So about a month ago we received all of our household goods that were in storage for the past two and a half years in Virginia Beach while we were back in Japan. Most of it was crap that we had even forgotten that we owned, and were a little dismayed and embarrassed that we hadn't gotten rid of it earlier. As I went through my personal items, I found all of the trophies I had won participating in Latin competitions in high school. All of those fond memories came rushing back of competing in the State Latin tournament in Orlando, duking it out in Certamen (think, "Latin Jeopardy") against our archrival, Sandalwood High, for first place. They were oh-so snooty and arrogant, and I seem to remember them barely scraping by for the win. No matter - those were good times, and probably about as wild as it ever got for this young, naive studious uber-geek who thrived on comic books, Stephen King novels, and "The Legend of Zelda". And I wouldn't have had it any other way - like I always say, all of those people that peaked in high school are now working at Wal-Mart and are into their 2nd and 3rd marriages. Unfortunately, Latin really is a dead language and the sad reality is now I couldn't tell you the difference between a 3rd declension i-stem and an ablative of place-where. At the time, the only foreign language choices were Latin, Spanish, or French. Spanish seemed so pedestrian, and French, geez, when in the world would I ever use that! These high schoolers nowadays have it too good, with their Flemish, Norwegian, Mandarin Chinese, Swahili, etc.
Alas, veni, vidi, vici is nice, but biru okawari kudasai ("another glass of beer please") is better!
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