"By forces seemingly antagonistic and destructive Nature accomplishes her beneficent designs - now a flood of fire, now a flood of ice, now a flood of water; and again in the fullness of time an outburst of organic life.”
- John Muir
June 30, 2009
Alligator Man
Melissa and I took a walk, making all lefts so that we came to the sea wall across the bay from our own house. When the tide is high it's fun to walk along the concrete edge, seeing the water lap against the side and, here and there, where the old wall is beginning to crumble, swirl into the land and fill tiny rushing pools.
Melissa won't stop talking about Alligator Man. Debbie has told her that there is a man with a pet alligator in the neighborhood - he lives in the tall grey house, she said, with an alligator mailbox. It was a bit further than Tidbit and I usually walked, but we agreed to help her investigate. So it was a left at the end of the seawall, and then a long street, and then left again into a little cul-de-sac.
The tall grey house had no Alligator mailbox. Or so we thought at first - a second glance revealed that it was green, with a slight attempt at scaly texturing, and when seen from straight on, the unmistakable tail of a gator on the back of it. It was like finding a giant red X on the ground. We looked at each other, and then slowly at the house, as if we would hear the Alligator roar and gnash it's teeth from the side of the road.
Rediculous, of course. But there was an enclosure there, where someone else might have a screen porch. It didn't look big enough for a gator, or strong enough to hold one. But then again, there was the mailbox to consider, and why would Debbie lie to us? We didn't want to be creepers, so we walked on.
"After all," I said. "Just because there is an alligator on the mailbox and an enclosure in the front yard doesn't mean he has an alligator. After all, here's a mailbox with a giant seahorse on it, does that mean they have a giant seahorse in their front yard?"
We turned and looked at this house, in a mockery of searching for a giant seahorse. And I kid you not - they had a giant aquarium in the side of their house, just visible from the road. This was all getting to be a bit too weird. We circled the cul-de-sac in mock hysterics, Mel screaming, "Look here, palm trees on the mail box... and palm trees in the yard!!"
We came back around to Alligator Man's house. Still no gators, but there was a very large grey dog there, who was free and roaming around a bit too much for our liking. We had Tidbit to think of, after all. I picked her up and I think she knew better than to make any noises. We tried to make our retreat as quickly and quietly as possible. We were almost to the corner when a man on a large and loud motorcycle came around and towards us. Moving out of the way we saw him stop at Alligator Man's house and talk to the dog.
We thought we were saved. And then we heard the man calling the dog, and revving up his motorcycle again.
"He's going to run with the dog!"
"No, surely not!"
But just the same, we were on a narrow street with no sidewalks and no public areas, just the long (and lengthening) avenue of houses before the right turn back to the seawall and safety. We heard the motorcycle behind us, the man calling the dog again. We ran.
Melissa was in flip flops and I in sandles, and carrying 16 pounds of Dachshund besides. We were halfway there when the man on the motorcycle turned the corner. I was still thinking to myself, 'surely not'. Melissa, who without Tidbit had a bit more mobility, risked a quick look back.
"The dog is following!" she confirmed. We ran as though the man was leading a team of gators on our tails. The motorcycle grew louder and louder in our ears, deafening. We reached the seawall with seconds to spare, through ourselves to the right and onto the public grass, and the motorcycle raced by, the grey dog running alongside it at top speed.
I was a bit high on Rosetta Stone, and Japanese words came tumbling out of my mouth at that.
"Inu wa hashitte imasu," I whispered.
Breathing hard, we watched in amazement as the two sped to the end of the seawall, then rushed back at us, and again. We clung to the concrete edge by the sea once more, working our way back home.
I do believe that was Alligator Man. And I do believe that he is capable of owning an Alligator.
Tidbit and I won't be going past the seawall for a while.
Melissa won't stop talking about Alligator Man. Debbie has told her that there is a man with a pet alligator in the neighborhood - he lives in the tall grey house, she said, with an alligator mailbox. It was a bit further than Tidbit and I usually walked, but we agreed to help her investigate. So it was a left at the end of the seawall, and then a long street, and then left again into a little cul-de-sac.
The tall grey house had no Alligator mailbox. Or so we thought at first - a second glance revealed that it was green, with a slight attempt at scaly texturing, and when seen from straight on, the unmistakable tail of a gator on the back of it. It was like finding a giant red X on the ground. We looked at each other, and then slowly at the house, as if we would hear the Alligator roar and gnash it's teeth from the side of the road.
Rediculous, of course. But there was an enclosure there, where someone else might have a screen porch. It didn't look big enough for a gator, or strong enough to hold one. But then again, there was the mailbox to consider, and why would Debbie lie to us? We didn't want to be creepers, so we walked on.
"After all," I said. "Just because there is an alligator on the mailbox and an enclosure in the front yard doesn't mean he has an alligator. After all, here's a mailbox with a giant seahorse on it, does that mean they have a giant seahorse in their front yard?"
We turned and looked at this house, in a mockery of searching for a giant seahorse. And I kid you not - they had a giant aquarium in the side of their house, just visible from the road. This was all getting to be a bit too weird. We circled the cul-de-sac in mock hysterics, Mel screaming, "Look here, palm trees on the mail box... and palm trees in the yard!!"
We came back around to Alligator Man's house. Still no gators, but there was a very large grey dog there, who was free and roaming around a bit too much for our liking. We had Tidbit to think of, after all. I picked her up and I think she knew better than to make any noises. We tried to make our retreat as quickly and quietly as possible. We were almost to the corner when a man on a large and loud motorcycle came around and towards us. Moving out of the way we saw him stop at Alligator Man's house and talk to the dog.
We thought we were saved. And then we heard the man calling the dog, and revving up his motorcycle again.
"He's going to run with the dog!"
"No, surely not!"
But just the same, we were on a narrow street with no sidewalks and no public areas, just the long (and lengthening) avenue of houses before the right turn back to the seawall and safety. We heard the motorcycle behind us, the man calling the dog again. We ran.
Melissa was in flip flops and I in sandles, and carrying 16 pounds of Dachshund besides. We were halfway there when the man on the motorcycle turned the corner. I was still thinking to myself, 'surely not'. Melissa, who without Tidbit had a bit more mobility, risked a quick look back.
"The dog is following!" she confirmed. We ran as though the man was leading a team of gators on our tails. The motorcycle grew louder and louder in our ears, deafening. We reached the seawall with seconds to spare, through ourselves to the right and onto the public grass, and the motorcycle raced by, the grey dog running alongside it at top speed.
I was a bit high on Rosetta Stone, and Japanese words came tumbling out of my mouth at that.
"Inu wa hashitte imasu," I whispered.
Breathing hard, we watched in amazement as the two sped to the end of the seawall, then rushed back at us, and again. We clung to the concrete edge by the sea once more, working our way back home.
I do believe that was Alligator Man. And I do believe that he is capable of owning an Alligator.
Tidbit and I won't be going past the seawall for a while.
Japanese Update
I've been playing Rosetta Stone pretty much nonstop. I'm still pleased with it for the most part, although I'm starting to wish I had done all this while I still had Mayumi around to practice with! It's a bit depressing to do it all on the computer. Still, I'll be in Japan in just a few short weeks. The frantic pace I've been moving at reminds me of a quote from the trailer of Memoirs of a Geisha - "What takes years to learn, you must learn in weeks." XD That's an exaggeration, of course. I knew random bits and pieces of Japanese before, which is definitely helping. And despite the fact that I've read that each level of Rosetta Stone should take a year to cover, I'm having a hard time believing that's true. Even assuming that you only did one of the exercises a day, you should finish in a few months.
In these three or so days, I have almost finished Unit 2 of Level 1, and here are some of the things I can say:
(About half of these are word for word from the exercises, the other half I made up, but using only words and grammar from Rosetta Stone)
What colour is your hair?
My hair is brown.
Is that your father?
No, that is my grandfather.
Is that your older sister?
No, that is my younger sister.
Nice to meet you.
What is your name?
My name is Miranda.
How many cups are there?
There are 8 cups.
Where is the ball?
The ball is under the bridge.
Where are the plates?
Two plates are on the table, two plates are in the kitchen.
My brother is watching t.v. in the living room.
My mother is cooking in the kitchen.
My children are playing in the park.
Her horse is running.
My friends’ cat is watching my fish.
What do you have?
I have a pen.
What are you eating?
I am eating rice and egg, and I am drinking juice.
I love my dog.
He loves his mother.
Our son is walking and our daughter is running.
The man is kissing his wife.
Where is the newspaper?
The newspaper is in the bathroom, on top of the sink.
Where are the sandwiches?
The sandwiches are in the kitchen, on top of the table.
How many apples are there?
There are five apples.
How many flowers do you have?
I have six flowers.
The girl and her mother are eating rice.
My mother and her friends are reading books.
I can write a lot of these as well, but I admit that I am not really studying the Kanji involved. I could already read the syllabaries, though I believe I am getting to a point where I might know them /from/ Rosetta Stone, but the Kanji aren't taught much, and not knowing the stroke order and whatnot I have contented myself with recognizing them in context, but being unable to produce them myself.
The speaking sections are getting on my nerves. They want me to speak very loudly, they almost never catch the last word that I say (sometimes I have to add nonsense syllables to the end of the phrase so that they catch it), and sometimes I can't figure out for the life of me what's wrong with my pronunciation. It is much stricter for single, long, words, than it is for sentences too. I sometimes disable them, but I do think it helps my learning to say things outloud, and if I disable them it takes away the nice space and reminder to do so. I wish they included an option where they prompt you to try your pronunciation, but pass you whenever you utter roughly the right amount of syllables. I don't need them to help me sound like a native - I'd just like to have a chance to repeat after them.
In these three or so days, I have almost finished Unit 2 of Level 1, and here are some of the things I can say:
(About half of these are word for word from the exercises, the other half I made up, but using only words and grammar from Rosetta Stone)
What colour is your hair?
My hair is brown.
Is that your father?
No, that is my grandfather.
Is that your older sister?
No, that is my younger sister.
Nice to meet you.
What is your name?
My name is Miranda.
How many cups are there?
There are 8 cups.
Where is the ball?
The ball is under the bridge.
Where are the plates?
Two plates are on the table, two plates are in the kitchen.
My brother is watching t.v. in the living room.
My mother is cooking in the kitchen.
My children are playing in the park.
Her horse is running.
My friends’ cat is watching my fish.
What do you have?
I have a pen.
What are you eating?
I am eating rice and egg, and I am drinking juice.
I love my dog.
He loves his mother.
Our son is walking and our daughter is running.
The man is kissing his wife.
Where is the newspaper?
The newspaper is in the bathroom, on top of the sink.
Where are the sandwiches?
The sandwiches are in the kitchen, on top of the table.
How many apples are there?
There are five apples.
How many flowers do you have?
I have six flowers.
The girl and her mother are eating rice.
My mother and her friends are reading books.
I can write a lot of these as well, but I admit that I am not really studying the Kanji involved. I could already read the syllabaries, though I believe I am getting to a point where I might know them /from/ Rosetta Stone, but the Kanji aren't taught much, and not knowing the stroke order and whatnot I have contented myself with recognizing them in context, but being unable to produce them myself.
The speaking sections are getting on my nerves. They want me to speak very loudly, they almost never catch the last word that I say (sometimes I have to add nonsense syllables to the end of the phrase so that they catch it), and sometimes I can't figure out for the life of me what's wrong with my pronunciation. It is much stricter for single, long, words, than it is for sentences too. I sometimes disable them, but I do think it helps my learning to say things outloud, and if I disable them it takes away the nice space and reminder to do so. I wish they included an option where they prompt you to try your pronunciation, but pass you whenever you utter roughly the right amount of syllables. I don't need them to help me sound like a native - I'd just like to have a chance to repeat after them.
