The exams are done at last, which means I'm back and ready to ramble on again! Apologies for how long it's been since my last post, the exams were a long slog and any free time was taken up with re-enactment shows (more on which later). There are no more lectures, uni is closed for the summer, and a full year of Classics has flown by...
So, what's it been like studying Classics full time? Well, it's been a great time! I've been able to study a wide range of topics over the last year, from ancient Greek to the Roman republic, and though there have been some modules I preferred, they've all been well taught and enjoyable. I thoroughly enjoyed the course on the Roman republic, which focused a fair bit on military and political history and was taught by the inimitable Tim Parkin, who easily wins the award for my favourite lecturer of the year. He also took my Latin module which I enjoyed greatly, and I've found it interesting delving into the complexities of my favourite language. On the other hand I've discovered that ancient Greek is not my language of choice - while it was an intensive course, sometimes the amount to do was a bit overwhelming. The first rule of ancient Greek seems to be that the exceptions will probably outnumber the rules... Likewise, I preferred the Catullus module to the Odyssey one as I felt I could engage with it more, and over the course of the year I've discovered that my interest lies primarily with the Romans rather than the Greeks. As a result I found that the second semester was my favourite, as my module split left most of the Roman based ones in the latter half of the year. Regardless, it's been awesome studying Classics at Manchester, and am certainly loving my course.
Of course, as well as studying, the other major thing I did this year was taking up re-enacting with Historia Normannis, a group I've mentioned on here before. At the moment we're mid way through show season, which started a few weeks before the start of my exams, and I've made it to a good number of shows so far. Without a doubt, it's my favourite thing to spend a weekend on, the atmosphere at a show is always great (though the rain tends to dampen spirits a little) and it's good to be able to go away with an awesome bunch of people each weekend. I've found that studying classics has come in useful with re-enacting in strange ways - for example, being able to read and speak Latin has been pretty helpful since I portray a learned member of the clergy on encampment. I'll be putting up another post before long (since I can now blog with impunity) going into more details on the shows I've been to, but suffice to say that it's been awesome.
| Finally, it's worth a mention that this post was written on a (very delayed) train to Haltwhistle, my base of operations for the coming week. It's absolutely beautiful here, you can see a photo on the right that I took on the walk from the station to the B&B I'm staying in (also lovely, it's on a country farm). Because of a successful travel grant from my hall of residence at uni, I'm able to travel to Hadrian's Wall to visit some of the most important sites. The plan was to visit Chester's fort this afternoon, but the train was delayed by track problems and that buggered up all the other arrangements a bit. So, plans change. I'm instead visiting the fort on Friday morning, which gives me a little more time there. I visited the fort as a child, but can't remember much of it, so this is a visit to see it again properly. These next two days, I'll be visiting the Roman Army Museum and Vindolanda, two places I've always wanted to visit but never had the chance to. All rather exciting, and I'll be sure to post when I can and let you know what I've been up to. |  |
Thank you for reading, and it's good to be back at last - there'll be plenty to post about this summer!
Christopher N
Christopher N