching, but pi day is also on the Lord's Day.  Still, I asked John what kind of pie he wanted and, of course, he asked for his favorite, lemon meringue!

Simple, Clean Curtains

The dining room painting is done!  All the furniture is back to where it belongs, everything is clean, and on Friday I sewed up the little curtains I had been envisioning. 

The white fabric in last week's update picture was just muslin, and I cut it into long rectangles and hemmed the edges.  I was excited to find these gold-colored curtain rods left by previous home-owners in the "attic"!  My only thought is that the blinds are a bit of an eye-sore, besides being certain dust-collectors.  We hardly ever close the blinds in this room, so I may just take them down if I can figure out how to do it.  The blind on the window to the left in the picture above has been helpful in blocking the afternoon sun when we've had dinner company on Sundays sometimes, so I should probably leave that one up.

On another note, John and I were given a little flip calendar filled with love quotes as a wedding gift, and I usually read the day's quote to him before bed.  I thought I might share last night's exchange because it brought a smile to my face, anyway.

"We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily differences we can make which, over time, add up to the big differences that we often cannot foresee."  (Marian Wright Edelman)

True enough, right?  Well, John saw it from a different perspective.  "Differences adding up?  Must be an English major!"  :-)

Nerds R Us

This morning after breakfast, I was about to start up the dishwasher when John, who had been helping load his dishes, pointed out that there was one more glass in the sink.

"There's always room for one more," he said playfully. 

"Yup," I agreed.

"Which means that we have a dishwasher of infinite capacity!"

I started to see it.  He went on,

"By induction!  You can fit one dish in it, and if you have n dishes, by the law that you can always fit one more in it, then you can put n + 1 dishes in it.  Therefore we have a dishwasher of infinite space!"

God knew what He was doing when He ordained that I would marry another math person.  :-)