I don’t want things to change. So, I think maybe that’s why I came in here, to try to maybe stop that change. To turn back the clock. To make things go back to how they were. But I know that’s naive. It’s just not how life works. It’s moving. Always moving, whether you like it or not. And, yeah, sometimes it’s painful. Sometimes it’s sad. And sometimes, it’s surprising. Happy. So you know what? Keep on growing up, kid. Don’t let me stop you. Make mistakes, learn from ‘em. When life hurts you, because it will, remember the hurt. The hurt is good. It means you’re out of that cave.
here are some quotes from my teachers (Ancient Greek and Mesopotamian studies), collected over the last two years, to convince you otherwise:
“Greek. It’s not Latin.”
“It’s a big book and I don’t recommend that you drop it on your foot, like I did a moment ago.”
“Why do you assume what I say has to make sense?”
“Maybe in the third millennium BC, a Peloponnesian left for Crete thinking ‘now I’ll finally be rid of my cousin!’… Humanity never changes.”
“[Teacher] didn’t talk to you about leg-shaving? I’m disappointed.”
“When you want to be sure your friends are loyal to you, you obviously ask for hostages, don’t you?”
“French is too hard. Sumerian is much easier.”
“I’m only going to discuss our future activities, because the past is pointless.” *students start laughing* “Well, obviously not when it’s ancient history.” *more students laughing* “Come on, that’s not what I meant!”
“I hope you enjoyed the class. Next week we’ll talk about violence, murder and infanticide.”
“It’s crazy, especially when you remember this was built in the 15th century BC. Long live the Hittites!!!” *bounces up and down excitedly, then pauses* “Yeah, so, you’ll have figured out by now that I’m not at all objective.”
Teacher: “There’s a lot of people missing this morning.” Student: “Maybe there was a problem with the tram.” Teacher: “Or maybe there’s a crocodile wandering around town.”
“You see that little object? No, it’s not a dildo.”
“So Protogonos, the penis king… Yes. I know. You can stop laughing now.”
“I’m glad we’ve stopped sacrificing donkeys, because they’re lovely animals.”
“Here’s a list of Cilician kings. My favourite, as some of you know, is Tarcondimotus. If you’re looking for an original name for your child, I recommend it.”
“You’re all studying Sumerian? That’s great! So you know what gír means?” *silence* “You’re all useless.”
“Like Batman, Xenophon is about to save the day.”
Teacher: “According to the Derveni Papyrus, the sun is a penis.” Student: “That gives a whole new meaning to the word ‘sunrise’.”
“Doors are serious business. I organised a colloquium on doors, you know.”
“Does anybody here know Sanskrit? No? Good, then I can say all the nonsense I want.”
Teacher: “See that phallic thing? What do you think it is?” Student: “… A phallus?” Teacher: “Fooled you! It’s an Ottoman tombstone.”
“Every archeologist thinks their site is the most important. Of course, they’re wrong because it’s obviously mine.”
*teacher’s pen runs out of ink* “I’m telling you, it’s the Third World in this university.”
*on a class trip, after losing several students at the site of Aristotle’s birthplace* “The first thing we need to ask ourselves is: what would Aristotle do?”
“[Teacher] wrote an article about that. I never understood it.”
*student attempts to translate ‘the bird eats something’ into Sumerian* “You just said ‘the bird eats someone’. That’s definitely possible, but I wouldn’t want to meet that bird.”
“But more importantly, can the word ‘apotropaic’ be applied to mosquito repellent?”
*on a class trip, after someone sicked up in the train* “Yayyy! Time to play in the vomit!”
Because the civilisations I study may be dead, but my classes certainly are not.
Some more from this semester:
“In the Bronze Age, there was bronze.”
“That looks like it was written with a reed pen that a toothless scribe tried to sharpen with his gums.”
“You should never throw the prince into the river!”
*addressing the students* “Oy, you people! … Um, I mean, dear participants in this class…”
*suddenly, in the middle of a sentence* “Oh look! The sun came out from behind the clouds!”
“Sometimes they used animals in their rituals *makes a sad face* poor, innocent little animals…”
*whispering repeatedly, during a discussion about whether a certain word means ‘tendon’ or ‘intestine’* “Ew… ewww…” (fun fact: this is the same teacher who exclaimed “Yayyy! Time to play in the vomit!”)
*when asked a question about the Sumerians* “They’re dead, who even knows anymore.”
*after talking for five whole minutes about the ‘sheepette’* “Oh my God it’s horrible, I said sheepette… Mrs Sheep is called a ewe.”
And in case you were wondering if this is also true of purely academic contexts, here’s some more from the colloquium I recently attended:
“Okay, so we’re starting five minutes late because I forgot I was presenting.”
“Germany is playing a football match and here I am, having to talk about Sardis.”
“I mean, taking a hundred cities, burning them down and smashing them up? That’s quite an Assyrian thing to do.”
“There’s one more slide. No wait, there’s another one. Wait, is that my slide? No. Yes. No. Wait, yes!”
“It would be great if, at the end of this week, we knew what Anatolia is.”
“She promised she would do the glossary, but she died and did not do it.”
“[Researcher] raised this point at lunch.” “Sorry, I was distracted by the food.”
*after announcing the wrong conference for the second time* “I’m doing a very good job of this.”
“Erm…” *long pause* “What did I write here?”
“If you weren’t sick of me yet, you will be in about twenty minutes.”
“Let it be clear that I am not criticising the content of these books, especially since their authors and editors are sitting in front of me.”
*after finding out another researcher is ten years younger than them* “BAMBINO! BAMBIIIIIINOOooOoOOO”
Researcher 1: “So I have a few disagreements with your paper…” Researcher 2, pouring them a glass of wine: “Shh, it will all be better soon.”
“So how many penises are there in a penis cake?”
And yet more from this year, with a reminder that most of these people are world experts in their field:
*proudly holding up some tablet copies sloppily glued together* “Look at my pretty crafts project!”
“Hattusili was really an arsehole.”
“Why did the scribe write that? Was he drunk?”
“Whose translation is that? Tischler’s? He should be put to death.”
“There was nothing to do during a siege. They didn’t even have smartphones to watch movies on.”
“He was very young when he was born.”
Student: “Why did the king fight with his sister?” Teacher: “Do you have a sister?”
Student: “So the palace didn’t have windows?” Teacher: “Of course not, that’s how the demons come in!”
“At this point, Hattusili was still a young man. He still had feelings.”
“Who knows why they made these stone carvings? Maybe they had a picnic there and left some graffiti behind.”
“We don’t know why this man is wearing his hair like that. Maybe he’s trying to look like Trump.”
Teacher: “I wrote to the project leader last week to tell him this isn’t good.” Student: “And? What did he say?” Teacher: “He hasn’t answered yet. Maybe he’ll never write to me again.”
i love shakespeare because he does not tell you a single thing that isn’t strictly needed to tell a story. where were viola and sebastian sailing to when their ship was wrecked, and why were they going there? doesn’t matter. who gives a fuck. write a fucking fic if you care so much, says shakespeare
I hate when there’s a big ass bug in the room and someone’s like “LEAVE IT ALONE!” … why are you defending the bug for??? I don’t know what kind of stroke game this bug got cause you must be fucking it??? is that it??
のほも is such a good word?? the concept is kind of hard to fully get across in translation, but basically it means a feeling of pure, deep, platonic affection, and i think thats beautiful
