The Animal Instinct

Suddenly something has happened to me
As I was having my cup of tea
Suddenly I was feeling depressed
I was utterly and totally stressed
Do you know you made me cry
Do you know you made me die

And the thing that gets to me
Is you'll never really see
And the thing that freaks me out
Is I'll always be in doubt
It's just a lovely thing that we have
It's just lovely thing that we
It's just a lovely thing, the animal...
The animal instinct

So take my hands and come with me
We will change reality
So take my hands and we will pray

The animal, the animal,
The animal instinct in me
Its the animal, the animal,
The animal instinct in me
Its the animal, its the animal,
Its the animal instinct in me x2

- Cranberries

Decay, Sweet as Cinnamon

I love the smell of fall leaves. So much so that, although I'm startled by the presence of such a smell, premature as it seems in this heat, I can't resist... I lean down to scoop some of the golden leaves that line the walk to the rec center. I hold them in the palm of my hand, and I breathe in deep, inhaling their scent.

It's a rich smell. Of the earth. Like smells have a tendency to do, it tugs at me inside and pulls me back to a thousand fading memories. They linger.

Mayumi thinks it smells like insects. But she's lived her whole life in the city, she can't understand the appeal of such earthy natural scents. I had a glimpse of that myself in Finland, where they worship smells such as tar and smoke. But at least here we have cedar, and some of us have the smell of leaves.

Jorge thinks it smells like rotting leaves. He's closer to the truth, I suspect. The leaves were green a week ago, after all, and now they're golden, and darkening...

But sometimes the smell of decay is the sweetest smell. He admits that the scent is a bit spicy. Myself, I think they've entombed it in pumpkin pie, mixed with a healthy dose of sugar. Laughing, I loosen my grip and let the pace of the walk, and the wind, pull each leaf from my hand.

Decay. Yes. He had the right of it. It's Autumn, though, and such a scent is nothing if not natural. There's no reason not to embrace it.

Top 25 Most Played

This is basically what I've listened to the most in the last month... because my laptop Itunes is new... :)

Stenristerna
Praan
Linger
The River
Ariadiamus
Todella Kaunis
May It Be
Nú Brennur Tú I Maer
Mies Eikä Poika Enää
Perfekte Welle
Zombie
Let's Make Love
Amaranth
Out of My Element
Red Soup
Bendik og Årolilja
Idyll
Oceano
Green Grow The Rushes Oh
O Onda
Kuolema Tekee Taiteilijan
Pahempi Toistaan
Desert Rose
The Rising
The World Outside My Window

I like the list. ^^ There are a few nice, vocal-intensive and just generally inspiring beautiful pieces. (Stenristerna, Praan, Oceano...), a few metal pieces (Bendik og Årolilja, Pahempi Toistaan, Amaranth...), a few mainstream thingies (Linger, Out of My Element... maybe Desert Rose?), a few folksy pieces (The World Outside My Window, Let's Make Love, Green Grow the Rushes Oh - and note that a few Dixie Chicks songs barely missed the list), a bit of Springsteen, one instrumental (Red Soup), and of course the goddamn foreign stuff (Nú Brennur Tú I Maer,
Mies Eikä Poika Enää, Idyll, etc) It's fairly reflective of my musical interests. :D

Weekend

Todd passed the Bar, yay! We all went to his ceremony yesterday. There was some confusion, though, because they didn't keep track of those who had preregistered, and they kept telling my parents (who came later) that Todd hadn't registered, hadn't registered... they freaked out and thought that we had all died in a car accident. It was really foggy that morning, and it's eerily true that a car could have gone over the bridge and vanished in the river and no one would have ever noticed. The thought had actually gone through my mind as well as I waited for them and they were some 2 hours late. :S But perhaps I'm better at dealing with this particular kind of stress... I just told myself that it was one possibility out of a dozen, so I put it more or less otu of my mind.

In Other News...

My nausea and indecision have largely vanished. Now I have a nice long weekend and I've things to do. I have to interview Jorge for Spanish, catch up on my Anthro readings, do the Geography assignment, do laundry, buy socks, and I'd really like to cook Greek Chicken at some point, too. :D I feel cozy and warm. We're all really getting settled into this college life thing.

First Leaves Falling

It's still hot. It's really still too hot for such things as falling leaves and talk of homecoming. But here we are. Before the Geography exam Clint and I ran after Peter joking about the Blow and Suck Theory (Oh, that dirty Geography professor!) and I felt the leaves crush under my feet, and the warm wind against my arms. Ah, Vertigo...

