semele

I've been traveling a whole lot recently: spent a week in the Pacific Northwest with my sister--my first time west of Chicago actually. I fell in love with Portland and hope I get to spend a lot more time in that part of the country--surely one day I will escape Ohio? It's so pretty out there! Managed to visit some shops and got tattooed by Cheyenne at Atlas, but it was a family/work trip and it was honestly really fun to go somewhere and not have the trip revolve around getting tattooed. Headed to Nashville next weekend to see a couple Lucero shows and so this classics nerd can see the fake Parthenon! Then New York, again. Fun!

Lucky you! He's one of my favorites.

Yeah, ever since I got back Monday one of mine has been on me constantly--I think he thinks if he can figure out a way to sit on my lap 24/7 I will never leave the house again. He tried the face-batting technique but bothering the wounded bits of me nets the most dramatic response.

Healing my knee hasn't been nearly as bad as I was expecting--my right leg is ALMOST the same size as my other leg already--except my cat seems to think my kneecap is exactly where he should stand with all his (admittedly slight) weight at least three times a night. My cat's an asshole.

Second this! When I was super broke a couple years ago, I think I'd have appreciated the treat of a new tattoo even more than better groceries. Though my priorities have always been a little off!

After five months or so of getting tattooed at a more or less sane pace, this month I seem to be returning to full-on insanity. Filled in the gaps on my chest with a pair of butterflies yesterday by Robert Ryan--I really love my tattoos from him, and I love going out to Electric, even if it means braving New Jersey transit.

I'm making another trip out to Electric to get a couple of little pieces from Robert Ryan in June. I think that will be it for new tattoos until I start my back.

I have a pharaoh's horses chest piece! I worried vaguely about the change in appearance, too--and honestly it kinda does drastically change the way you look. It's a really eye-catching location, and was definitely the piece that made me consider myself heavily tattooed. That said, it didn't take me any time at all to get used to it--I'd wanted it for ages, so it just looked natural to me. May have taken other folks some getting used to. It is also hard to cover (mine hits above the collar bones) without looking a little conservative. I fucking love it, though. I also definitely drew on a stick figure pharaoh's horses a couple times, too.

You take Ancient Greek, duh! Learn whatever you want to learn: another Romance language might be easiest since there'll be some overlap in structure/vocabulary, but it's really interest or usefulness that will get you through the tedious memorize-y beginning part, so that's probably more important than ease. If you're a college student you might have free access to Pimsleur or Rosetta Stone through your library too. If I'm focused on something/thinking in that language I don't get them mixed up, but if I'm trying to say, come up with one specific word, I'll have to go through the list and probably still not come up with the right one. Or if people around me are speaking something I don't understand, then I'll think in every language I know simultaneously. It'll just be babble, too, like Greek "thank you" German "eggs."

If you're good at language but don't like speaking, give Latin a try. No speaking, just reading and writing comprehension. Inflected languages are a challenge if you don't have any experience with them, but you'd have a leg up since you already know one Romance language. It's fun, and there are definitely uses for it, but it's not so great for say, going abroad and trying to figure out where anything is. I wish I had a couple more of those speak-y languages under my belt! I didn't have a mid-college slump, but I definitely had a mid-grad school slump. Of epic proportions. I believe there's still a seminar paper I owe someone from 2008, and every time I see that professor at a conference I give him the guilty face.

So jealous! I'm pretty sure I'm the least literate of you folks--I've got ten years of Ancient Greek and Latin, but that's it! One of my first tattoos was actually to mark finishing the summer Greek intensive course. Probably the hardest I've worked in my life so far! I pretend to know Modern Greek and German, but just reeeeaally basic conversational stuff. Damn. I better go get some Hebrew or something in a hurry...!

Else, you took Greek? @blujax01 Oops, didn't mean to imply anything was wrong! I just thought it was a funny coincidence that that someone in my city was posting a tattoo from my field. :) I'll stop being a huge nerd now...

The Greek is correct! It's a quote from a battle I taught last week actually. I'm not an expert on the various ways you can write Greek letters, but I can read it and it's definitely spelled correctly, so I think you're good! I think those strokes are identical to how it's inscribed on the monument in Greece, anyway.

Ha, I'm in Columbus too, and I teach Ancient Greek.

I'm teaching my first lecture course, after three years of teaching only language classes. It's even the same course that made me think, "I want to be a professor when I grow up," as an undergrad. It's an intensive, 2.5 hr/5 day a week version of it--which is a pretty intense workload, but it seems to be going well. I don't want to be in academia for much longer, but I am still SO STOKED that I got the chance to teach this one!

I almost emailed her too--she's around right before my next appointment at Saved, but I gotta save cash too, cash and space. :( So I concur, someone around here better take advantage!

Seems a good time to mention that I took my mom to get tattooed today! It was her first. She got a sweet flying pig from Adam at Three Kings.

I'm hoping to go this year if I can get the time off. Never been to the west coast at all, so using the convention as an excuse to finally visit friends out there. Or is it the other way around.

Yeah, it'll be four sessions since the end of January. This tattoo has flown by for sure--I'm gonna miss those trips to Saved! Will not miss flying all the damn time though.

I'm back at Saved next Friday for what might be the last session on my leg.

I did that recently and it DID suck. Lightest handed dude too, but I barely made it through the session.

I'd like to go, but it's the weekend before May term starts and I'll be in teaching hell.

I love how these things become milestones.

I had a huge chunk of my lower leg tattooed on Tuesday, and HOLY SHIT healing the knee ditch sucks. Everything else is fine, though sleeping has been tricky the last two nights, but FUCK YOU, Mrs. Back-of-the-Knee. The tattooing itself was really pretty easy for the most part, but unbending my leg is the worst healing pain I've had to deal with so far. Kinda like someone is taking razor blades to that crease. I just hope that it heals well enough that I don't have to do this again. Okay, whining session = over.

Second session here. It was finished a few months ago, but I can't find my pictures.