Wednesday, March 13, 2013

The World Grows Smaller

I don't remember seeing much on line about the last papal conclave.  But today, I got back from my last class of the day, looked at effbee, and saw that someone had posted that there was a new pope, pulled up the BBC website, and saw the live announcement.

It's amazing, isn't it, that I could watch that from halfway around the world, with as much ease as anything.

I have the same sense of awe when I watch a bike race streaming (I pay for a subscription thingy).

Okay, back to grading.

(One last thing:  I was surprised that I could sort of make out the basics of the Latin.  And I liked that he spoke in Italian.  That seemed friendly and pastoral, and I mean pastoral in a positive sense.  And, I could get some of the Italian, too.  Is that from a summer spent learning to read Italian, or from listening to bike races in Italian?)

1 comment:

  1. It IS amazing. We have so many solutions and options at our fingertips!

    For instance, after your comment yesterday about Paradise Lost and Frankenstein, I started thinking that I really wished I had time to read PL alongside Frankenstein. But I just don't because of all the BS stuff I need to do like laundry, dishes, cleaning, etc., on top of my grading and reading. Then, I realized I could listen to an audio book of PL while cleaning, and TA-DA! Problem solved. I've listened to book 1 and 2, and I'm loving it.

    When I was younger it might have been possible to go to a public library and get a book on tape of Paradise Lost, but then again, I'm not sure how many libraries would have had it. Now, I can Google "audio book Paradise Lost" and have it almost instantaneously. Amazing.

    I know that I still need to sit down with the book at some point and annotate and really puzzle over the words, but for now, this is a very good solution for me. "Extra reading" is definitely a summer-time activity at this point.

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