Well, my annual "gift season" is all wrapped up, as it were. (This includes Christmas and my birthday.) I was amazed at the number of gifts under our tree this year. Then I realized that whereas the gifts are usually under the tree, this year they were all around the tree, giving the appearance of abundance. However, I think there were more gifts there than we've had before. Granted, we had one more person than normal, and John and Cassie had multiple gifts for each other.
Most importantly, this was the first time in my twenty years that I had seen anything remotely resembling a White Christmas. It snowed all morning on Wednesday, covering everything, which was just amazing. After that, the temperature didn't get above the freezing point except for an hour or so on Christmas Eve. So, when I woke up Christmas morning, there was still snow covering the grass. It was awesome. My mom, however, read on Yahoo! News that Victoria, TX (about an hour north of Corpus Christi) received almost a foot of snow Christmas Eve night. The last time Victoria had measureable snow was 1973 with a tenth of an inch. The last time it had a White Christmas was 1918 or so with a tenth of an inch of snow. Incredible.
My Christmas and birthday gifts are not especially special. They range from books (like a three-volume set of Euclid's Elements, Hackers and Painters by Paul Graham, and Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas R. Hofstadter) and CDs (all indie music from CDbaby.com; mostly classical or neo-classical, one with Latin hymns, two with Eastern Orthodox hymns sung by the Kiev Seminary Choir, and one electronic, i.e. not quite techno), two more of my crazy T-shirts, and, from my brother and sister-in-law, two "Premium Modules" for Neverwinter Nights. Those are a lot of fun.
I've read the 150-page introduction to Euclid thus far, and have I came upon the realization that I should probably learn several foreign languages. Many of the footnotes are in Greek, which I can at least sound out; I'm picking some vocabulary up slowly. However, Latin was the language of math for most of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, followed by French for a little while in the 17th and 18th centuries, followed by German in the 18th and 19th centuries. Fortunately for me, English has been the standard in the 20th and 21st centuries. I feel like a four-year old, learning to read all over again. Except this time, I can't ask my parents what it all means, and they can't explain it in words I understand. For example, I'm trying to figure out exactly what oti means. In one place, it's used in a question as "because" or "why," and in another it simply states existence (oti esti, "that a thing (is)"). Clearly, I can make the connection between these two definitions, and have a rough idea of what oti means, but I'm sure there are other ways the word can be used. Estin is another one that keeps popping up. In that form (which I think is plural), it usually means "things," from what I can tell.
One final example of my frustrations. An page 14, the author is trying to explain the vague definition of "porism" (roughly equivalent to a corollary). He says, "Simson defined a porism thus: 'Porisma est propositio ... [five lines of Latin] ... descriptam.'" Fortunately, there is a footnote at the end of this. The footnote reads, "This was thus expressed by Chasles: 'Le porisme est une... [five lines of French] ... la proposition.'" The following paragraph, he gives a similar (Latin) definition of "locus." He fails to translate any of this. *sigh* Ah, well.
I suppose that's enough for now. I'm off to play Neverwinter Nights or read or something. Just imagine me sitting by the fireplace in a big comfy chair, looking all erudite and scholarly as I pore over a huge leather-bound tome. Meanwhile, I'll be sitting at my computer playing games.
Posted by Gallagher at December 30, 2004 09:48 AM