The season is turning and it feels strange.

The Simplicity of University

So far it's going well. Almost too well. Suspiciously well. Why is it easier than high school? :P I aced my Anthropology Exam, and I suspect I did well on the Geography exam as well. And today I was bit worried about taking an essay test (Psychology)... and an honors one at that, but it went by rather painlessly. Hmm....

I'm discontent, though. I need to do something. Something needs to happen, in some direction, any direction. Because I have a growing sense of discontent... :( And this ease isn't helping any, either.

A Certain Sensitivity

I had strange dreams. And...

I woke up this morning pregnant with emotion. I don't know if it's only that I'm finally changing direction and it's only the inertia in my heart reacting to it, or what. Mayumi thinks I'm sick, but I'm not... it's just that, talking to you... it makes something inside of me tremble. I don't quite feel nauseous but it's a strange feeling. I don't know why - it's been a long, long time since I was torn up with longing for you, but I guess the closest I can get to saying it is this...

I seem to have a certain sensitivity to you.

A Lively Debate with Peter

Peter: Sowna? Sowna?

Miranda: Yes. Sauna.

Peter: Don’t you mean Sawna?

Miranda: Okay, learn some Finnish before you start correcting my pronunciation, please.

Peter: Alright, I’ll learn Finnish as long as you learn all the Afrikaans loanwords. How do you pronounce the name of the famous system of racial segregation that was used in South Africa from 1948 until the mid nineties?

Miranda: I don’t speak Afrikaans

Peter: Well, I don’t speak Finnish

Laura: He has a point

Miranda: Not so, given the fact that I am not challenging his pronunciation, but rather he is challenging mine, when in fact the Oxford English Dictionary lists both pronunciations as correct, and I have a good reason to stick to mine as I prefer the original pronunciation of the people who invented the custom.

Tom: The Oxford English Dictionary does not qualify as an acceptable reference in Texas

Miranda: Unfortunately for Peter, his presence here does not make this Texas.

Peter: So? I could call the Texas State Rangers right now and they would drive up and shoot all of you.

Miranda: …. Okay! Well, Tabitha, please knock on my door before you go to the rec center. :D

The World is Waiting

So, apparently, this was supposed to be a half page blow off assignment. I didn't know.


The World is Waiting
Three Reasons to Study Abroad

In recent years it has been stated to exhaustion that knowledge of foreign cultures is particularly important to maximize the financial earnings of business dealings abroad as globalization speeds up. This point is not to be discarded. However, I would urge anyone who is considering studying abroad on such terms alone, or who has rejected the idea because such terms are not in his case applicable, to reconsider all of the positive effects that such an experience can have on a person’s life.
In the movie Pocahontas, the title character says, “If you walk the footsteps of a stranger, you’ll learn things you never knew you never knew.” This quote is very true about studying abroad. Students who study abroad overwhelmingly report that they gain a new and more global worldview, learn more about themselves, and develop as people; even as they increase their career skills and marketability.
Spending a good length of time in a foreign country, particularly as an ordinary inhabitant (in this case, a student) develops an undeniable connection with that place. A student who has studied abroad will carry their memories and experiences their whole lives. They will immediately be set apart from the stereotypical American who can hardly find his own country on the map – they will be able to find both of theirs. By spending time in a second culture, and often a second language, they have learned a lot about what is universal and what can vary across the world, and why.
If getting to know only one additional way of life was not enough, in most situations, students studying abroad have the opportunity to live with other foreign students, therefore immersing themselves not only in the culture of the host countries but of their new classmates as well. As they go through their daily lives in such an environment, they learn far more about these other countries and cultures than they ever would in a classroom.
Anyone who has ever had a close friend from another country knows how much even one personal relationship can reshape one’s mental map of the world. My experiences with foreigners both in America and abroad have put a face on Mexico, Chile, Iraq, Finland, China, Japan, Costa Rica, Norway, Iran, and many other countries; faces that help me to understand that the interactions between nations affect real people, whose hopes, dreams, and beliefs are not mindlessly and definitively altered by national boundary lines, but are unique to each individual the world over.
Ask most adults whether they studied abroad in college. Most will sigh wistfully as they admit, “I wish that I had.” Perhaps they have learned in the years since that such an experience would have broadened their horizons or helped them adapt to globalization. If you let them continue, however, they will speak of friends who did study abroad, and came back different. Studying abroad changes people, and, according to a survey from IES, overwhelmingly for the better.
The voluntary survey of students who studied abroad (including semester, year, and summer programs), reports that 96% of such students believed that the experience increased their self confidence, 97% believe that it served as a catalyst for increased maturity, and 95% believe it had a lasting impact on their world view. I can say from personal experience that even a shorter experience abroad can change your life.
When someone travels, they take a break from their ordinary routine, and their minds expand. In another place, they are so far removed from everything they know… including those things that held them back from reaching their full potential. . If you had asked me, from my safe St. Louis home or even from my comfy dorm room, how I would react to sitting in a room heated to 195 degrees, and then jumping into the fifty degree waters of the Baltic sea, or to being dropped off at a rural Norwegian house to wait six hours for a lady I had never met, or to taking a Costa Rican bus alone in a community with no addresses... I wouldn’t have been able to imagine it. But these things happened, I survived, and I grew.
Studying abroad affords many opportunities unknown to the average tourist. Another thing which differentiates the experience from common tourism is that it can also be immensely beneficial to the student’s career. Many interviewers for jobs are particularly interested in any time a student has spent abroad. This is because such an experience gives capable students the chance to flourish under unusual and often more difficult situations – a skill that is richly rewarded in most career tracks.
If the study abroad experience involves a language other than English, then it also serves as an excellent chance to become fluent in a second language. In today’s job market, applicants with more than one language are a top commodity. Learning a foreign language in your home university is certainly worth the effort, but your ability to use the language in normal situations and conversations will improve drastically if you give yourself the chance to be immersed in it.
It’s also worth mentioning that not only is the general study abroad experience extremely beneficial, but that valuable lessons can also be gleaned from the ordinary classes attended at the host university. Their way of teaching American history, for example, may give an aspiring journalist an entirely different perspective. And perhaps they will show a young artist a fresh new way of looking at the world.
Some students study abroad to learn valuable lessons about the world they live in. Others hope to find themselves in a place far away from home, or to increase their career prospects. I would suggest that any study abroad experience would inevitably incorporate all three of these legitimate motives. Regardless of their initial motives, all of them will have stories for a lifetime.

