Latin: Still A Language of Communication
Jade Woods, NJCL Editor
I was sitting in a college interview. I was incredibly
nervous, and my hands might have been shaking a little. About
halfway through, my interviewer asked about the
extracurricular activities I most enjoyed. “I know this one!”
I thought excitedly. I jumped into my elevator-pitch
explanation of our marvelous organization and my involvement
in it. I was only a few seconds into my description when my
questioner interrupted me and asked if I was describing the
JCL; in fact, she had been a JCLer herself! All at once my
anxiety evaporated. Here was someone, 30 years my senior and
from a different state, who was sharing in my enthusiasm
about Olympika and Certamen and Latin Oratory. We
exhausted several JCL-related topics and then turned to a
discussion of Latin itself, lamenting the memorization of
declension charts and verb endings and discussing how to find
elusive verbs. After making friends from across the nation over
my past three years in JCL, this serendipitous connection
should not have come as a surprise, but it did nevertheless.
40