between the rock and the cold, cold sea

So last week I spent three evenings attending this year's Stanford Memorial Lectures, given by Myles Lavan on the topic of enfranchisement in the Roman empire. I feel as though I ought to have something to say about Lavan's work - he was explaining his approach to calculating the extent of citizenship prior to the grant of Caracalla in 212CE, using probabalistic modelling and other tools from the field of science and economics - but although I enjoyed listening to his lectures, I really don't. My brain is not yet recovered enough to go coursing after hares.

It is recovered enough, just about, to start brushing up on my languages. Thanks to RFI, I have a bunch of resources for French, and I've gone back to the beginning with my Greek textbook. I'm a fairly desultory student of languages, at best, but I can try for a little effort.

So. That is the news with me.

Alors, j'ai finit le livre de Patrick Modiano, Le chien de printemps. Maintenant je ne peux pas éprouver -

- No, I will stop talking French.

Literature makes my head hurt.

In the good news section, however, there is a small - very tiny - possibilty that I might be able to get involved in freelance journalism. I am currently sitting on my hopes, but the (tiny, tiny) possibility is there. It's something I've always wanted to do, so - good news!

Which helps damp out the less good news that I have two weeks to do three - no, four - assignments. Add in self-assigned work, and that bumps the total up to seven or eight: about 12,000 words. Not including research.

Sigh. Off to do work.

ETA: This does not include self-assigned work on That Novel, either. Can we institute 36-hour days now, please?