My Purse (Sad Story)

I got back to Laws today and realized that I didn't have my purse. O.O So I told my friends, and they told me to run back to see if I could find it. I was certain someone had stolen it, or almost worse, that I would have to barge into a huge lecture hall to try to find it. I ran all the way to Middlebush (a mile, more or less) to look for it. The lecture hall was empty ^^... and empty :O.

I ran about the building asking janitors, etc to email me if they found anything.

Then I went outside... and found Peter. Who had apparently run all the way after me in order to tell me that I hadn't lost the purse at all, I had been more or less sitting on it...

;_;

I feel loved. And like an idiot.

Chinese Food and Dorm Life

We had our Chinese food party today. Half of it was made by the Chinese students, and half of it we ordered in. All was delicious. It was fun to try different Chinese dishes than the few I've gotten into the trap of always ordering. And we received offers to be taken care of if we ever visit China. Anywhere in China. Quite an offer, if you think about it.

Tabby and I talked about where we would stay the rest of our college career, after the thought that after four years in Laws (International Dorm) we would be able to travel through the whole world staying with people we met. The whole thing became a bit of a headache... It's a bit pointless to think about it though, really. We are here now and we should enjoy this for what it is. :D And it's lovely. We're all living together, it's an adorable little community... ^^

Mayumi writes up a few vocabulary words each week and puts them on the back of her desk, so that it's the first thing she sees when she wakes up in the morning and the last thing she sees when she goes to bed at night. I'm thinking about imitating it. But for what language? :S Last week she had Flier, Razor, Get a Tan, Sunburn, Arrange, Put in Order, and a few others. This week she has Adorable, Underarm Hair, Seaweed, Squid, Gross, Disgusting, Mole, Firefly, Lightening Bug, and Ambulance. ^^
If I was a bit better at Japanese I could use her list and learn in reverse. Alas.

Still, Laura's studying Japanese and it's a bit funny, because she took it for a year in high school and I've never studied it formally. Still, my vocabulary is a bit higher than hers, although I'm willing to bet she has a more solid grip on the grammar and she's a MUCH faster reader. She has a quiz tomorrow so I helped her study, reading the words to her in Japanese. It was interesting because I had trouble reading them, whereas she seemed to interpret the symbols almost as easily as the Roman alphabet. However, we came out even because I was quicker with the vocabulary. :P

It was such a nice community feeling as we sat together studying and making up mnemonics. For example:

Shigoto: Job = What does Tabitha do on Fridays? She go to job.

