J-term: the Ellery, Chapin, and The Golden Ass
Next week is the last week of interterm and the first week before the spring semester starts!
Interterm (also known as J-term) this year has been a pretty unique one in terms of length, course offerings, and mode of instruction. It lasts for five weeks, starting on January 4th and ending on February 11th, during which students move into their on-campus housing in staggered arrival time blocks. More four-credit courses are offered and the course selection has a wider range. Students can take classes like Engineering Thermodynamics, Intro to Psych, and Calculus II, which are not typical J-term courses. Moreover, our special 2021 gives us a special, first-ever, remote-only interterm. That said, no classes are in person.
Quarantine in the Ellery
As I briefly mentioned in my first blog, I came back to Smith two weeks ago after spending about ten months in Southern Pennsylvania. Spoiled by the mild winter living so close to Maryland, I forgot how cold Northampton is. Shuddering in the New England wind due to the lack of layers, I still took advantage of my short time of freedom before entering quarantine by taking a tour around the new library.
I spent two long days quarantining in the Ellery before I got released a little after noon on the third day. We had food delivered to our door twice per day (lunch, and then dinner, which included breakfast). (As an entertaining interlude during the solitary hours in the hotel room, the dining hall staff forgot to deliver my lunch on the second day initially. My friends and I collaborated to solve the mystery of the missing meal. In the end, fortunately, I was timely fed.) A fellow Smith by Smithies blogger posted about quarantine food in more detail, which you can read here.
Moving into Chapin House
Drawn towards its central-campus location, the prospects of getting a room with a view of the Paradise Pond (that is sadly not as “beautiful” on the inside), and the excitement of trying different houses and experiencing a new community, I decided to move to Chapin House. Although I did not get my dream room with a south-facing window and a view of the pond, I like my current spacious, sunny dingle (i.e., a double occupancy single room. It is another pandemic special! See below the picture of my room freshly taken today.) I was one of the first three residents to move in. It was oddly quiet the first week, but now with more people moving in, the rooms are being filled slowly and it starts to feel more like a real house!
J-term Latin class: Asinus Aureus
This interterm I am taking LAT 212: Intro to Latin Prose and Poetry with Professor Scott Bradbury. It is a small class of only 9 students, and we meet for 75 minutes each day, five days a week. The course title may be a bit misleading, since we are reading a novel in class: The Golden Ass (or, in a less catchy translation, the Metamorphoses of Apuleius). The story centers around the protagonist Lucius, who is turned into a donkey, hence the title. The Golden Ass is the only ancient Roman novel in Latin to survive in its entirety.
In LAT 212, besides reading the novel in English and doing grammar exercises, we are guided to read and translate the story of Cupid and Psyche in Latin. Cupid and Psyche is perhaps the most famous story in The Golden Ass, which some speculated that the fairytale of the Beauty and the Beast echos. I enjoyed reading the captivating tale of two lovers in a language that is considered "dead" yet very alive in our vocabulary today. Amor vincit omnia!