June 29, 2009
Rosetta Stone Version 3
My review of Rosetta Stone 2 wasn't very positive. I thought it was a reasonably well designed program, yes, but nowhere near worth the hype or the price tag. Now I have tried out Rosetta Stone 3, and I feel quite differently about it. While it still follows the somewhat controversial total immersion method (no English), I would liken the experience of Rosetta Stone 2 to being dropped into a foreign country and trying to figure things out, albeit with ideal context clues. Rosetta Stone 3 is like being dropped into the same situation, but with a native speaker, who, although they don't speak any English, is trying to help you and teach you the language. No, the program doesn't actually use role-playing like that, but that's sort of how it feels. In Rosetta Stone 2, you were on your own. In Rosetta Stone 3, the software is teaching you.
In addition, Version 3 teaches the written language, and is much better at testing pronunciation (although it's still a computer program... so... :() and tasks other than listening comprehension. The variety of exercises is much better.
Above: This exercise teaches you to spell using the Japanese syllabary, Hiragana.
While there is still no cultural content to speak of, Version 3 at least seems to acknowledge that languages are different. While so far I have only tried the Japanese version, many aspects of it seem tailored to teaching Japanese, as opposed to any language (and by that we mean, ideal for Germanic/Romance languages, less good for others).
Above: This exercise, which asks you to differentiate between the three writing systems used in Japanese, is clearly unique to the Japanese Version.
One area in which this differentiation between languages has actually regressed from Version 2 -3 is in the pictures. Version 2 had at least two different photo sets for Asian and Western languages, so most of the pictures in the Japanese version were taken in Japan. In Version 3, Japanese pictures are enough of a minority that I suspect they use the same photos for all languages. Still, I can't bring myself to complain much about this. While there is only one set of pictures, they are much nicer than in Version 2. The quality is high enough that you never find yourself wondering whether a character is a boy or a girl, and the variety is impressive. At times, Version 2 looked like it was creatively picking pictures from stock photos to represent the words - Version 3 very obviously planned and took many of the pictures expressly for the purpose of teaching the language.
Above: Version 2 might have contented itself with showing bigger and smaller flowers in stock-like photographs. The magnifying glass over the 'small flowers' and the girl standing behind the 'big flowers' makes it obvious that Version 3 took each picture precisely for it's function in the software.
Above: Version 2 showed different colours of cars. Version 3 shows close ups so tight that you know they're talking about the colour itself.
The user can also moderate the difficulty to a greater extent than in Version 2. You can determine how strictly your pronunciation is graded, and you can pick between using Romanji (Japanese spelled with our alphabet: much easier, but less authentic), Hiragana, Kanji, and Kanji with Furigana. Including Kanji with Furigana was a nice thought on the part of the designers, but in actuality it makes everything so small that it's not worth bothering with.
Above: In this exercise, you can read the Kanji, or click on the green speaker icon to hear how the sentence is sounded out, depending on whether you want to learn to read the language, or just understand it.
In conclusion, I find Rosetta Stone 3 to be a very well made computer based language learning program - perhaps approaching the best such a program can possibly be. Version 3 addresses many of the shortcomings of Version 2, making it worthy of the hype and the price tag. However, the fact that it is a computer program, and that it follows the 'total immersion' learning philosophy, means it is still quite a challenge for those who, without any linguistic background, would learn a language using ONLY Rosetta Stone software. Ideally, users would have a teacher, or a dictionary and a grammar book, as supplements.
In addition, Version 3 teaches the written language, and is much better at testing pronunciation (although it's still a computer program... so... :() and tasks other than listening comprehension. The variety of exercises is much better.
Above: This exercise teaches you to spell using the Japanese syllabary, Hiragana.While there is still no cultural content to speak of, Version 3 at least seems to acknowledge that languages are different. While so far I have only tried the Japanese version, many aspects of it seem tailored to teaching Japanese, as opposed to any language (and by that we mean, ideal for Germanic/Romance languages, less good for others).
Above: This exercise, which asks you to differentiate between the three writing systems used in Japanese, is clearly unique to the Japanese Version.
One area in which this differentiation between languages has actually regressed from Version 2 -3 is in the pictures. Version 2 had at least two different photo sets for Asian and Western languages, so most of the pictures in the Japanese version were taken in Japan. In Version 3, Japanese pictures are enough of a minority that I suspect they use the same photos for all languages. Still, I can't bring myself to complain much about this. While there is only one set of pictures, they are much nicer than in Version 2. The quality is high enough that you never find yourself wondering whether a character is a boy or a girl, and the variety is impressive. At times, Version 2 looked like it was creatively picking pictures from stock photos to represent the words - Version 3 very obviously planned and took many of the pictures expressly for the purpose of teaching the language.
Above: Version 2 might have contented itself with showing bigger and smaller flowers in stock-like photographs. The magnifying glass over the 'small flowers' and the girl standing behind the 'big flowers' makes it obvious that Version 3 took each picture precisely for it's function in the software.
Above: Version 2 showed different colours of cars. Version 3 shows close ups so tight that you know they're talking about the colour itself.
The user can also moderate the difficulty to a greater extent than in Version 2. You can determine how strictly your pronunciation is graded, and you can pick between using Romanji (Japanese spelled with our alphabet: much easier, but less authentic), Hiragana, Kanji, and Kanji with Furigana. Including Kanji with Furigana was a nice thought on the part of the designers, but in actuality it makes everything so small that it's not worth bothering with.
Above: In this exercise, you can read the Kanji, or click on the green speaker icon to hear how the sentence is sounded out, depending on whether you want to learn to read the language, or just understand it.In conclusion, I find Rosetta Stone 3 to be a very well made computer based language learning program - perhaps approaching the best such a program can possibly be. Version 3 addresses many of the shortcomings of Version 2, making it worthy of the hype and the price tag. However, the fact that it is a computer program, and that it follows the 'total immersion' learning philosophy, means it is still quite a challenge for those who, without any linguistic background, would learn a language using ONLY Rosetta Stone software. Ideally, users would have a teacher, or a dictionary and a grammar book, as supplements.
June 28, 2009
The Florida State Fairgrounds
It had been on the calendar for months. We were going to the Florida State Fair Grounds to see Trace Atkins and Toby Keith.... mostly Trace Atkins. We've lived on our island for almost a month now and had unbelievable weather. We've had rain twice - hard rain with wind, too - but short lasting, and this during the worst season in Florida. It seems the winds around here blow storms inland, or out to sea - they miss the island. But we went into the interior for the concert, far enough that the palms thinned and turned into trees draped in Spanish moss. And as we sat on the highway, stuck in Tampa traffic, the skies darkened and it began to rain.
We had planned to go to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner first, but it seemed as though the rest of the concertgoers had the same idea. The parking garage nearby was full - absolutely full. We went up five stories of wet dripping concrete only to find every spot full and dozens of cars circling. Madness. We cut out losses and headed to Steak and Shake. Twice during dinner the power went out and we heard the generators buzz as it flickered back on. But the worst was when it came time to pay. They sent me to the register with the money, and I waited. And waited. The rest of the family joined me and we waited. No one came to help us. There was a crowd of employers there who stared at us blankly.
"Can we pay?" my dad asked, again and again.
One woman just kept staring at us with an absolutely blank expression, shaking her head slowly. My dad was ready to just walk out, but my mom was sure we'd be arrested. So I reached into my purse, found exact change, and laid it out on the counter. Then we left. What that was all about, we had no earthly idea.
The sight of the fairgrounds looked like it had been taken out of some horror movie. Everything was grey-blue and threatening, wet with rivulets of running rainwater and lit up by flashes of lightening. Here and there revelers waved the Confederate Flag proudly over impromptu wet shirt contests and tailgating parties.
We parked the car and started the long walk, through marshy, swampy areas. We were in sandles, my sister in high heels, and the mud and water came up over our feet with almost every step. We dodged the deep puddles, but even the shallow ones put sand under our toes and set frothy foam coming up out of the soles of my mom's sandles. And she kept muttering about snakes and gators. Gators was rediculous, unimaginable in the crowded parking lot, even with the wilder areas surrounding it. Snakes seemed unlikely as well, but at least possible. I kept telling her that there wouldn't be any snakes there, it would be a snakes' worst nightmare, etc.
There were cowboy boots and hats and American flags everywhere. Women hard before their time. The ubiquitous beer belly. The smell of cigarettes. Harsh voices. All excited. This was a big night. We got our tickets, walked a little further. We had reserved seats, so we were part of the half of the audience with a tarp over their heads to keep the rain off.
Trace was good. He was a huge man, just as described. My mom kept shrieking that he was an absolute monster. He's about 6'6'' and filling every inch with muscle, anyway. The screens sometimes showed him from the pack, a profile, topped with that big cowboy hat. He looked almost rediculous, like a giant shuddering snowman as he moved to the beat. It was just the angle, though. Straight on, he was the picture of masculinity - traditional, arrogant, muscle-bound masculinity.
The young boys in the row in front of us were rather interested in my sister and I. I sat on the far end from them, so my sister got the worst of it. Between Trace and Toby, the older one came over to sit by me and started flirting rather shamelessly with me. I replied only when absolutely necessary to be polite. I felt a bit sorry for him, after all. It's not as if he knew. He told me he was 15, and I sort of gave a smile and a laugh, and thought I'd finally end it.
"I'm nineteen," I told him.
Well, he was surprised, and seemed to acknowledge at first that he was way out of his league, but then he pressed on at a slightly different angle, admitting that he could at least brag to his friends about 'impressing' a college girl or something like that. He didn't know. Didn't know that the youngest boy I'd ever kissed was six years older than this boy was, that all I kept thinking was, "Boys and Men, Boys and Men." And it was a little bit too bad. We had a few things in common, and he was cute enough. If only he had been five years older. ;)
Toby Keith came on. He's who the rest of the crowd had been waiting for, and they exploded. Out came the American Flags. The show started with a Ford Commercial on the big screen, admittedly an absolutely hilarious one. I looked for it on Youtube but I couldn't find it. :( It was called, "America's Toughest", and was a contest between different fake celebrities, and Toby Keith. The rappers tried to meet every challenge with cursewords and shooting, the pop group was made up of absolute pansies, there was a new age woodwind player who tried to chant and magick his way to victory, and best of all a heavy metal group who tried to be scary and ended up just looking stupid and rediculous in the hot sun, with their high heels breaking as they tried to run, and failing utterly to lift weights or do anything other than scream and hiss. And then Toby Keith, confident, smiling mockingly at the other contestants, easily winning each contest singlehandedly and by a huge margin, as teams of sexy blonde midwestern girls cheered him on. It truly was amusing.
Then he sang a few songs. It was just hard to care much about him after Trace, so we packed up after the third or fourth song and thought we'd head on out before the herds followed us and filled the concert grounds with traffic again. We waved goodbye to the flirting high schoolers, went down to the concession stand area, and my sister bought a shirt.
Then we ventured back onto the grounds, the swampy, swollen parking areas. We walked and walked. My sister couldn't decide whether it was more painful to walk with or without her high heels on, my mom was still petrified of snakes. Slowly it became apparent that we didn't know where we had parked.
Abandoned ticket counters, mossy trees, groups of latrines... each one began to look the same as those we had passed a thousand times. Were we going in circles? It was eerie to be walking around in the rain and flashing lightening, with water up to our ankles, our sandles soaked and slimy, through the rows and rows of shiny parked cars, all alone. We searched together. We split up. We shouted at each other from reasonable distances when we had gone a while without seeing the others. Each time we shouted, the other group responded hopefully, thinking we'd found the car. We hadn't.
