The Etheral Ambitions List

Rebecca and I met at the tail-end of our senior year and forged a fast friendship over books and thoughts and dissertations. We arranged to read Virgil together and, alternatingly, translate ten lines each week. We've begun with Book IV with the ever fascinating Dido. Dido's passions and fears, anxieties, impulses, and (intentional?) misperceptions intrigue me. Rebecca recommended C. Pharr's edition of Virgil and it has been wonderful, and I highly recommend it to anyone who remotely thinks in Latin. I often find it difficult to motivate myself toward intellectual aspirations that seem... otiose. Yet each week, I find myself facing my fear of translating something daunting, and I'm absolutely awful at it, but I like that this gives me the opportunity to improve at something I'd normally not bother, or put it on the etheral ambitions-list. You know, the one that begins with, learn 7 seven languages, drink tibetan butter tea, row the atlantic in a pontoon...

http://www.amazon.com/Vergils-Aeneid-Books-Latin-English/dp/0865164215