swordmage: (Default)
Willa ([personal profile] swordmage) wrote2004-09-14 08:27 pm

So let's see... We've got Ethics/World Religions, Tolkien, and Old English

First Ethics class was interesting. Sort of. I think I'll enjoy it.

But I had English before it. And my teacher is just plain awesome. He speaks Old/Middle English, and his teacher was taught by Tolkien. Which I think is just plain cool. Overall, Bonin's a pretty neat guy, and that class is going to be fun.

He told us this little bit of information today when translating some English from about 450 AD. He had put some runes on the board and someone mentioned they looked like something out of The Lord of the Rings. So he mentioned that the Jesuit who taught him had studied at Oxford under Tolkien.

Needless to say, I was impressed. Though many were probably taught by Tolkien, that fact doesn't diminish the neat-o factor.

And Old English sounds really cool.

[identity profile] inkpuddle.livejournal.com 2004-09-14 05:53 pm (UTC)(link)
Old English does sound really cool. It's offered at my college, and I'm determined to take it. :D I heard a little bit from one of my Brit Lit teachers last semester, and I love it. I had the almost irrepressible urge to learn it immediately and go out and buy Seamus Heaney's Beowulf with the Old English on one side and the regular English on the other.

I think I just totally butchered his name.

And I don't care how many people were taught by Tolkein--having one for your very own is very cool. :D

[identity profile] swordmage.livejournal.com 2004-09-16 06:40 am (UTC)(link)
Seamus Heaney's translation is very good. I read it freshman year and liked it very much.

my mom's sourdough starter was named grendel after a character in it.

[identity profile] zinjadu.livejournal.com 2004-09-15 01:31 pm (UTC)(link)
Now, I'm jealous. Stupid public schools. But that's so cool for you and now that I'm in ye olde college, and have had a chance to hear Old English, I agree. I love hearing it. ^_^

[identity profile] swordmage.livejournal.com 2004-09-16 06:39 am (UTC)(link)
It's a very cool language.

We're reading the original Beowulf today.

*dances*