Finally mom and sis parked themselves by a group of latrines and a tree labled "H" and my dad and I set off again, just the two of us. My dad kept clicking the alarm button on his keys to no avail. The fear that we would continue searching until the herd poured out, all found their cars and drove off, leaving only our G35, grew in us and suddenly felt very real. We found a G35, but it had Florida plates. We kept looking. Finally I found it, gave a screech... we all assembled and piled in, my sister and I wet and exhausted in the tiny back seat, pulling off wet shoes and revealing slimy dirty feet that were beginning to itch mightily. We tried to sleep on the long drive back.
We had planned to go to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner first, but it seemed as though the rest of the concertgoers had the same idea. The parking garage nearby was full - absolutely full. We went up five stories of wet dripping concrete only to find every spot full and dozens of cars circling. Madness. We cut out losses and headed to Steak and Shake. Twice during dinner the power went out and we heard the generators buzz as it flickered back on. But the worst was when it came time to pay. They sent me to the register with the money, and I waited. And waited. The rest of the family joined me and we waited. No one came to help us. There was a crowd of employers there who stared at us blankly.
"Can we pay?" my dad asked, again and again.
One woman just kept staring at us with an absolutely blank expression, shaking her head slowly. My dad was ready to just walk out, but my mom was sure we'd be arrested. So I reached into my purse, found exact change, and laid it out on the counter. Then we left. What that was all about, we had no earthly idea.
The sight of the fairgrounds looked like it had been taken out of some horror movie. Everything was grey-blue and threatening, wet with rivulets of running rainwater and lit up by flashes of lightening. Here and there revelers waved the Confederate Flag proudly over impromptu wet shirt contests and tailgating parties.
We parked the car and started the long walk, through marshy, swampy areas. We were in sandles, my sister in high heels, and the mud and water came up over our feet with almost every step. We dodged the deep puddles, but even the shallow ones put sand under our toes and set frothy foam coming up out of the soles of my mom's sandles. And she kept muttering about snakes and gators. Gators was rediculous, unimaginable in the crowded parking lot, even with the wilder areas surrounding it. Snakes seemed unlikely as well, but at least possible. I kept telling her that there wouldn't be any snakes there, it would be a snakes' worst nightmare, etc.
There were cowboy boots and hats and American flags everywhere. Women hard before their time. The ubiquitous beer belly. The smell of cigarettes. Harsh voices. All excited. This was a big night. We got our tickets, walked a little further. We had reserved seats, so we were part of the half of the audience with a tarp over their heads to keep the rain off.
Trace was good. He was a huge man, just as described. My mom kept shrieking that he was an absolute monster. He's about 6'6'' and filling every inch with muscle, anyway. The screens sometimes showed him from the pack, a profile, topped with that big cowboy hat. He looked almost rediculous, like a giant shuddering snowman as he moved to the beat. It was just the angle, though. Straight on, he was the picture of masculinity - traditional, arrogant, muscle-bound masculinity.
The young boys in the row in front of us were rather interested in my sister and I. I sat on the far end from them, so my sister got the worst of it. Between Trace and Toby, the older one came over to sit by me and started flirting rather shamelessly with me. I replied only when absolutely necessary to be polite. I felt a bit sorry for him, after all. It's not as if he knew. He told me he was 15, and I sort of gave a smile and a laugh, and thought I'd finally end it.
"I'm nineteen," I told him.
Well, he was surprised, and seemed to acknowledge at first that he was way out of his league, but then he pressed on at a slightly different angle, admitting that he could at least brag to his friends about 'impressing' a college girl or something like that. He didn't know. Didn't know that the youngest boy I'd ever kissed was six years older than this boy was, that all I kept thinking was, "Boys and Men, Boys and Men." And it was a little bit too bad. We had a few things in common, and he was cute enough. If only he had been five years older. ;)
Toby Keith came on. He's who the rest of the crowd had been waiting for, and they exploded. Out came the American Flags. The show started with a Ford Commercial on the big screen, admittedly an absolutely hilarious one. I looked for it on Youtube but I couldn't find it. :( It was called, "America's Toughest", and was a contest between different fake celebrities, and Toby Keith. The rappers tried to meet every challenge with cursewords and shooting, the pop group was made up of absolute pansies, there was a new age woodwind player who tried to chant and magick his way to victory, and best of all a heavy metal group who tried to be scary and ended up just looking stupid and rediculous in the hot sun, with their high heels breaking as they tried to run, and failing utterly to lift weights or do anything other than scream and hiss. And then Toby Keith, confident, smiling mockingly at the other contestants, easily winning each contest singlehandedly and by a huge margin, as teams of sexy blonde midwestern girls cheered him on. It truly was amusing.
Then he sang a few songs. It was just hard to care much about him after Trace, so we packed up after the third or fourth song and thought we'd head on out before the herds followed us and filled the concert grounds with traffic again. We waved goodbye to the flirting high schoolers, went down to the concession stand area, and my sister bought a shirt.
Then we ventured back onto the grounds, the swampy, swollen parking areas. We walked and walked. My sister couldn't decide whether it was more painful to walk with or without her high heels on, my mom was still petrified of snakes. Slowly it became apparent that we didn't know where we had parked.
Abandoned ticket counters, mossy trees, groups of latrines... each one began to look the same as those we had passed a thousand times. Were we going in circles? It was eerie to be walking around in the rain and flashing lightening, with water up to our ankles, our sandles soaked and slimy, through the rows and rows of shiny parked cars, all alone. We searched together. We split up. We shouted at each other from reasonable distances when we had gone a while without seeing the others. Each time we shouted, the other group responded hopefully, thinking we'd found the car. We hadn't.
Finally mom and sis parked themselves by a group of latrines and a tree labled "H" and my dad and I set off again, just the two of us. My dad kept clicking the alarm button on his keys to no avail. The fear that we would continue searching until the herd poured out, all found their cars and drove off, leaving only our G35, grew in us and suddenly felt very real. We found a G35, but it had Florida plates. We kept looking. Finally I found it, gave a screech... we all assembled and piled in, my sister and I wet and exhausted in the tiny back seat, pulling off wet shoes and revealing slimy dirty feet that were beginning to itch mightily. We tried to sleep on the long drive back.
Heat Waves
BBC informs me that the U.K. is about to be hit with a heatwave. My grandfather, who never curses, says that it's 'hot as hell' back in Cape, and our old neighbors in St. Louis say that there's a heat warning and they're supposed to stay inside as much as possible. A Finnish friend says it's 30 degrees in the shade - the Faroese are having trouble coping with 20. And where am I during all of this?
That's right. Florida.
That's right. Florida.
June 27, 2009
Ludicrous
Not worrying, for once, about millipedes or coral snakes, I cross the weeds in a rush.
A minute ago I was riding high, flawless, simple and shining with the sweat that covered my arms, legs, forehead, not quite blinding me. The breeze was cool and I waved to everyone I passed. There was a cool, easy serenity to the moment. Old anime songs drifted through my mind, filled the air with youthful gladness. Until I heard words I don't want to hear, and you know why.
You know why it's more than a sad story, happened to somebody else.
Despite the heat I feel chilled, seek the refuge of the hot concrete of the seawall, which has been baking in the sun all day. For a moment I am shaken, remembering five years ago, remembering concrete on my skin before, in winter, when the earth was cold, and the heat which emanated from my own body seemed immense.
The tide is unnaturally high this week, and the waves hitting the seawall almost reach my bare arm, hanging partly over the edge. With each wave I feel - sad, desperate, sick, mournful, worried, nostalgic, alone. I don't weep, I don't throw up, although I almost want to. No easy release. I can't purge myself of this.
I can see the light of the sunset on the water, all shades of cotton candy. The surface looks strange, like something you see in Final Fantasy. Boats rock. It's unreal, too simple, too clean, clear cut. It seems ludicrous, considering the rest of the world. I close my eyes, I can't look at it.
It helps a little when the wind comes, tearing the glassy surface into something like human skin.
A minute ago I was riding high, flawless, simple and shining with the sweat that covered my arms, legs, forehead, not quite blinding me. The breeze was cool and I waved to everyone I passed. There was a cool, easy serenity to the moment. Old anime songs drifted through my mind, filled the air with youthful gladness. Until I heard words I don't want to hear, and you know why.
You know why it's more than a sad story, happened to somebody else.
Despite the heat I feel chilled, seek the refuge of the hot concrete of the seawall, which has been baking in the sun all day. For a moment I am shaken, remembering five years ago, remembering concrete on my skin before, in winter, when the earth was cold, and the heat which emanated from my own body seemed immense.
The tide is unnaturally high this week, and the waves hitting the seawall almost reach my bare arm, hanging partly over the edge. With each wave I feel - sad, desperate, sick, mournful, worried, nostalgic, alone. I don't weep, I don't throw up, although I almost want to. No easy release. I can't purge myself of this.
I can see the light of the sunset on the water, all shades of cotton candy. The surface looks strange, like something you see in Final Fantasy. Boats rock. It's unreal, too simple, too clean, clear cut. It seems ludicrous, considering the rest of the world. I close my eyes, I can't look at it.
It helps a little when the wind comes, tearing the glassy surface into something like human skin.
June 25, 2009
More About Rosetta Stone
I read the Wikipedia article on Rosetta Stone today and found a lot of interesting things. First of all, because it is so successful and expensive, I had assumed that most (consumers and experts alike) approved of the software. I was surprised to see that there is a great variety of opinions on it's efficacy, in particular one scalding review by a user of the Russian version, and a much better review by a user of the German version. Both of them reviewed older versions, so some of the issues may have been corrected, but what the Russian reviewer had said went fairly well with what I have mentioned about the Japanese program. He wrote that the program introduced many complex cases early on, in the section on prepositions, which would overwhelm a beginning learner, that the words were clearly too centered on what was important in English, and that the pictures didn't fit well with Russian subjects. The German reviewer was much kinder - perhaps because German isn't as grammatically distant from English? This might indicate that Rosetta Stone is quite good for Germanic languages, or perhaps even Romance languages as well, and not as good for languages that aren't as closely related to English.
Apparently the same phrases, in the same order, are used for every language except for Latin. At least they had the sense to realize that learners of a dead language have different needs than those of a living language! Another interesting quote from Wikipedia: "He called the company regarding the picture sets, and was told that four are in use, one for Western languages, another for Asian, and two sets unique to Swahili and Latin."
Finally, this quote sounds a lot like what I began to mention in my last post, about adults learning languages as adults: "In 2008, author Tim Ferriss, who is fluent in multiple languages, reviewed Rosetta Stone. He said that it was faster to learn languages as an adult instead of a child and the aim toward learning as a child did not lead to producing the best results."
Since I have the software, I have continued and will continue to use the Japanese program for the time being. I enjoy the challenge of learning from context, and it's good to have the listening practice. However, I'm not sure I can recommend the software wholeheartedly to the average learner, especially for more exotic languages.
Before I completely write it off, however, I would like to sometime try out Version 3, which according to Wikipedia has a somewhat different approach.
"Instruction takes the form of four units per language level. Each unit is then subdivided into four core lessons. Each core lesson is approximately 30 minutes followed by sublessons. Sublessons take the form of Pronunciation, Writing, Vocabulary, Grammar, Listening, Reading, Speaking, and Reviews. At the end of each unit is a Milestone, which reviews the material covered in that unit in an interactive activity."
http://www.rosettastone.com/personal/demo
You can try out a bit of Version 3 here. It's no accident that they chose the first lesson of Swedish - Swedish is probably one of the easiest languages they offer, and I think the method probably works best earlier on in the process. But it does look nice, and it teaches you a bit more than Version 2, which is a lot of trial and error.
This is a screen shot from my progress so far in the Japanese Version 2 program. It says aloud, "Is the pink car new? No, it is not new.", and displays it either in Kanji/Hiragana, Hiragana, or normal English letters. For this screenshot, I set it to display in English characters.
