In my Latin class we have been translating Ovid. If you don't know who he is, he's a poet that lived and wrote during the time of Caesar Augustus. He was exiled from Italy around 8 B.C.E., and lived in a town on the Black Sea 10 years before he died. In a time when morality was being pushed by the government, Ovid wrote about love, finding love, making love, how to look lovely, and anything else dealing with love. We translated book 1 of Ars Armatoria (The art of loving) and selections from Metamorphoses. The stories themselves were interesting, but the translating was often difficult. At the end of the semester (which is now), we had to write a capstone paper about something dealing with Ovid and his works. I couldn't think of anything I wanted to write about, especially since understanding every facet of poetry is NOT my forte, and I made the mistake of waiting to talk to my professor a week before it was due. It also happened to be the week of Thanksgiving, so I really didn't bother doing research until the week it was due.
It's no surprise that I'm a procrastinator, and so I managed to get all my research and reading done the day before the paper was due. So what did I do? I pulled an all-nighter writing the paper. I knew there was a chance that I wouldn't get it finished by morning, so I took the morning off from work. My all nighter was completely focused on writing the paper. I took time off only for necessities, and I managed to stay awake by consuming a 2 liter Mountain Dew. I didn't take time to eat something as well, so my stomach was not happy with me when morning came. The paper was supposed to be 10 pages long, but I only managed to get 9 1/2. I reread my paper about five times after I finished it, mostly because Professor Damen is a stickler for grammar and tense markers. When I got to school around one, I tried looking for another source I could use to make my paper a little longer. About 15 minutes before the paper was due I found one, and was able to make my paper ALMOST 10 pages long. At that point I didn't care anymore, and turned the paper in.
Normally I am really tired and fussy if I don't get at least 6-8 hours of sleep, but I wasn't tired the rest of the day. I was in a very mellow mood, and pretty apathetic. I didn't even go to bed till 1:30am that night. I managed to stay up for 42 hours, which I have never done before. I've never quite managed staying up 24 hours, I was always an hour or two shy of that.
Now all I have left to do is write a 3 page essay about why Ovid wrote Metamorphoses and take the final on Wednesday. Then I will be done with Latin for the rest of my college career!! Yea for no more Latin!! Let the celebration begin!!!!
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