first actual crack-up of the Latin workshop occurred today when one student, when asked to give all the principal parts of "aufero" began to giggle. when asked if there was something funny about the principal parts of aufero, she began laughing uncontrollably. it seems that it is only a matter of time before the first student's head explodes randomly in the middle of class. oddsmakers in Vegas put the chances of my being the first student whose head explodes at about 4.6:1, which leaves me as a pretty safe bet, at least relative to the other 24 persons lucky/unlucky enough to be my Latin companions for the summer.

someone out there (who may or may not still be reading this) once made a sweeping generalization about Brown undergraduate students which I, while having no reason to doubt his generalization at the time, remained wary of nevertheless. Now having had class with a Brown graduate for a number of weeks, I'm willing to accept his judgment. Also, said student is also a graduate student in Comp Lit, which isn't exactly doing him any favors in the flakiness department.