Japanese is very different from English - you can't translate word for word. Word for word, the translation would be something like, "Pink colour of car (subject) new is (question)? No, that (subject) new(not) (subject) not-is!" It's somewhat of a challenge to figure these things out from the program alone.
Apparently the same phrases, in the same order, are used for every language except for Latin. At least they had the sense to realize that learners of a dead language have different needs than those of a living language! Another interesting quote from Wikipedia: "He called the company regarding the picture sets, and was told that four are in use, one for Western languages, another for Asian, and two sets unique to Swahili and Latin."
Finally, this quote sounds a lot like what I began to mention in my last post, about adults learning languages as adults: "In 2008, author Tim Ferriss, who is fluent in multiple languages, reviewed Rosetta Stone. He said that it was faster to learn languages as an adult instead of a child and the aim toward learning as a child did not lead to producing the best results."
Since I have the software, I have continued and will continue to use the Japanese program for the time being. I enjoy the challenge of learning from context, and it's good to have the listening practice. However, I'm not sure I can recommend the software wholeheartedly to the average learner, especially for more exotic languages.
Before I completely write it off, however, I would like to sometime try out Version 3, which according to Wikipedia has a somewhat different approach.
"Instruction takes the form of four units per language level. Each unit is then subdivided into four core lessons. Each core lesson is approximately 30 minutes followed by sublessons. Sublessons take the form of Pronunciation, Writing, Vocabulary, Grammar, Listening, Reading, Speaking, and Reviews. At the end of each unit is a Milestone, which reviews the material covered in that unit in an interactive activity."
http://www.rosettastone.com/personal/demo
You can try out a bit of Version 3 here. It's no accident that they chose the first lesson of Swedish - Swedish is probably one of the easiest languages they offer, and I think the method probably works best earlier on in the process. But it does look nice, and it teaches you a bit more than Version 2, which is a lot of trial and error.
This is a screen shot from my progress so far in the Japanese Version 2 program. It says aloud, "Is the pink car new? No, it is not new.", and displays it either in Kanji/Hiragana, Hiragana, or normal English letters. For this screenshot, I set it to display in English characters.
Japanese is very different from English - you can't translate word for word. Word for word, the translation would be something like, "Pink colour of car (subject) new is (question)? No, that (subject) new(not) (subject) not-is!" It's somewhat of a challenge to figure these things out from the program alone.
Post Number 1000
I've reached post number 1000, And I'm going to use it to share two recipes that I have prepared recently. The first one is a super easy stir fry thing I made up myself. The second one I got from some old copy from a recipe book, but I changed it around some.
Easy Teriyaki Stir Fry
Teriyaki Sauce, 1 Small Head of Broccoli, 2 Chicken Breasts, 2-3 Cups Cooked Rice,
1 Egg, Light Cooking Oil, Salt and Pepper to Taste
Heat oil in a skillet, add chicken cut widthwise into pieces. Cut broccoli into florets and add to skillet, add cooked rice, a little more oil, and the egg. Stir quickly so that the egg chunks are very small (ideally, more of a coating on the rice). Add teriyaki sauce, salt, and pepper to taste.
Cinnamon Butter Chicken
6 Tablespoons Butter, 2 Tablespoons Oil, 2 Onions, 3-4 Chicken Breasts, Salt to Taste
3/4 Cup Dry Vermouth, 1-2 Teaspoons Tomato Paste, 1 Teaspoon Cinnamon
Melt the butter and oil in a large skillet. Cut the onions to whatever size you like - I left mine in fairly large chunks. Put the onions into the butter and cook slowly until very soft. Add the chicken and brown on all sides. Remove the chicken and set it aside. Stir in the vermouth, tomato paste, cinnamon, and salt. Return the chicken to the pan and cook, covered and on low heat, for about 30 minutes.
Teriyaki Sauce, 1 Small Head of Broccoli, 2 Chicken Breasts, 2-3 Cups Cooked Rice,
1 Egg, Light Cooking Oil, Salt and Pepper to Taste
Heat oil in a skillet, add chicken cut widthwise into pieces. Cut broccoli into florets and add to skillet, add cooked rice, a little more oil, and the egg. Stir quickly so that the egg chunks are very small (ideally, more of a coating on the rice). Add teriyaki sauce, salt, and pepper to taste.
Cinnamon Butter Chicken
6 Tablespoons Butter, 2 Tablespoons Oil, 2 Onions, 3-4 Chicken Breasts, Salt to Taste
3/4 Cup Dry Vermouth, 1-2 Teaspoons Tomato Paste, 1 Teaspoon Cinnamon
Melt the butter and oil in a large skillet. Cut the onions to whatever size you like - I left mine in fairly large chunks. Put the onions into the butter and cook slowly until very soft. Add the chicken and brown on all sides. Remove the chicken and set it aside. Stir in the vermouth, tomato paste, cinnamon, and salt. Return the chicken to the pan and cook, covered and on low heat, for about 30 minutes.
June 24, 2009
Rosetta Stone
I've heard of this language learning software, and it's hefty price tag, so often that they've become almost mythical in my mind. Routinely, I have people ask me whether I use it. I'm finally trying it out. I'm working through Japanese, starting yesterday, and a friend is working through Farsi. We've been comparing notes. I also got on the Danish version for a few minutes for yet a third opinion. So far I have mixed feelings.
Rosetta Stone is supposed to be the best, period. Hence the price tag. It's supposed to be complete immersion, and bringing you back to the experience of being a child learning it's first language. When I see things like this, I can't help but think of two things. Firstly, that the way a child acquires a new language is in many ways mysterious, and we seem to lose much of our ability to do this past a certain age (around ten). Secondly, Barry Farber (who wrote a book on language learning, which I own), said that adults should learn languages as adult learners, with the disadvantages and the advantages that this presents.
So while, in theory, I like the whole 'natural method', 'any background', 'total immersion' idea, I can't help but feel that it's a bit of a gimmick. Also, while I sort of enjoy the challenge of puzzling out the different meanings on my own, I doubt the average language learner cares about a challenge... and didn't they just pay obscene amounts of money to have the language made easier for them? The trickiest parts so far have been a picture of man falling off a bull (I learned which gibberish went with it, but I still don't know what the gibberish is supposed to mean - the rabbit, or the scurrying), and a counting exercise that showed hands, but was counting fingers... this was before they had taught you any numbers over 10, and suddenly you see six hands full of fingers.
Still, once you accept this method, they do a pretty good job with it. The pictures that they use are very creative, and there is never room for ambivalence, once you figure out what it wants you to do. There is a good deal of variety for every subject. So far I've gone through a very few basic nouns, prepositions, verbs, and adjectives, as well as the colour section, and am midway through the number section, including telling time. For the numbers, they have pictures of the numbers on football fields, refrigerators, go-karts, etc. Numbers has you counting plates, balls, children, and more. The variety really is impressive, and I did find myself learning.
Now let's do some cross comparison. This is where I started to be disappointed. The Farsi version, from comparing my notes to those of my friends, seemed eerily similar. And that's just the problem. There are some things that should come early on or later on in any language. For example, pronouns should be introduced fairly early, whereas the names of different Marsupials can probably wait a bit. But that doesn't mean that all languages are the same. The Norwegian version, for example, would waste time in having a section devoted to conjugating verbs by person, whereas such a section would be quite useful in the Spanish version. There's no reason to go into noun gender in the English version, but it might be helpful in the German version.
We're in counting now, and counting is one of the trickier things about Japanese. You see, different words take different counters, which you can make sound easy or hard. If you want to make it sound hard, you can say, truthfully, that you use a different set of numbers to count different objects, depending on things like how they are shaped. You can also make it sound easy by reassuring the learner that these attach to the number stems, and aren't so different from counting bottles in English, instead of 'waters'. The fact of the matter, however, is that there are at least two full sets of number 'stems' that prefix these counters, and some of the counters are irregular. So when Rosetta Stone has you counting plates, and then windows, it seems to expect you to know that three (plates) is (sara ga) sammai, while three (windows) is mittsu (no mado). I'd love to see a learner, completely new to Japanese, work through this chapter and give me their impressions. I got through because I already knew about counters, and had a vague idea about the two sets of stems and even some of the most common irregulars. I knew, going into it, and it was still tricky. I admit it, tricky to explain without breaking the whole 'immersion' theme, but you could give the Japanese learners more time on a section that will be far more difficult for them than for say, Danish learners.
That's a real, practical example of when it might hurt the program to have it be so similar from one language to the next, but there's also just the idea of it. Rosetta Stone markets itself as the best of the best, and has a price tag to support it. So it's a little bit bothersome that the different languages seem so copied from each other. Did they expect that 99% of their users would simply use one language, and never ask questions? Well, probably. But it's still annoying.
Speaking of reusing content, I mentioned to my friend that, even if the subjects (and sentences, and even picture layouts) were the same, at least the pictures were Japanese themed. There were too many Kanji in the background, too many Japanese faces for it to be chance. The first non-Japanese used in a picture was introduced as a wakai, young, woman - I immediately guessed that wakai meant foreigner, or even white. When I told him this, my friend seemed surprise. He said that in the Persian version, the people didn't seem Middle Eastern at all. For comparison purposes, he asked if I had a little boy under a picnic table. I had a Japanese boy, he had a black one. I fired up the Danish version for another perspective. The pictures were different from the Japanese one, and from the Persian one too, I think. They weren't as strongly Danish as the Japanese ones had been Japanese, but it seems as though there was a good deal of effort made to customize the pictures, which I appreciate.
The best thing I have to say about Rosetta Stone is this - it's somewhat addicting. I'll be playing with this more before I leave for Japan - mostly Japanese, of course, but I'll probably try out a few other languages just to check it out.
Rosetta Stone is supposed to be the best, period. Hence the price tag. It's supposed to be complete immersion, and bringing you back to the experience of being a child learning it's first language. When I see things like this, I can't help but think of two things. Firstly, that the way a child acquires a new language is in many ways mysterious, and we seem to lose much of our ability to do this past a certain age (around ten). Secondly, Barry Farber (who wrote a book on language learning, which I own), said that adults should learn languages as adult learners, with the disadvantages and the advantages that this presents.
So while, in theory, I like the whole 'natural method', 'any background', 'total immersion' idea, I can't help but feel that it's a bit of a gimmick. Also, while I sort of enjoy the challenge of puzzling out the different meanings on my own, I doubt the average language learner cares about a challenge... and didn't they just pay obscene amounts of money to have the language made easier for them? The trickiest parts so far have been a picture of man falling off a bull (I learned which gibberish went with it, but I still don't know what the gibberish is supposed to mean - the rabbit, or the scurrying), and a counting exercise that showed hands, but was counting fingers... this was before they had taught you any numbers over 10, and suddenly you see six hands full of fingers.
Still, once you accept this method, they do a pretty good job with it. The pictures that they use are very creative, and there is never room for ambivalence, once you figure out what it wants you to do. There is a good deal of variety for every subject. So far I've gone through a very few basic nouns, prepositions, verbs, and adjectives, as well as the colour section, and am midway through the number section, including telling time. For the numbers, they have pictures of the numbers on football fields, refrigerators, go-karts, etc. Numbers has you counting plates, balls, children, and more. The variety really is impressive, and I did find myself learning.
Now let's do some cross comparison. This is where I started to be disappointed. The Farsi version, from comparing my notes to those of my friends, seemed eerily similar. And that's just the problem. There are some things that should come early on or later on in any language. For example, pronouns should be introduced fairly early, whereas the names of different Marsupials can probably wait a bit. But that doesn't mean that all languages are the same. The Norwegian version, for example, would waste time in having a section devoted to conjugating verbs by person, whereas such a section would be quite useful in the Spanish version. There's no reason to go into noun gender in the English version, but it might be helpful in the German version.
