I am Nichole, a tenth-grade student at Groton School. I have studied Latin for two years and am currently reading Virgil’s Aeneid in a structured classroom setting.

What initially drew me to Latin was not mythology itself, but the way the language demands to be read. Latin forces me to slow down. Word order, inflection, and grammatical case all shift the center of meaning. Often, I have to return to a sentence repeatedly, reassemble it, and reconsider its structure before I can truly understand what it is saying. For me, this process is both difficult and deeply rewarding—because understanding does not arrive all at once, but gradually, through sustained effort.

As I read the Aeneid, I found myself increasingly drawn to questions that are not overtly “grand,” yet recur throughout the text. How does a person who is forced into exile understand their identity? Why do women so often become the bearers of cost and consequence within narrative? Is fate truly unavoidable, or does human choice still exist within it? And does the founding of civilization inevitably involve violence and sacrifice?

These questions do not offer clear answers. Many times, I am not even certain that I have understood the text correctly. Yet it is precisely this uncertainty that compels me to keep reading. I began to realize that classical texts are not closed worlds with fixed meanings, but intellectual spaces that invite continual reinterpretation.

With guidance from my teacher, I started to think across text and material culture. Through close reading alongside archaeological objects, my understanding of the ancient world shifted. When I encountered real artifacts—objects that were carried, preserved, and used—the figures and situations described in the text no longer felt purely abstract. They became more concrete, more physical, and closer to lived experience. At that moment, I realized that Classics does not exist solely on the page; it also exists in the material world.

Aurelia gradually emerged from this process of learning. For me, it is not a completed project, nor is it a commercial brand. It is a method of recording. Through design, I attempt to temporarily give form to my reading, interpretations, and questions at a particular stage of my learning—as a response to text, to objects, and to the contemporary world.

These designs do not represent conclusions. They are traces left along the way.

I do not expect to have clarity at this stage. For me, honestly recording a learning process that is still unfolding already feels meaningful in itself.