Prima Nocte

Here is where I begin, prima nocte--during the first night.

I have to admit, I've never blogged before. I'm a little girl, age eighteen, and I'm starting this blog as a place to explore all the things that I'm not allowed to talk about other places, like speaking foreign languages and falling in love with the unpopular crowd and all the other messy parts of figuring out who I am.

I called this blog "Estne Illa Amata?" with a question mark, because in a lot of ways that one little sentence encapsulates a lot of what I've been asking myself lately. Estne illa amata? It means, "Is she loved?"

The "she" in question changes sometimes. Sometimes I'm referring to myself, other times to a friend. Sometimes I'm asking what love is, and how to define my own feelings. Sometimes I look at big questions in the world, and I ask, "Does this show love to the people who need it?" And sometimes it's just me being rebellious enough that I insist on studying the language I love, classical Latin, rather than limiting myself to what I'm allowed to learn.

About Latin... sometimes, I might use this blog to practice my linguistic skills. In accordance with the conventions we used in my Latin 2 and 4 classes, and for the sake of readability, I'm going to be using English spacing and capitalization, but I just can't bring myself to render the consonantal I as a J. Hence my screen name, Iuliana Amata. I'm a little ambivalent about whether or not the vocalic V should be rendered as a U, but since I seem to have already started doing it I might as well keep going. This may change at some point.

I call myself Iuliana Amata, "Juliana is loved." Amata, is-loved, not Amanda, must-be-loved. I have enough experience on the Internet that I do not expect that everyone who reads this will like me or agree with me. I do, however, expect, and I will enforce, common courtesy. That means no wanton insults, little to no profane language, and considering before you say anything that there is a real human being on the other end of the connection.

Thank you for reading.