We're in counting now, and counting is one of the trickier things about Japanese. You see, different words take different counters, which you can make sound easy or hard. If you want to make it sound hard, you can say, truthfully, that you use a different set of numbers to count different objects, depending on things like how they are shaped. You can also make it sound easy by reassuring the learner that these attach to the number stems, and aren't so different from counting bottles in English, instead of 'waters'. The fact of the matter, however, is that there are at least two full sets of number 'stems' that prefix these counters, and some of the counters are irregular. So when Rosetta Stone has you counting plates, and then windows, it seems to expect you to know that three (plates) is (sara ga) sammai, while three (windows) is mittsu (no mado). I'd love to see a learner, completely new to Japanese, work through this chapter and give me their impressions. I got through because I already knew about counters, and had a vague idea about the two sets of stems and even some of the most common irregulars. I knew, going into it, and it was still tricky. I admit it, tricky to explain without breaking the whole 'immersion' theme, but you could give the Japanese learners more time on a section that will be far more difficult for them than for say, Danish learners.
That's a real, practical example of when it might hurt the program to have it be so similar from one language to the next, but there's also just the idea of it. Rosetta Stone markets itself as the best of the best, and has a price tag to support it. So it's a little bit bothersome that the different languages seem so copied from each other. Did they expect that 99% of their users would simply use one language, and never ask questions? Well, probably. But it's still annoying.
Speaking of reusing content, I mentioned to my friend that, even if the subjects (and sentences, and even picture layouts) were the same, at least the pictures were Japanese themed. There were too many Kanji in the background, too many Japanese faces for it to be chance. The first non-Japanese used in a picture was introduced as a wakai, young, woman - I immediately guessed that wakai meant foreigner, or even white. When I told him this, my friend seemed surprise. He said that in the Persian version, the people didn't seem Middle Eastern at all. For comparison purposes, he asked if I had a little boy under a picnic table. I had a Japanese boy, he had a black one. I fired up the Danish version for another perspective. The pictures were different from the Japanese one, and from the Persian one too, I think. They weren't as strongly Danish as the Japanese ones had been Japanese, but it seems as though there was a good deal of effort made to customize the pictures, which I appreciate.
The best thing I have to say about Rosetta Stone is this - it's somewhat addicting. I'll be playing with this more before I leave for Japan - mostly Japanese, of course, but I'll probably try out a few other languages just to check it out.
Thinking of You
We're low on the water, and when the tide comes in the sea seems high enough to overflow, and the water is moving quickly. I'm thinking of you, I often am, as if thoughts of you are woven into the fabric of everything else.
Close your eyes, close your eyes
Breathe the air, out there
We are free, we can be
Wide open
For you opened my eyes
To the beauty I see
We we will pray,
We we will stay
Wide open
Don't analyse
Don't analyse
Don't go that way
Don't lead that way
That would paralyse your evolution
- Analyse, Cranberries
Close your eyes, close your eyes
Breathe the air, out there
We are free, we can be
Wide open
For you opened my eyes
To the beauty I see
We we will pray,
We we will stay
Wide open
Don't analyse
Don't analyse
Don't go that way
Don't lead that way
That would paralyse your evolution
- Analyse, Cranberries
June 23, 2009
Neda
There are riots in Iran right now, and they have produced at least one viral video. You can see it on Youtube (if you are over 18). There is a young woman, standing peacefully, and then they shoot her, and she dies. You can't see her very well. By the time the camera moves to her face, there is blood everywhere.
Her name was Neda. I have seen different ages reported for her, but many reports say she was a teenager. I know a teenage, Iranian girl named Neda, too.
It kind of hits close to home.
Her name was Neda. I have seen different ages reported for her, but many reports say she was a teenager. I know a teenage, Iranian girl named Neda, too.
It kind of hits close to home.
June 22, 2009
Tales from Florida
We went swimming in the ocean. My dad got in first, as I ran to get into my swimsuit. When I came back out, my dad was drifting out in the intercoastal.
"Dad?" I called.
"Yeah?"
"How are we going to get back out?"
He turned for that, looking over at the dock, some feet above the water at mid-tide. Then he slumped back down onto the raft. "We'll figure it out."
We did. He tried to leap from the raft to the dock, fell halfway and hit his knee on the razor sharp barnacles that grow on every wooden piling and rope here. He hissed as the water turned red around him.
We ended up going over towards the seawall, where we found an area with fewer barnacles and shallower water, and were able to clamber out without further injury. My dad's knee looked terrible, with three deep curved cuts that bled profusely for some minutes.
But his biggest concern was getting the bleeding to stop in time to walk to the beach for sunset. My mom, laughing at the three of us on foot, drove past in the armada. As we had expected, she never made it to the beach. She had been unable to find parking, and returned home, the joke on her.
We walked instead, and it wasn't a bad walk. That time of day, even crossing the road wasn't too bad. Sunsets here are nothing short of incredible. There were hermit crabs scuttling across the beach. Melissa found a coconut and declared that she would bring it home, giving me flashbacks to the coconut that Tom, Prompong, and I had cut open back in Laws. She gave up halfway and 'accidentally dropped it'.
Every Sunday in our neighborhood there is a floating raft party. It seems to center around our dock, although we may never take part in it. (Melissa and Mom have sworn never to enter the ocean water) Some people have their dogs out there on the rafts with them - and not all small dogs, either! I saw a golden retriever relaxing, his paws hanging out over the edge of his sagging raft.
My appetite here continues to swing. Some days I feel as if I could go for hours and hours without eating, other days I can't get enough. I can't explain this.
Yesterday was Father's Day and my dad bought a new grill, and used it for the first time. :)
The night before we celebrated Melissa's 17th birthday on a dinner cruise, the Calypso. There was a buffet and dancing during a sunset in the bay. Melissa dances better than anyone, especially my own little sister, has a right to. I took quick shutter pictures of it for what will soon be an amusing facebook album. The sunset too was breathtaking! As a special request, I asked the DJ to play Dancing Queen. (Young and Sweet, only 17!) She was the star of the dance floor.
The best part was Cotton Eyed Joe, the last song before we disembarked. It's such a good old fashioned Country Song, and here we were, some Hillbilly refugees from the far off land of Missouri. We all knew the song, and Dad started doing the fake banjo thing, and my mom was dancing too, and Melissa was doing a bona fide 'Cotton Eyed Joe', kicking her legs up so high that people were turning and staring, wide eyed. A few other high school girls got behind her and tried to imitate her - their version was mediocre, at best, and they soon tired.
We are starting to meet a few people. There is a very nice lady in the neighborhood named Debbie, who has taken an especial interest in Melissa, and has introduced her to several kids, as well as the Indian Rocks Baptist Church, where I think we will all be going, at least for the summer. We went to the first service on Sunday, and I have to admit, I was impressed by the sermon. It was engaging, practical, and well rooted not only in the Bible, but in an unusual part of the Bible. It's a mega church, complete with a gift shop, but it would be wrong merely to judge it for it's size, right?
"Dad?" I called.
"Yeah?"
"How are we going to get back out?"
He turned for that, looking over at the dock, some feet above the water at mid-tide. Then he slumped back down onto the raft. "We'll figure it out."
We did. He tried to leap from the raft to the dock, fell halfway and hit his knee on the razor sharp barnacles that grow on every wooden piling and rope here. He hissed as the water turned red around him.
We ended up going over towards the seawall, where we found an area with fewer barnacles and shallower water, and were able to clamber out without further injury. My dad's knee looked terrible, with three deep curved cuts that bled profusely for some minutes.
But his biggest concern was getting the bleeding to stop in time to walk to the beach for sunset. My mom, laughing at the three of us on foot, drove past in the armada. As we had expected, she never made it to the beach. She had been unable to find parking, and returned home, the joke on her.
We walked instead, and it wasn't a bad walk. That time of day, even crossing the road wasn't too bad. Sunsets here are nothing short of incredible. There were hermit crabs scuttling across the beach. Melissa found a coconut and declared that she would bring it home, giving me flashbacks to the coconut that Tom, Prompong, and I had cut open back in Laws. She gave up halfway and 'accidentally dropped it'.
Every Sunday in our neighborhood there is a floating raft party. It seems to center around our dock, although we may never take part in it. (Melissa and Mom have sworn never to enter the ocean water) Some people have their dogs out there on the rafts with them - and not all small dogs, either! I saw a golden retriever relaxing, his paws hanging out over the edge of his sagging raft.
My appetite here continues to swing. Some days I feel as if I could go for hours and hours without eating, other days I can't get enough. I can't explain this.
Yesterday was Father's Day and my dad bought a new grill, and used it for the first time. :)
The night before we celebrated Melissa's 17th birthday on a dinner cruise, the Calypso. There was a buffet and dancing during a sunset in the bay. Melissa dances better than anyone, especially my own little sister, has a right to. I took quick shutter pictures of it for what will soon be an amusing facebook album. The sunset too was breathtaking! As a special request, I asked the DJ to play Dancing Queen. (Young and Sweet, only 17!) She was the star of the dance floor.
The best part was Cotton Eyed Joe, the last song before we disembarked. It's such a good old fashioned Country Song, and here we were, some Hillbilly refugees from the far off land of Missouri. We all knew the song, and Dad started doing the fake banjo thing, and my mom was dancing too, and Melissa was doing a bona fide 'Cotton Eyed Joe', kicking her legs up so high that people were turning and staring, wide eyed. A few other high school girls got behind her and tried to imitate her - their version was mediocre, at best, and they soon tired.
We are starting to meet a few people. There is a very nice lady in the neighborhood named Debbie, who has taken an especial interest in Melissa, and has introduced her to several kids, as well as the Indian Rocks Baptist Church, where I think we will all be going, at least for the summer. We went to the first service on Sunday, and I have to admit, I was impressed by the sermon. It was engaging, practical, and well rooted not only in the Bible, but in an unusual part of the Bible. It's a mega church, complete with a gift shop, but it would be wrong merely to judge it for it's size, right?
Travel Blog Ideas
I have been thinking more about my travel blog, and how to organize it. There are some different options:
1.) Blog about each trip as it happens, or immediately following
Pros: Very organized, seems more professional, will work well when I am studying abroad
Cons: I don't travel enough, or regularly enough - I would have to backdate extensively to make this work, it would feel weird to write too much about any one trip, etc.
2.) Blog about whatever I want, whenever I want
Pros: This is the easiest and most fun for me, the blog will be updated very regularly, it makes it look like I've been more places because of the random juxtapositions.
Cons: Very disorganized
3.) Pick a way to organize the blog (by trip, by theme, etc), or even one or two ways and have different 'features'.
Pros: Organized enough
Cons: Hardest for me
I'm leaning towards number three, but having a hard time figuring out what sorts of organization methods I should employ. Should I do it in the form of articles, like, "A Day at Suomenlinna", or "The Cloud Forest of Costa Rica"? Should I have random features like "Picture of the Week" with a story behind it? And should I interrupt all of this when I am actually traveling, in order to talk about the here and now?
Any advice would be appreciated! :D (This means you, Stephanie and Uni...)
1.) Blog about each trip as it happens, or immediately following
Pros: Very organized, seems more professional, will work well when I am studying abroad
Cons: I don't travel enough, or regularly enough - I would have to backdate extensively to make this work, it would feel weird to write too much about any one trip, etc.
2.) Blog about whatever I want, whenever I want
Pros: This is the easiest and most fun for me, the blog will be updated very regularly, it makes it look like I've been more places because of the random juxtapositions.
Cons: Very disorganized
3.) Pick a way to organize the blog (by trip, by theme, etc), or even one or two ways and have different 'features'.