Isha: Apple = "Isha" apple each day and you don't have to go to the doctor.

Gogo: PM = You sleep all morning so you can GO GO in the afternoon

Bengoshi: Lawyer = Ben (our P.A.) gets caught with alcohol, so... Ben Go "Shi" A Lawyer.

Weekend Slacking

I have done absolutely nothing all weekend. I went swimming once, had a few meals, including an outstanding one at the Indian restaurant nearby, I spent some lazy hours with friends, I caught up on my sleep, and typed about 16 pages of Anthropology notes. Which is all fine and good, but I also wanted to do laundry, type my Geography and Political Science notes, and figure out my finals schedule. :( I guess I can still do that last (and most important) tonight, but while I think I've done well with time management during the week, I've definitely slacked off this weekend. :(

Trip Journal Project

I officially started my trip journal project today. I'm having a lot of fun remembering everything that happened and securing it in written form. I'm also putting it up on my writing community so that they can help me with it, because I want to make the final draft wonderful and exercise my writing skills too. :P

Will any of it trickle down onto the blog. Yes, some of it will. And I'll probably backdate it and make some sort of announcement when I add significant portions so that readers who care can go back to June/July and see the posts. But they will be signficantly edited, of course, because, although I try not to delude myself about the number of readers I get, the blog is still public, and I don't want to change people's names. (I'm not using last names, though :P).

Also, probably the people who would be most interested are the people who were part of the story... and while I don't really have anything negative to say about them that I wouldn't say to anyone else, I tried to be objective. If they have a funny habit I talk about it. It's not meant to be hurtful but I maybe wouldn't want them reading about it. So the public doesn't get those details, just my private files and my little pass-work protected writing community who doesn't know any of the other people anyway.

We'll see when I get around to posting the stuff, but June/July do look awfully bare considering all that happened. :P

P.S. - If you'd like some of the non-pared down drafts, email me... knowing the people who read the blog, I'll probably send them to you. ;)

One Last Library Rant and some Random Stuff About Japanese Roommates

Went back to the library today to check out the Finnish and Synesthesia books. The Finno-Ugric language section blew me away. I'll be honest - I was expecting a display half the size of the Scandinavian one. Instead, it was easily twice as large. For a few minutes, I'll admit, I kept my hand on it as if I was touching earth, I almost couldn't bear to take my hand away and not touch them, afraid they would stop being real. They even had a few very, very poor books (by poor I mean very small and falling apart) on Sami. One was a sort of dictionary arranged in some non-alphabetical way that translated Finnish into four dialects of Sami. One would have to be really desperate to work with that.

But the Finnish books were much nicer. I picked a big huge volume, fully half the size of my Unabridged English Dictionary back home. It barely fit in my backpack. It's called a Basic Course in Finnish, but it's absolutely humongous. I giggled a bit to see that I could flip to the end of the book and still get the main idea of many of the readings. That's what even the tiniest slice of immersion does to language acquisition, I suppose. Still, I can learn A LOT from it, I can already tell.

Another surprise - I went looking for books on Sami culture and I found a big section and, here's the kicker, on the way through the eastern stacks I realized that I was staring at a whole block of encyclopedias in Scandinavian languages. ENCYCLOPEDIAS! That's the most glorious thing, which I haven't even begun to tap yet... the fact that here the books in foreign language extend far out of the foreign language section and into the main stacks! Oh, the awaiting fun! :D

And it occurs to me that the tight fear I've lived with for a while, that I would run out of materials, that I had to ration myself... all of that is over now. I no longer need to grasp at fragments, at anything. A few years ago I would carefully fold and save a candy wrapper if it listed the instructions in anything less common than Spanish. Of course in todays world it was always a little silly, because there's so much content available online in different languages, but there was something oddly respectful... almost venerating about it... a sort of waste not, want not attitude, that even this wrapping paper had worth... I could use it to learn perhaps two or three new words... like corn syrup or hazelnut.

It would be lovely if I could keep this sense of desperation, as ludicrous as it is now and has ever been, and apply it to the almost guilty excess suddenly available to me. I would tear through that library like no one has before. :D I seriously feel my mouth water a bit just thinking about it. I'm such a lazy little child polyglot, though... if I had more discipline I wouldn't even be taking the time to sit here and salivate and fantasize about it, I would be eating the books right now.

