I probably should have seen this coming

[bedlamsbard]

Non-classics/ancient history people do not realize that classics types take Homer very seriously. Minnesota is flipping through channels looking for college football games and I catch a flash of Troy and say, "Go back, go back! ...oh, it's the part where Achilles kills Hektor, carry on." And Maryland makes some crack -- I don't know exactly what it was, but my response was, "Hektor is so much more awesome than Achilles, Achilles was a dick!"

"Wait, I thought it was the other way around!" she says, sounding serious, and I cheer up and start to explain why Hektor is so much better than Achilles (though no one is more awesome than Odysseus, omg), but she cuts me off and says flippantly, "Oh, I don't actually know what we're talking about, or care."

Which ends in me blinking and going, "This is actually the kind of conversation I'm used to having seriously with people outside of class," which means the two business school girls give me The Look. You know the look: the look of someone with an eminently practical degree confronted with a liberal arts major. That look of, "You cannot be for real. What do you plan to do with your life?"

P.S. Hektor is totally more awesome than Achilles; Achilles was an ass. Y'all are lucky I'm still spelling Achilles "Achilles" instead of "Akhilles" or "Achilleus"; goddamn translations, man. I wish they'd standardize the spelling; it took me far too long to figure out that Aias in the Lattimore translation is Ajax most other places.

Comments

[isweedan]

#teamArgos

[bedlamsbard]

See, this is funny in light of the fact that in my Peloponnesian & Punic Wars seminar, Argos's epic fail as a military power is a running joke.

...unless we're talking about Argos the dog. Or Argos the ship-builder.

[isweedan]

Argos the dog. Because seriously. Emotional scene leik whoa.

[bedlamsbard]

ARGOS. *weeps* Argos and Odysseus!

[sara]

That look of, "You cannot be for real. What do you plan to do with your life?"

"Useful things."

(Although I would advise getting some business training, because it is really handy. Being able to reconcile the accounts while discussing the relative awesomenesses of Homeric heroes is useful.)

[bedlamsbard]

My B-school girls appear to be the eminently practical type, although one of them has put aside writing her honors thesis in favor of taking some art classes in her last year of school. Although, on the other hand, eminently practical; they're in the five-year program and are graduating this year with a Master's of Accounting.

*dramatic sigh* Kids these days! Need more classical training!

[sara]

Well, there's a lot you can do with a master's in accounting.

Mind you, I tried to make myself take accounting last year and ended up signing up for courses in a dead language instead, so. *sigh*

[bedlamsbard]

This is true. I think both of them already have jobs lined up for when they graduate, so -- very much eminently practical.

But dead languages are so much fun!

[ilyena_sylph]

I know the look very well.

I got it in the campus McDonalds the other day when I was geeking out with a friend of mine over this one basilica in France (Basilique de St-Martin at Tours) that has a totally crazy history.

[bedlamsbard]

Eminently practical types are very -- well. Eminently practical. They ae usually the ones who don't like history because it's boring and full of names, places, and people killing each other. (How is that boring, I ask? One of my roommates is convinced that it is, and also convinced that that is all historians study. *facepalm*)

Oooh! *goes to look up*

[be_themoon]

I love Hektor! he was WAY awesomer than Achilles, most definitely.

[bedlamsbard]

Definitely, definitely. *dramatic sigh*

[lunarwolfik]

That look of, "You cannot be for real. What do you plan to do with your life?"

Do awesome fun things that don't involve being bored in a cubicle but rather buried under ancient texts, that's what!

Hektor > Achilles times a hundred.

[bedlamsbard]

Strangely, some people don't find ancient texts very interesting, no idea why. *is very sad*

[rahirah]

Anyone claiming Achilles was awesome is dead to me. O_o

[bedlamsbard]

I was getting all geared up to argue with her about it, too!

[toujours_nigel]

HEKTORRRRRRRR

erm. not that Akhilleus isn't my absolute, stubbornly heartbreaking favourite.

but Hektor is actually awesomer to a power of infinity.

[bedlamsbard]

Hektor is actually a decent human being! Which I feel is always a plus.

However, my heart is given to Odysseus, forever and ever and ever.