Pros: Organized enough
Cons: Hardest for me
I'm leaning towards number three, but having a hard time figuring out what sorts of organization methods I should employ. Should I do it in the form of articles, like, "A Day at Suomenlinna", or "The Cloud Forest of Costa Rica"? Should I have random features like "Picture of the Week" with a story behind it? And should I interrupt all of this when I am actually traveling, in order to talk about the here and now?
Any advice would be appreciated! :D (This means you, Stephanie and Uni...)
June 19, 2009
Back to Work
The chaos of the move disrupted everything. Now I am trying to go back to some projects - my memoirs for last summer, learning Japanese and about Japan.
These things get easier the longer I work on them, somehow, so I knew that I needed to start. I read the first few pages of a book I bought used, called Japanese Inn, last night. It told me about a semi-legendary Japanese beach called Miho's Beach - I want to look it up, and if anything doesn't work out this summer it's maybe another possible destination. You can see Mt. Fuji from the beach, so I know it's not crazy far away from other things we're doing. Miho's beach is supposedly still beautiful today, with it's black volcanic sands, pine groves, and view of Fuji, but in older days, when it had white sands, it was more beautiful yet. So beautiful, in fact, that the legends say that an angel descended from the heavens to dance on the beach, and left her feathery robe on the branch of a wind shaped pine. While she bathed, a fisherman found it, and wouldn't give it back unless she danced for him. She danced the celestial dance as the heavens provided the music, and afterwards vanished into a mist...
My memoirs. Today I brainstormed all the important points I want to cover about Monteverde, Manuel Antonio, and my first day with the host family. I also touched up a lot of bad spots in earlier entrees. Hopefully, by next Wednesday, I'll have Costa Rica done up until the Host Family stay begins, and also do a few entrees of Finland. It's probably unrealistic to have even a rough draft completely done by the time I go to Japan, but it would be nice to get close, because I'm going to have a lot to say about Japan, too!
It's funny, because these days a day doesn't hold much. I get up, I run some errands, I maybe read some, clean a lot, cook, go to bed. So when I'm reading what I did in a single day in my memoirs, it's unbelievable! One day, I started with a hike through a cloud rainforest, then went to a hummingbird sanctuary, then there was a long drive south down the mountains and along the coast, and we went to a club that night and danced after seeing spider monkeys and sloths at our hotel.
I think what's amazing about Vacation is that you expect things to happen - a year goes by in your 'grey' ordinary life and you have to think to realize how much really happened - as it happens it's just life. But on a vacation you're ready and anticipating life to happen. And of course, it does.
I head each entree with a date and a title, often a location. I also say the day of the week. I almost took them out, at one point, then I remembered why I included them to start with - why I like them there. It's odd, but Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday - it's so pedestrian, that it almost ties the unreal world of the trips with the real world I move in every day. Saturday, ha! And to think, ordinarily I would be working at the library all day. Sunday, that's church! No, wait, Saturday was the rainforest, Sunday was San Jose - or something like that. ;) All of this subconscious, of course.
These things get easier the longer I work on them, somehow, so I knew that I needed to start. I read the first few pages of a book I bought used, called Japanese Inn, last night. It told me about a semi-legendary Japanese beach called Miho's Beach - I want to look it up, and if anything doesn't work out this summer it's maybe another possible destination. You can see Mt. Fuji from the beach, so I know it's not crazy far away from other things we're doing. Miho's beach is supposedly still beautiful today, with it's black volcanic sands, pine groves, and view of Fuji, but in older days, when it had white sands, it was more beautiful yet. So beautiful, in fact, that the legends say that an angel descended from the heavens to dance on the beach, and left her feathery robe on the branch of a wind shaped pine. While she bathed, a fisherman found it, and wouldn't give it back unless she danced for him. She danced the celestial dance as the heavens provided the music, and afterwards vanished into a mist...
My memoirs. Today I brainstormed all the important points I want to cover about Monteverde, Manuel Antonio, and my first day with the host family. I also touched up a lot of bad spots in earlier entrees. Hopefully, by next Wednesday, I'll have Costa Rica done up until the Host Family stay begins, and also do a few entrees of Finland. It's probably unrealistic to have even a rough draft completely done by the time I go to Japan, but it would be nice to get close, because I'm going to have a lot to say about Japan, too!
It's funny, because these days a day doesn't hold much. I get up, I run some errands, I maybe read some, clean a lot, cook, go to bed. So when I'm reading what I did in a single day in my memoirs, it's unbelievable! One day, I started with a hike through a cloud rainforest, then went to a hummingbird sanctuary, then there was a long drive south down the mountains and along the coast, and we went to a club that night and danced after seeing spider monkeys and sloths at our hotel.
I think what's amazing about Vacation is that you expect things to happen - a year goes by in your 'grey' ordinary life and you have to think to realize how much really happened - as it happens it's just life. But on a vacation you're ready and anticipating life to happen. And of course, it does.
I head each entree with a date and a title, often a location. I also say the day of the week. I almost took them out, at one point, then I remembered why I included them to start with - why I like them there. It's odd, but Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday - it's so pedestrian, that it almost ties the unreal world of the trips with the real world I move in every day. Saturday, ha! And to think, ordinarily I would be working at the library all day. Sunday, that's church! No, wait, Saturday was the rainforest, Sunday was San Jose - or something like that. ;) All of this subconscious, of course.
June 15, 2009
Failed Star
Why is the term “failed star” synonymous with brown dwarfs? On the one hand, brown dwarfs lack the mass to sustain nuclear fusion in their cores. On the other hand, who said brown dwarfs were trying to be stars? Who ever said that becoming a star was the pinnacle of stellar living? Perhaps brown dwarfs are perfectly happy the way they are. In a world of equality and political correctness, brown dwarfs could be viewed as “over-achieving Jupiters”, or gas supergiants.
--Astroengine.com
June 14, 2009
Update on My New Floridian Life
We moved out of the hotel and into the new home. Dad returned from Paris. The house is full of our furniture and the number of boxes obstructing our passage is quickly diminishing. The music and several T.V.s are up and running, and the large black dachshunds next door have discovered Tidbit and vice versa, so it's goodbye to the quiet we had before!
The dock is very different from the one we have at Lake of the Ozarks - it's on piles, instead of floating, so it doesn't go up and down with the tides, and doesn't rock in the wake of boats or dolphins. When the tide is low it's several feet under the dock, and reveals a mass of white-grey-green barnacle/shellfish-stuff encrusting the wooden pilings. I need to catch up on my vocabulary to describe such things - I've just spent too much of my life far from the sea. I am nearly as surprised as Tidbit by the salty taste of the water.
Yesterday we worked. I pulled the tape off of so many boxes that the tips of my fingers ached and felt carpet burned. I also set up the home computer and everything, and it's all running very well now! The house begins to feel a bit like a home. Our furniture is all here and some rooms, such as the Master Bedroom, are even respectably nice. Both bathrooms and the kitchen, however, are still miserable - probably will be until we make some fundamental changes to the house. But ah well. The big piles of book boxes from my room and the office are gone, as are most of the random boxes in the family/dining room and my parents' closet.
Last night while we were trying to set up the home gym, the weight machine fell over on me. It only fell about forty five degrees, and while it hurt, I knew right away I wasn't seriously injured. Took a while to convince my parents of that, though, and they ran over and started patting me everywhere and asking what hurt. I was more worried about my laptop, which was also involved in the accident - it has a good scratch in the screen, almost penetrating. But it doesn't affect how it works at all, so I'm grateful for that.
Immediately following this incident Teddy and Maxine arrived. They are, or Teddy is, if you want to be specific, our only blood relatives in Florida. Teddy is my grandmother's brother, and Maxine is his wife. We visited them in Florida once growing up, and of course we've seen them at numerous family functions across the States (okay, so overwhelmingly in Missouri), so they are a slice of home, family, normality, if those can be associated.
They are very Floridian. Maxine is from Tennessee and speaks and cooks with a decidedly southern style. I volunteered to help her cook for Thanksgiving, as we'll be spending this Thanksgiving with them, and I've heard she makes cornbread stuffing and sometimes deep-fries the turkey. Teddy has such a strong something accent that he can be difficult to understand at times. He is bald and almost a caricature of himself, but very nice, underneath the bravado ;), and a 'hoot', as my mom puts it. He goes freshwater fishing on a fast motorboat in gator infested, inland waters.
We went out with them to a restaurant in John's Pass called Gators. I had this massive appetite, I dunno where from. I helped with the peel and eat shrimp and gator appetizers, and then ate every bite of my blackened Mahi Mahi with yellow rice, and then got a dessert - Key Lime Pie - to split with my sister. It was all good, especially the Key Lime Pie. What's very strange is that I never, ever order dessert - I'm usually so full that I bring half my entree home and still feel abused. And afterward I was contented, but not so full as I usually am - I could have helped out with another few desserts, or another round of appetizers, had there been more to come!
The sunset was unbearably lovely. Pictures later, I'm planning to post a few from the move.
My 'room' consists of a bookshelf filled with books, two crates with clothes, one crate of debris, one crate labeled sentimental, an alarm clock, and an air bed, all in the home gym. It's cozy. No, really. Well, there's nowhere to sit down on, or anything to eat. (/tolkienfandom) Tidbit and I slept there last night and it worked out pretty well. This house is wired really poorly, and all the light switches and knobs are on the outsides of the rooms they belong to, meaning that I have to decide whether I want my light on or off /before/ I go into my room and shut the door. Luckily my closet has it's own light, and a pretty nice one, which I have been reading by.
Today I woke up when Tidbit wanted to go outside. It was about half an hour earlier than I would have liked. She went out and hunted for geckos and I got out Liebe Total and read about five pages, underlining, but not looking up, the words I didn't know. I can never decide whether it is better to read, ignoring or figuring out from context the words I don't know, or go through making a notice of them, maybe looking them up if I have the computer handy, and that's it, or to go through and study every new word. It's hard to say, so I sort of play it by ear each day. Liebe Total is pretty easy, and from the subject matter I think it's written for teenagers, which would explain that. German prose, such as in a newspaper, can be very difficult - making it one of the few languages that I'm almost as confident listening in as reading it! But Liebe Total (actually, Immer Cool Bleiben, the first novel of two in the book) is very reasonable.
Then we did a bit more work, and then I went to the grocery store, Winn Dixie. At first I worried because they didn't seem to have anything I sought. Organic 1% milk, for example. I found the ordinary milk, a small enough section, and beside it saw several organic varieties. There were three kinds each of organic whole, and skim milk, and two kinds of organic 2%, and one kind of organic 1% chocolate milk! Finally I asked someone and it turns out they keep it in a different area of the store. ?? Similar thing happened with the feta cheese, all the flavoured and low fat kinds are at one end, and the ordinary varieties at the other.
I've been attempting to cook with the new kitchen and sometimes it has me pining for my 'kitchen' in the dorm. The drawers don't pull out well, the stove and oven are old and hardly trustworthy, we have no microwave, etc... but we brought the knives and pans, etc, from home, and they are quite nice. :D I can cut through onion and garlic like butter! Right now the smell of Greek chicken and jasmine rice are permeating the room.
My main complaint here is the sun. It takes me down. I was sensitive enough to the heat in St. Louis, but I dunno... here it's a drier heat, which most people prefer, but not me, for some reason. A wet heat exhausts, sure, and may even feel hotter in the mouth and nose, but this dry heat makes my skin burn and itch. Or maybe it's that the sun's rays are so much stronger closer to the equator? It's thoroughly unpleasant and I can't even describe it in a way that does it justice. I realize suddenly that before this I never really went to Florida in summer, usually in Winter, and found it balmy enough then! I'm just not built to survive this climate, or this latitude, or somethign!
