It's not hard to dream.

Last night my dreams were crowded.

I remember thinking about things like eponymous archons and Alcmaeonids.

My subconscious could not, for the life of it, remember who Miltiades was.

My consciousness however, remembered very well in the morning that Miltiades was an Athenian leader who thought that the hoplite land army, not the navy, was the key to beat the Persians in the first Persian invasion in 490 BCE. He was largely credited with the victory at the Battle of Marathon in East Attica. In 489 BCE he lead an attack against the island of Palos to punish them for siding with the Persians, which was an embarrassing defeat for him and for Athens. Miltiades was wounded and fined by the Athenian government for his failure. He died of his injuries and his son Cimon was forced to repay his debt to Athens.

My head is crowded with Greek names and dates. Too many names that are long and somewhat similar, or at least they get confused in my head. Like Aristagorus and Archilochus,  or Pesistratus, Pausanius, and Parmenides. And too many greek terms, like pentakosiomedimnoi and seisachtheia.

Athenian history is a giant web of tyrannies, archons, conspiracy, exile, conflicting political leaders, ostracism, reforms, treason, and wars.

The sidewalks are watching me think about you.

I am still sick.

But things are not all bad.

Some very nice things happened today.

I am looking earnestly to the end of this week.

By the end of Wednesday I will be a fount of Greek knowledge.

By the end of Saturday I will be able to give you a good argument on whether or not we can with any accuracy interpret venus figurines.

I am far too excited about things that are much too far in the future.

I am becoming more dedicated to important things.

I am working to establish my priorities.

I am trying to be focused.

Take two.

Chris Epplett has done it again.

Another 50 minutes of class with my full attention.

Actually, this time I didn't even attempt to look at the clock. He was lecturing, and then he said, "and to conclude today's class.." and I was like, "Whaaaat?"

And I looked, and the class was over. Apparently I really dig the Persian wars. We are done learning about them now, so perhaps my this will be my last fully attentive class.

I just made applesauce from apples from the apple tree at my parents house. And, the homemade vanilla ice cream is almost done. It is going to be a delicious evening.

This could really be a good life.

Today I had an interesting experience.

I was sitting in History class and when I looked at the clock to see how much longer the class was, usually I start looking at the clock within 20 minutes of the start of class, and after that, time drags terribly slowly for the rest of the class. Anyways, when I looked at the clock, the class was over. Completely over. That has never happened before. Sometimes I try to hold out on looking at the clock and make it until maybe ten minutes before the class ends, but time still goes by slowly because I am purposely not looking at the time. Turns out the Persian wars are interesting enough to engage me for a full 50 minutes.

We learned about the Battle of Marathon. 

Here is a cool little animation of the battle.

Phase 1. The Persians push back the Greek center rank. But the Greek flanks push through and force the Persian flanks to retreat

Phase 2. The Greek flanks reform and the Greeks now attack the Persians from both sides. The Persians give up and run like heck for their boats while the Greeks follow killing as many as possible.

Now I have to kill another half an hour in the library. Then it is group project time.

Then it is the weekend. :)

I am looking forward to a weekend where I don't have to drive anywhere out of town.

I plan to sleep. And do some homework. And when I am not doing those things I might just do nothing.

And maybe today I will got to Chapters because they are having a sale and I like books.

I am starting to see significant improvements in my strength and in my bouldering skills. This is encouraging.