Unfortunately my brain does have it's limits and I spent 3 hours in class today, 4 hours studying stuff from class, 1 hour learning Arabic letters, 30 minutes smashing my head against the Faroese pronunciation guide, and 20 minutes chatting in Swedish-Norwegian. And at the Arabic lesson today Ashley seemed to have some sort of emotional bond with every letter... she couldn't let us move on without saying it again and again and cuddling it in her mouth like it was something precious or something sweet or occasionally (take Ain) something deliciously dirty. Given my reading material lately I almost felt like she had some sort of personality synestesia about the whole thing. Mah interdisciplinary erosion!!! But soon to bed, soon to bed. ^^ I am happy now and it's almost too much, it's too good for me and makes me feel a bit desperate. Let's be honest, I can't have all of them, ah, life is so finite...

Enough with that. Not that again. XD

In other news I love the Japanese roommates and how they constantly feel like they have to apologize and not only that but they are always asking me for help translating these bizarre apology phrases. Such as the traditional Japanese thing to say when, for example, you are at a friends house and the friend's husband or wife comes home and you say something bizarre to him/her like "I am sorry and grateful for intruding".

And I'm still trying to help them figure out the difference between a tan and a sunburn. I thought I made it clear but they keep arguing that both are bad for you, which is true but it's about the connotation and denotation damnit! :P

Funny Mispronunciations: Room - Loom, Rice - Lice.

I have too much imagination, see, I keep imagining Mayumi and I sharing a loom or they all eating lice out of each other's hair when they say the obvious things. :P There are a few others too... it's the kind of thing you can never think of when you want to but every time you hear it you giggle again. ;)

I totally <3 living with foreigners. And books. So far other than feeling slightly like a loser for really, truly, madly, and deeply not giving a shit about parties/drinking, I'm loving University.


P.S. - It was a strange feeling to find that they had an entire WALL in the library devoted to books about poultry. There was one huge shelf easily the size of the Scandinavian and Finno-Ugric shelves combined, perhaps even as much as 50% bigger, devoted to a series called "Poultry Science". And there were more "Poultry Nutrition" books than Icelandic, Faroese, Old Icelandic, and Old Norse combined.

It's none of my business, of course, why should I begrudge the poor student who is obsessed with feeding chickens as I am with languages his jollies? I shouldn't, of course, that's the easy answer, and of course agricultural science and stuff are actually majors here unlike all but the most famous of European languages, so they really have more of a right to be on the shelves, but it's also at once hilarious and a bit sad. :P

Teach Yourself Series

This guy kills me. XD

I can't believe he has so many of these. Wait a few seconds and you'll see that he has three times as many books as it originally looks like he has.

I do agree with him about the varying quality of the books in the series.... but he's so critical of the switch from the strict grammatical books.

A First Glimpse Into Dorm Life

It's been nice, especially these last few days, to start breaking the surface with a few classmates. Here's an example of the music some of them have turned me onto.

It's both wonderful and a little disarming to be with so many people of like intelligence without it being some sort of gifted group where that's all we think and talk about. And of course, there are those who are much smarter than I...

A Note To the Side: So far, I'm very curious as to how the first exam will turn out. I haven't been a studying maniac, but I've devoted a significant portion of each day to the readings... and all the while the common room is filled with the same people, usually past midnight. They either don't sleep or they don't study...

There are a number of possibilities for how this will turn out. Best case scenario is that I find out I've been doing too much work and can relax a bit. :D Short of that, it could be that they have superhuman intelligence/study skills I'm lacking, they don't need sleep, they will do poorly on the next exam, we will all do poorly on the next exam, ..... :S I am a big geek.

More About the Faroe Islands

We have to research study abroad options for our seminar thingy. On a whim, I decided to research two somewhat obscure places that I'm interested in on the microscopic chance that they have exchange programs. That's right: Bhutan and the Faroe Islands.

Apparently if you want to study in Bhutan you have the unlimited possibilities inherent in having to study Himalayan and Buddhist studies for a year at some Indian University and then being permitted to take a week long field trip in Bhutan. Interesting, but yeah, not really plausible. ;_;

After about half an hour of research, the Faroe Islands look a little more promising. They have a summer program (Wikipedia says it's annual, but some more official site said biannual) that accepts a small number of foreign students to study linguistic and cultural stuff. ^^ Which is actually kind of nice, because I probably wouldn't want to spend more than two months there anyways.