The dock is very different from the one we have at Lake of the Ozarks - it's on piles, instead of floating, so it doesn't go up and down with the tides, and doesn't rock in the wake of boats or dolphins. When the tide is low it's several feet under the dock, and reveals a mass of white-grey-green barnacle/shellfish-stuff encrusting the wooden pilings. I need to catch up on my vocabulary to describe such things - I've just spent too much of my life far from the sea. I am nearly as surprised as Tidbit by the salty taste of the water.
Yesterday we worked. I pulled the tape off of so many boxes that the tips of my fingers ached and felt carpet burned. I also set up the home computer and everything, and it's all running very well now! The house begins to feel a bit like a home. Our furniture is all here and some rooms, such as the Master Bedroom, are even respectably nice. Both bathrooms and the kitchen, however, are still miserable - probably will be until we make some fundamental changes to the house. But ah well. The big piles of book boxes from my room and the office are gone, as are most of the random boxes in the family/dining room and my parents' closet.
Last night while we were trying to set up the home gym, the weight machine fell over on me. It only fell about forty five degrees, and while it hurt, I knew right away I wasn't seriously injured. Took a while to convince my parents of that, though, and they ran over and started patting me everywhere and asking what hurt. I was more worried about my laptop, which was also involved in the accident - it has a good scratch in the screen, almost penetrating. But it doesn't affect how it works at all, so I'm grateful for that.
Immediately following this incident Teddy and Maxine arrived. They are, or Teddy is, if you want to be specific, our only blood relatives in Florida. Teddy is my grandmother's brother, and Maxine is his wife. We visited them in Florida once growing up, and of course we've seen them at numerous family functions across the States (okay, so overwhelmingly in Missouri), so they are a slice of home, family, normality, if those can be associated.
They are very Floridian. Maxine is from Tennessee and speaks and cooks with a decidedly southern style. I volunteered to help her cook for Thanksgiving, as we'll be spending this Thanksgiving with them, and I've heard she makes cornbread stuffing and sometimes deep-fries the turkey. Teddy has such a strong something accent that he can be difficult to understand at times. He is bald and almost a caricature of himself, but very nice, underneath the bravado ;), and a 'hoot', as my mom puts it. He goes freshwater fishing on a fast motorboat in gator infested, inland waters.
We went out with them to a restaurant in John's Pass called Gators. I had this massive appetite, I dunno where from. I helped with the peel and eat shrimp and gator appetizers, and then ate every bite of my blackened Mahi Mahi with yellow rice, and then got a dessert - Key Lime Pie - to split with my sister. It was all good, especially the Key Lime Pie. What's very strange is that I never, ever order dessert - I'm usually so full that I bring half my entree home and still feel abused. And afterward I was contented, but not so full as I usually am - I could have helped out with another few desserts, or another round of appetizers, had there been more to come!
The sunset was unbearably lovely. Pictures later, I'm planning to post a few from the move.
My 'room' consists of a bookshelf filled with books, two crates with clothes, one crate of debris, one crate labeled sentimental, an alarm clock, and an air bed, all in the home gym. It's cozy. No, really. Well, there's nowhere to sit down on, or anything to eat. (/tolkienfandom) Tidbit and I slept there last night and it worked out pretty well. This house is wired really poorly, and all the light switches and knobs are on the outsides of the rooms they belong to, meaning that I have to decide whether I want my light on or off /before/ I go into my room and shut the door. Luckily my closet has it's own light, and a pretty nice one, which I have been reading by.
Today I woke up when Tidbit wanted to go outside. It was about half an hour earlier than I would have liked. She went out and hunted for geckos and I got out Liebe Total and read about five pages, underlining, but not looking up, the words I didn't know. I can never decide whether it is better to read, ignoring or figuring out from context the words I don't know, or go through making a notice of them, maybe looking them up if I have the computer handy, and that's it, or to go through and study every new word. It's hard to say, so I sort of play it by ear each day. Liebe Total is pretty easy, and from the subject matter I think it's written for teenagers, which would explain that. German prose, such as in a newspaper, can be very difficult - making it one of the few languages that I'm almost as confident listening in as reading it! But Liebe Total (actually, Immer Cool Bleiben, the first novel of two in the book) is very reasonable.
Then we did a bit more work, and then I went to the grocery store, Winn Dixie. At first I worried because they didn't seem to have anything I sought. Organic 1% milk, for example. I found the ordinary milk, a small enough section, and beside it saw several organic varieties. There were three kinds each of organic whole, and skim milk, and two kinds of organic 2%, and one kind of organic 1% chocolate milk! Finally I asked someone and it turns out they keep it in a different area of the store. ?? Similar thing happened with the feta cheese, all the flavoured and low fat kinds are at one end, and the ordinary varieties at the other.
I've been attempting to cook with the new kitchen and sometimes it has me pining for my 'kitchen' in the dorm. The drawers don't pull out well, the stove and oven are old and hardly trustworthy, we have no microwave, etc... but we brought the knives and pans, etc, from home, and they are quite nice. :D I can cut through onion and garlic like butter! Right now the smell of Greek chicken and jasmine rice are permeating the room.
My main complaint here is the sun. It takes me down. I was sensitive enough to the heat in St. Louis, but I dunno... here it's a drier heat, which most people prefer, but not me, for some reason. A wet heat exhausts, sure, and may even feel hotter in the mouth and nose, but this dry heat makes my skin burn and itch. Or maybe it's that the sun's rays are so much stronger closer to the equator? It's thoroughly unpleasant and I can't even describe it in a way that does it justice. I realize suddenly that before this I never really went to Florida in summer, usually in Winter, and found it balmy enough then! I'm just not built to survive this climate, or this latitude, or somethign!
Blogging
On Facebook today Koko tagged me in a picture she had taken, with her host family here in America, of some Cream Cheese Clouds she had made from my recipe! :D So proud! Anyway, it made the 999th picture I have been tagged in on Facebook, mostly thanks to the 100 or so Stephanie put up the other day. :P And I just realized that I'm only ten away (counting this one) from having 999 posts in this blog!
That's the product of both a relatively high number of average posts per month, and a lot of months! I think I have been getting a bit better, more regular, etc, at blogging since I decided to go into Journalism. It's practice, in a way.
This blog is still pretty random and all over the place, however. Technically I have four blogs:
I Naur Celedril (Main Blog)
The Gourmet Chef (Cooking in a Dorm Room Blog)
Life in the Faroes (w/ Uni, about the Faroe Islands)
Tree and Root (Writing Blog, Inactive)
The Gourmet Chef will be active again once school is back in session. Life in the Faroes I just help with, and Tree and Root is inactive for now, since I hardly write anything! However, I think I'm going to make another blog (that's right, a fifth blog) about travelling. It will not be connected to my current blogger account, although I may continue to use blogger, because I'm rather fond ot it! It will be much more focused than this one, and be mostly journal style entrees about my travels, with pictures. I'll post a link here when I get it up and running.
That's the product of both a relatively high number of average posts per month, and a lot of months! I think I have been getting a bit better, more regular, etc, at blogging since I decided to go into Journalism. It's practice, in a way.
This blog is still pretty random and all over the place, however. Technically I have four blogs:
I Naur Celedril (Main Blog)
The Gourmet Chef (Cooking in a Dorm Room Blog)
Life in the Faroes (w/ Uni, about the Faroe Islands)
Tree and Root (Writing Blog, Inactive)
The Gourmet Chef will be active again once school is back in session. Life in the Faroes I just help with, and Tree and Root is inactive for now, since I hardly write anything! However, I think I'm going to make another blog (that's right, a fifth blog) about travelling. It will not be connected to my current blogger account, although I may continue to use blogger, because I'm rather fond ot it! It will be much more focused than this one, and be mostly journal style entrees about my travels, with pictures. I'll post a link here when I get it up and running.
Question Time with Miranda
Uni and I have decided to start a new feature on Life in the Faroes (Uni's blog, which I help him with). It is called Question Time with Miranda, and it is a series of interviews between the two of us, where I pretend to not know anything about the Faroes and he pretends to know everything (thanks, Wikipedia!). We are going to start off really basic, like I will think the Faroe Islands are in Egypt, and work our way up to more specific topics such as houses in the Faroe Islands, or traditional music, or whatever, really.
You can see the first one here:
http://roskur.blogspot.com/2009/06/question-time-with-miranda-issue-one.html
Right now we are working on making an icon for the feature, and on the translation to Faroese.
You can see the first one here:
http://roskur.blogspot.com/2009/06/question-time-with-miranda-issue-one.html
Right now we are working on making an icon for the feature, and on the translation to Faroese.
June 12, 2009
The Education of the Swedes
Hei alle sammen!
Jeg håper at dere liker dere her i Florida! For en søt familie dere er! :)
Jeg tenkte bare at dere ville kanskje vite at her tar vi av bordet etter frokost.
Ha det kjempefint!
It didn't take us long to notice the Swedes. When you stay in a hotel for more than a week, and particularly when you attend the breakfast every morning, you begin to become acquainted in a distant, 'stalkerish' way with several of the more interesting families who are following the same patterns.
The most interesting, most obvious family this week has been a family of Swedes. Loud father, quiet mother, two singing blonde children with bright blue eyes. They dominate the room with their loudness, their foreignness, the singsong quality of their speech... the way they never clear their table after they eat, leaving the busboys, who are only supposed to replenish food and empty trash cans, a mountain of china and rubbish.
So I played a little trick, or taught them a little something, or did the busboys a bit of a favour, depending on how you want to look at it. I wrote them a note, last night, and stuck it under their door. You can see the note in it's original above - the translation would be,
Hello everyone!
I hope you like it here in Florida! What a sweet/cute family you are!
I just thought you might want to know that here we clear the table after breakfast.
Have a great time!
This morning, inconspicuous as always, we watched. And if they didn't clear the table, every bit, admirably so! We were a safe distance off, but could hardly contain our giggles as mamma and pappa walked to the trash cans again and again with the piles of dishes.
Jeg håper at dere liker dere her i Florida! For en søt familie dere er! :)
Jeg tenkte bare at dere ville kanskje vite at her tar vi av bordet etter frokost.
Ha det kjempefint!
It didn't take us long to notice the Swedes. When you stay in a hotel for more than a week, and particularly when you attend the breakfast every morning, you begin to become acquainted in a distant, 'stalkerish' way with several of the more interesting families who are following the same patterns.
The most interesting, most obvious family this week has been a family of Swedes. Loud father, quiet mother, two singing blonde children with bright blue eyes. They dominate the room with their loudness, their foreignness, the singsong quality of their speech... the way they never clear their table after they eat, leaving the busboys, who are only supposed to replenish food and empty trash cans, a mountain of china and rubbish.
So I played a little trick, or taught them a little something, or did the busboys a bit of a favour, depending on how you want to look at it. I wrote them a note, last night, and stuck it under their door. You can see the note in it's original above - the translation would be,
Hello everyone!
I hope you like it here in Florida! What a sweet/cute family you are!
I just thought you might want to know that here we clear the table after breakfast.
Have a great time!
This morning, inconspicuous as always, we watched. And if they didn't clear the table, every bit, admirably so! We were a safe distance off, but could hardly contain our giggles as mamma and pappa walked to the trash cans again and again with the piles of dishes.
June 10, 2009
Moving, Touching, Romantic Chapterbook
The other day I went to the little bookstore near our Winn Dixie and found a book in Finnish! I bought it on the spot, hardly caring what it was about. Well, I've started in on it. It's slow going because I need to look up many words, and with Finnish you don't just 'look up a word' as you can in Spanish... it often takes a bit of time to deconstruct the word into various smaller words, or at least separate the ending, sometimes reconstruct the altered original stem, etc. But ah, the feeling when it goes well, and you have an actual sentence in front of you!
Right. So, how much have I read?
