Welcome back everyone!

I was truly very happy to see everyone in class yesterday, the perfect antidote to the beginning of the semester blahs that haunt me for the past decade. Coming back from Greece after X-mas is always hard, since my mind has to flip the language-switch in less than 24 hrs (I always come back at the 11th hour...) on top of the accursed jet-lag. But this year I knew I was coming back to a school and a town that I love, and to you all, so that made the transition *much* easier. Thank you all for sticking with Latin---I promise you magic days (and nights!) of intense study ahead....this is an orange tree at our farmhouse in Crete, a tree that my father asked me to plant in 1997, the year I came to the states for grad school (can you see my daughter sitting under the tree in the first pic?). Seeing this tree bear fruit in the middle of the winter strikes me as a very apt metaphor of both my own adventures in this terra aliena and of our common goals for Latin. We are half way done with the year, and in the mild winter of the orange state we continue to bear the fruits of Latin...I know you will all do your best this semester, both the 'old' ones and the 'new' ones, and, once you do so, you will be satisfied with the results of your labors. I promise you that I will be helping you every step of the way to catch up and to expand your knowledge of the most fascinating language ever created by man (can you tell that I am in a MOOD?!)

Vestra,

EM.