11/30: candy now on hand

Learning ancient Greek is hard, and in order to explain to my students the level of difficulty (and the level of necessary commitment) I've taken to using athletic analogies. For instance, I've described learning Greek as the equivalent of a long canoe trip upstream, a 100-mile run, or a climb up a mountain. I think the analogies usefully convey the importance of determination, persistence, and training. My Greek students and I are now heading into our last week together, after 3 semesters in one another's company. Today I received from England some candy that I wanted to share with them, and it arrived just (and barely) in time: it's Kendal Mint Cake, the candy carried by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay when they climbed Mt. Everest in 1953. I'm so excited that we'll be able to nibble the candy as we sit on our own summit, reading Plato together for the last time on Wednesday!