December in Pictures

(unfortunately I have no pics of Midnight Mass at Holy Hill which was absolutely incredible)

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Latin Convention results!

Well, here is the complete list of our team's results from our Latin weekend (in case it seemed like we spent all our time jumping around screaming):

1st Place Team Spirit for Small Schools
1st. Place Team Spirit for Friday morning
1st Place Team War machine contest (with help from Coyote's dad.)
1st Place N.G. (The only guy on our team) Costume Contest
1st. Place GilbertGirl Mythology test (Hurray, GilbertGirl!!!!!!! Although I can't say it's too much of a shock knowing her:)
2nd Place Coyote Costume Contest (it included two additional "heads" since Hecate, the required costume for girls, is often pictures as looking three ways and a very cool looking sign post, used as a staff, since Hecate is the godess of the crossroads.)
2nd Place Team Spirit for Friday afternoon
3rd Place GilbertGirl Poster (That which was pictured in my post on the Roman party.)
3rd Place N.G. Greek History
3rd Place N.G. Latin Lit
3rd Place N.G. Latin Vocab
4th Place Me Latin Derivatives
4th Place N.G. Latin Derivatives
5th Place GilbertGirl Pentathelon
5th Place N.G. Greek Derivatives
Hon Ment. Girls Door Contest

Well it was a ton of fun, I think we did pretty well and I definitely plan to go next year.

Salvete Omnes!!!!!!!

I just got back from WJCL (Wisconsin Junior Classical League) Latin Convention!!!!!!! It was A LOT of fun. It was not by any means restricted to written tests, oral tests etc., etc., etc, there was a costume contest, a war machines contest (tin foil only in the actual ship), an impromptu art, memorized oratory, impromptu oratory, art contests of almost all types, certamen (a bit like latin jeopardy), a t-shirt contest and spirit competition. Spirit includes a door decoration contest, a humorous roll call skit and the actual spirit competition. The spirit competition involves standing (or jumping, dancing... if you're sitting you're probably not going to do very well) in a large room and screaming at the top of your lungs (believe me you have to, to be heard) cheers, chants... whatever you want to do to represent your school. Smiles and similar outfits are also key. The point of this competition is to prove that latin is not a dead language, and if you ever go to a latin convention and watch (or participate in) spirit any thoughts of latin being dead will soon leave your mind. The volume is unbelievable, 450 some students all yelling at the top of their lungs makes for quite a bit of noise.

So this was my first year but our homeschool group has sent groups for several years now. We were the smallest delegation, 4 students compared to the next smallest with 9. But we did pretty well, our war machine held 17 dollars worth of pennies meriting 1st place for us in that contest!!!!!! We took first place in the spirit contest for the small school category!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Our spirit included cheese heads, crazy hair and wigs (including a really long braid worn by the one guy on our team) impromptu togas, dancing around the table screaming "My cheese it has three corners, three corners has my cheese, and had it not three corners, it would not be my cheese!!!!!!!!!" and yelling chants like carpe caseum (seize the cheese), Julius Cheeser and carpe diem (sieze the day). Oh BTW, all the cheese elements are due to the theme of that day "Seize the Cheese" (the overall theme was carpe diem).
This is starting to get to be a really long post, I will continue later (maybe:). Oh and the picture is of our team in front of the capitol in Madison.

P.S. This blog has been really inactive lately, sorry.

A Roman Holiday Party

Yesterday we had a Christmas party with the Dead Language Latin Club, a homeschool club for Latin students. It was a costume party and I will call each person by the name of their character. (I by the way was Clio, the muse of History. After all I'm the history girl!) It was such a fun party even surpassing this event."Calliope", "Euterpe" and "Julius Caesar" came early to help finish preperations. We all got dressed in our Roman costumes and Calliope did my hair. Then came the other guests. First came Maximus, Marcus, and Octavious bearing a ham carved as a boar's head. The other guests soon began to stream in, Mecurius and Diana, a Caesar whose name switched several times, Caridoc and Osric (Picts complete with face paint) and Minerva 2 (my mom already bore that name). Then after a prayer, a song and several games of Mancala we began the feast. It looked and tasted amazing. After we were almost done our latecomers arrived, Venus 2 (Terri was also so named) and two ordinary Roman citizens. We took group pictures and had our Costume contest. Osric won the boy's contest, with Mecurius as runner-up. And Diana won the girls contest. Then came the skits, two teams acting out a story each from the Aenead (we do similar contests at all meetings, but not all from the Aenead.) My group had The Journey to the Underworld. Wherein Aeneas (acted by Octavious who conveniently had a sword) asks the cumean sibyl (played by me) how to visit his father, Anchises. She instructs him to take the golden bough (played by Calliope, frequently bowing). They must also bury their dead comrade ( Gus played this, BTW his assumed name for the party was Augustus, a soldier). In the underworld he meets the suicidal queen Dido (excellently portrayed by Diana) covered in orange paper flames, and his father Anchises (Marcus). All this was narrated by Osric who began the skit with the 20th centure fox trumoet call. Terri also appeared as the ship which carried Aeneas and co. to the sibyl, with a carven front of course. The other team had the story of the settling in Italy. But I don't know all the details. Can someone fill me in? After this we did the Pinata, filled with chocolate coins. Then it was four and time for the party to be over. Some had to leave, but a number stayed for a while after and chatted. Then finally everyone was gone and the party was over.... but we still have leftovers... (:

Co-op adventures

We had a rather unusual co-op today. Our normal co-op is getting together with several other homeschool families, singing and Latin classes. The classes usually consist of checking our homework going over new concepts and those sorts of things. But this time was different.
After singing which I loved (we did Easter songs, one with two parts and one with four) we got the awards for the National Latin Exam. I got 35 out of 40 right in the test for which I received a Maxima Cum Laude and a silver medal. I was tied in this score with two others but Adriana alone out of our co-op recieved a gold medal and a Summa Cum Laude for a score of 36 our 40.
After that the three oldest Latin classes got together and we played Charades with scenes from Roman history and mythology. We split into two teams and each team wrote down seven scenes from Roman history of mythology and our team together acted it out for the other team to guess.
Our team did:
Attila the Hun
We split into two groups one at the top looking barbianish the other at the bottom looking Romanish. The barbarians ran down the hill and the Romans ran.
They didn't guess it so then we made a Roman arch one of us was Attila and another was the pope. The two started arguing and then the other team finally guessed it.
The Crossing of the Rubicon
Since I was wearing all blue I lay on the ground as the river Rubicon and everyone else was the army. After some hesitation they crossed.
Hadrian's Wall
Most of us stood right next to each other one paced behind us and another ran against the wall trying to break it finally he did and there was 400 years of history covered in 30 seconds.
The Seven Hills of Rome
There were only six of us on the team so we recruited a younger sibling and all sat down on the grass. It didn't take them toolong to guess it.
Bellepheron
Most of us were the dragon and then Gus rid on the shoulders of a team mate and came and killed the dragon.
A Chariot Race
We split into two groups (Girls vs. Boys) with two in front as horses and one in back as the driver. The girls won!
Hannibal Crosses the Alps
We had three people as soldiers marching and two as servants dragging an ''elephant'' with them.

I do not have enough time to post on their acting now but perhaps I can in the near future.
Anyways it was all quite hilarious and everyone had a great time