by Morgan Yang
It was with slight trepidation that I embarked on my study of Ancient Greek, for unlike my fellow students, I’ve never studied any ancient language before, not even Latin, but it didn’t take long for me to realize that my fears were misplaced.
Within the warm embrace of the JV team, I started from my alpha beta gammas and slowly moved up to face the many faces of the complex beast, also known as GRAMMAR. It was surprising to see how much progress we had made, from the illiterate ‘this is all Greek to me’ phase to the ‘this is still Greek but I can translate everything I know about it’ phase. Certainly, it would be foolish to think that three weeks and seven units of Hansen and Quinn are sufficient for a beginner to fully grasp a language, but I think the vital thing that we’re learning here is how a language works and how to study it, and that in itself is singularly precious experience.
One thing I really loved was how our activities and studies were scheduled intermittently so that every day we had something to look forward to. Whether it was a shopping trip near Aristotelous Square (with grumpy Aris sulking in his chair), a class on Greek cooking, a visit to an archaeological museum or even just an afternoon hanging out by the seaside, listening to the waves lapping and feeling the sea breeze against your cheek, everything was new and exciting and quite marvelous.
So, in the end, I’d like to thank the Calder family, for making all this possible; I’d like to thank my teachers, Sarah and Collomia, for being amazing people and dealing out their wisdom and insights by the bucketful; I’d like to thank my classmates on this trip who were all awesome friends; and I’d like to thank Victoria, Stamatis and Tryfon, for looking after us and guiding us on our trip. I didn’t know what to expect when I came; I certainly did not expect these three weeks to be some of the best in my life when I left. I will definitely be back someday, Calder Classics; you sure haven’t heard the last from me yet (unsubtle wink).