Next summer they have one, and then, if the one website is to be trusted, the next will be in 2011. Which is probably a decent thing to shoot for. Knowledge of Faroese is not necessary, but on the form you can check "none" or "some", so I figure it will give me a leg up (I might almost draw even with the normal Scandinavians XD) if I can honestly say that I've introduced myself to the phonetics and grammar and read a few texts.

I had the brilliant idea of using the Faroese Wikipedia to practice. I knew I was in trouble when I saw that they recommend going to the Faroese postal service website and reading their history of the stamp collection for practice. Sure enough, there were only a few articles on the Faroese Wikipedia long enough to merit 10 cents a page to print them out. I snagged the 8 page article on the Faroe Islands themselves, which in all honesty will last me a while. After that I can always combine a few articles to make a page. I've also found a dictionary for reading help... good old Freelang. :D We'll see how comprehensive it is.

Little Faroese Grammar

Today was a good day. :D I won 150 dollars from the Costa Rica photo contest (1st place! :D) and I had a Japanese feast with Mayumi, Mitsuki, and Linh. ^^

I also was able to introduce a few people to couchsurfing.com, which is lovely because I had such good experiences with it.

But this was the highlight of the day:

I checked out the Mizzou Library.

A few months ago (it seems like longer :P) I went with Lucia to the Wash U library for Smith research. I was amazed by the concept of a University Library. They had shelves that moved and foreign language books in every section! It was paradise. I totally geeked out about it with Mrs. McFarland when I went back to school. And since then I've been waiting, nervously, to see how the Mizzou library compares. I'd heard repeatedly that it wasn't as nice. But it was bound to be better than the Public County Library, right? Right?

It was. :D I went in to see if they had any material on Synesthesia. They did. About 6 books worth, plus some studies and stuff I didn't get into. This was just on the database search, btw. Then, although I had seen from a websearch at home that they didn't even have many NORWEGIAN books, I decided on an optimistic whim to see if they had anything about Faroese. And they did. A grammar book, and a few others. A GRAMMAR BOOK.

Just as in the Wash U. library, I found myself initially incapable of finding anything by myself, except the reference section. So I asked and asked and was redirected until they told me, ah, this number is on the second a floor... which is between the second and the third floors. Ah, perfect, so fitting... that such a book would be on a magic floor! :D To access it I went in a small door to the left, and up...

"It's in an old part of the building," they told me. "It's a bit dark up there". I went to the left and it was already very still and dimly lit. I was the only person in the entire wing. I climbed. After four flights of rickety stairs, I reached the magical floor 2a, where it was even darker near the books but by the windows that strange yellow and dusty light flowed in. I felt like I was in the secret garden or the beast's west wing.

Then I found what I was looking for. One entire shelf, from ceiling to floor, dedicated to that part of the world where I have spent half my heart though only a single month of my lifetime. They had an entire encyclopedic looking series called "Scandinavian Studies". It looked like it hadn't been checked out in a lifetime and I knew in a moment that I wanted to read them. All of them. And the History of Scandinavian Languages. And the thick book called, "How to Pronounce Norwegian". And the Icelandic Dictionary. All of them...

The old familiar image of an edible book came to my mind, like the book was soaked through in syrup and was in consistency not unlike a heart of palm, but with a taste as varied and fantastic as durian with none of the characteristic rotting-corpse smell. In its place would be that smell old books have, simultaneously clean and dusty.

I pulled myself back into reality and searched for that most rare of all the rare books before me... my little Faroese Grammar. I had to scan the shelf three times, I missed it at first. It was a small, grey volume titled simply, "An Introduction to Modern Faroese". I couldn't believe I was actually allowed to check it out. I looked all over the book for some indication that I could not. I flipped through it to make sure it was not, by some trick of whatever evil power exists, a mutant blank copy. But people were waiting for me, and I had to leave.

The weather was a wonderful cool and rainy and windy. No one, I am certain, has ever made the twenty minute walk from Ellis to Laws in such weather with a malfunctioning umbrella and such high spirits over a little grey book. :) I am very content.

Faroese

I didn't make this video, but I enjoyed it very much. :) Firstly it was interesting to learn a bit about Faroese, and the text chosen was so appropriate. The last line really affected me. Of course, for Americans as well as for Englishmen, our vernacular seems very safe. But in a way I've made it one of the points of my life to understand these people with the fading languages. I've taken the easy way out, in a way, or at least a moderate approach... those languages with 3 or 4 or even 100 speakers I don't think much about.

Those I do concern myself with are the languages with a good chance to survive (some printed material, a few thousand speakers), but are still in danger of falling off the face of the planet. :(