Erm... the front and back cover? XD I've only had a bit of time after breakfast! I'll summarize, but please don't get mad for bad translations. XD
The Title is: Tyttö ja kartanonherra
My Translation: The girl and the lord of the estate
The author is Catherine Cookson. I was pretty sure the book was translated, which is a bit sad but oh well. I checked the publication page and it says, Englanninkielen alkuteos The Dwelling Place ilmestyi 1971 Suomentanut Eva Siikarla. Right, definitely translated, and older, too.
I started in on the back cover.
Cissie Brodin, köyhän maatyöläisen kymmenpäisen sisaruparven vanhin, menettää molemmat vanhempansa. Cissie päättää pitää perheen koossa hinnalla millä hyvänsä. Hän sijoittaa pesueensa nummelle kallioluolaan ja aloittaa taistelun jokapäiväisestä leivästä. Juuri kun elämä alkaa sujua, mahtavan aateliskartanon nuoriherra raiskaa Cissien - ja pian tyttö huomaa odottavansa lasta.
Cissie Brodin, the oldest of ten siblings in a poor serf family, loses both parents. Cissie decides to keep the family together at whatever cost. She relocates the brood to a craggy den on the moors and begins the full time struggle to eat (lit. for bread). Just when life begins to flow(?), the lord of a great noble estate rapes Cissie - and soon the girl discovers that she is pregnant.
Notes:
1.) I love Finnish. Some words are just so beautiful! Like sujua for flow, luola for cave. And raiskaa is dreadful and perfect. Then again, where does it get words like tyttö for girl? :S
2.) Nummi = Moors.... seriously? I haven't read a book set on the moors since Secret Garden, and now suddenly I'm reading both this and Wuthering Heights. :S
3.) The little grab line is: Koskettava, romanttinen lukuromaani! This seems to mean "Moving (or touching), romantic chapter-novel!"
Somehow, with the subject matter, I don't think this is a children's book, but the grab line is trying to convince me otherwise. XD
Right. So, how much have I read?
Erm... the front and back cover? XD I've only had a bit of time after breakfast! I'll summarize, but please don't get mad for bad translations. XD
The Title is: Tyttö ja kartanonherra
My Translation: The girl and the lord of the estate
The author is Catherine Cookson. I was pretty sure the book was translated, which is a bit sad but oh well. I checked the publication page and it says, Englanninkielen alkuteos The Dwelling Place ilmestyi 1971 Suomentanut Eva Siikarla. Right, definitely translated, and older, too.
I started in on the back cover.
Cissie Brodin, köyhän maatyöläisen kymmenpäisen sisaruparven vanhin, menettää molemmat vanhempansa. Cissie päättää pitää perheen koossa hinnalla millä hyvänsä. Hän sijoittaa pesueensa nummelle kallioluolaan ja aloittaa taistelun jokapäiväisestä leivästä. Juuri kun elämä alkaa sujua, mahtavan aateliskartanon nuoriherra raiskaa Cissien - ja pian tyttö huomaa odottavansa lasta.
Cissie Brodin, the oldest of ten siblings in a poor serf family, loses both parents. Cissie decides to keep the family together at whatever cost. She relocates the brood to a craggy den on the moors and begins the full time struggle to eat (lit. for bread). Just when life begins to flow(?), the lord of a great noble estate rapes Cissie - and soon the girl discovers that she is pregnant.
Notes:
1.) I love Finnish. Some words are just so beautiful! Like sujua for flow, luola for cave. And raiskaa is dreadful and perfect. Then again, where does it get words like tyttö for girl? :S
2.) Nummi = Moors.... seriously? I haven't read a book set on the moors since Secret Garden, and now suddenly I'm reading both this and Wuthering Heights. :S
3.) The little grab line is: Koskettava, romanttinen lukuromaani! This seems to mean "Moving (or touching), romantic chapter-novel!"
Somehow, with the subject matter, I don't think this is a children's book, but the grab line is trying to convince me otherwise. XD
June 08, 2009
Pirat Partiet
http://www.piratpartiet.se/international/english
I think this is fascinating. The party has some very controversial and radical ideas, but also, I think, a lot of good ideas. But just the fact that it won a reasonable amount of the vote... Impressive, I think.
I think this is fascinating. The party has some very controversial and radical ideas, but also, I think, a lot of good ideas. But just the fact that it won a reasonable amount of the vote... Impressive, I think.
Florida - First Impressions
We are staying at a beach hotel, overlooking the gentle surf of the Gulf of Mexico and listening to the sound of the gulls. Those who have lived their whole lives by the sea, I know, regard them as pests, but they are still something marvelous for us - part of a vacation. We are still vacationing, in a way, since we're staying in the hotel instead of our new home. It's a fixer upper. We knew that, but we didn't really understand it until we arrived. The yard is smaller than we thought, the colour schemes uglier, the kitchen thirty years old. We've decided we must gut the house, and not only eventually but soon. It was supposed to be clean when we got here, but instead the whole thing is filthy. My mom's losing it. Well, part of that is just what you get for putting something, anything, on a pedestal.
We got up early today for the movers, but both the car mover and the furniture movers have delayed until tomorrow, so the only reason for waiting was the cable hookup. The hours dragged by. Melissa and I took a short trip to Winn Dixie, the southern grocery store. It's the closest one to our new house, so we familiarized ourselves a bit. They were very nice and we got a loyalty card. Quite near Winn Dixie is a little used and new bookstore and a library - the only one on the island, I think. We have to go to the mainland for Wal-Mart but it looks as though most of our other basic needs can be taken care of here.
I snuck a quick visit to the little bookstore. They had all the major categories, although even the new books (what few there were) looked used. They have a rare book section. The signage is bad so it took me a while and a lucky angle to find the foreign language section, but I was in for a nice surprise there. They had a reasonable collection of Swedish and Norwegian instruction books, the Norwegian ones predictably and unfortunately below my level, and most of the moderately sized shelf was German. In this part of the world I would have expected something more like the Borders back home - two shelves of Spanish, a handful of books in French, and, if you are lucky, one or two in German or Italian. As I was scanning the shelves, aware that I needed to get back home, I found a book in Finnish. Imagine! I bought it right away, even though it's a romance of some sort and I probably won't like it. Finnish! And for 3$! I spoke to the lady and she says if I come back later this week she'll give/sell me a stack of Norwegian magazines that her Norwegian friend gave her. If I'm incredibly lucky, I figure there's even a chance I'll run into one of her Norwegian friends. Wouldn't that be marvellous?
Yesterday at Wal-Mart I picked up a three dollar copy of Wuthering Heights. I'm enjoying it so far - reading about the wild, rugged, dark moors from the comfort of our little wooden dock. My skin is starting to colour already, although I try to keep in the shade. It's not burnt yet, but already glowing, and I can't allow it to get a bit worse. I'll be the strange northern girl who hides her lily white skin inside with her books if I have to be. For the moment, though, I notice the tides coming in. We have tides! The water was a foot or two under the dock when I looked out this morning, and it's near noon now and there are little waves and the waters almost up to the bottom of the sea wall. I see glinting in the water - little silvery fish are darting to and fro.
I could live here - just relax, live simply. Not worry about the ages old dirt under the stove. Cook in my rice cooker, sit on the floor, even, if I didn't have any proper furniture. Amazing how far some snacks, a few good books, and a computer will take you. And the location, if I needed more than that! But that's my age speaking, I guess. Tidbit snoozes on the sunbaked wood at my feet. My mother hollers and I go in to see what's bothered her.
We see something strange. While trying to clean out the refrigerator shelf in the sink, it collapsed and broke - the glass shattered. Little fragments cover the counters and the basin of the sink, falling down into the disposal. A giant mess. But what's really odd is that the glass continues to crack, splinter, fall apart. For long minutes it continues to crackle - a fragment of glass, lying in the sink, suddenly develops a long hairline crack along the middle, and then snaps along that line with a sharp sound. The sink full of glass crackles and glistens.
Tidbit loves to hunt geckos. They are her new squirrels and she doesn't yet know whether or not they are possible to catch. She catches them sunning themselves on the walks and runs at them. They remain still until the last moment, and then dart away, quick as lightening, into the lattice or bushes or lime trees. One evening she goes at one with such vehemence that the force of her impact throws her onto her back. For a moment she looks like a ladybug flipped over, running her little feet ineffectually in the air.
I've enjoyed almost all the food I've had on the island, and I'm eager to explore all the nooks and crannies, the variety of restaurants. Besides all the marvellous seafood there is more Thai food than I've ever seen before, and there seem to be a thousand places selling fresh fruit. Other surprises - a mariachi band beside one of these fruit stands, in a sort of alley on the way to Wal Mart, singing and playing for all they were worth, and hardly anyone to listen... a European Grocery next to the post office - I went in, and was a bit disappointed to find mostly Slavic products which I couldn't read and had no special attachment to. I did buy Nutella and have gotten my sister hooked on the stuff.
I've ordered a library card. On Wednesday they have a writer's group. I think I'll attend, for the few weeks I'm here. I'm hoping it'll be a casual sort of thing I can pop into on breaks.
We got up early today for the movers, but both the car mover and the furniture movers have delayed until tomorrow, so the only reason for waiting was the cable hookup. The hours dragged by. Melissa and I took a short trip to Winn Dixie, the southern grocery store. It's the closest one to our new house, so we familiarized ourselves a bit. They were very nice and we got a loyalty card. Quite near Winn Dixie is a little used and new bookstore and a library - the only one on the island, I think. We have to go to the mainland for Wal-Mart but it looks as though most of our other basic needs can be taken care of here.
I snuck a quick visit to the little bookstore. They had all the major categories, although even the new books (what few there were) looked used. They have a rare book section. The signage is bad so it took me a while and a lucky angle to find the foreign language section, but I was in for a nice surprise there. They had a reasonable collection of Swedish and Norwegian instruction books, the Norwegian ones predictably and unfortunately below my level, and most of the moderately sized shelf was German. In this part of the world I would have expected something more like the Borders back home - two shelves of Spanish, a handful of books in French, and, if you are lucky, one or two in German or Italian. As I was scanning the shelves, aware that I needed to get back home, I found a book in Finnish. Imagine! I bought it right away, even though it's a romance of some sort and I probably won't like it. Finnish! And for 3$! I spoke to the lady and she says if I come back later this week she'll give/sell me a stack of Norwegian magazines that her Norwegian friend gave her. If I'm incredibly lucky, I figure there's even a chance I'll run into one of her Norwegian friends. Wouldn't that be marvellous?
Yesterday at Wal-Mart I picked up a three dollar copy of Wuthering Heights. I'm enjoying it so far - reading about the wild, rugged, dark moors from the comfort of our little wooden dock. My skin is starting to colour already, although I try to keep in the shade. It's not burnt yet, but already glowing, and I can't allow it to get a bit worse. I'll be the strange northern girl who hides her lily white skin inside with her books if I have to be. For the moment, though, I notice the tides coming in. We have tides! The water was a foot or two under the dock when I looked out this morning, and it's near noon now and there are little waves and the waters almost up to the bottom of the sea wall. I see glinting in the water - little silvery fish are darting to and fro.
I could live here - just relax, live simply. Not worry about the ages old dirt under the stove. Cook in my rice cooker, sit on the floor, even, if I didn't have any proper furniture. Amazing how far some snacks, a few good books, and a computer will take you. And the location, if I needed more than that! But that's my age speaking, I guess. Tidbit snoozes on the sunbaked wood at my feet. My mother hollers and I go in to see what's bothered her.
We see something strange. While trying to clean out the refrigerator shelf in the sink, it collapsed and broke - the glass shattered. Little fragments cover the counters and the basin of the sink, falling down into the disposal. A giant mess. But what's really odd is that the glass continues to crack, splinter, fall apart. For long minutes it continues to crackle - a fragment of glass, lying in the sink, suddenly develops a long hairline crack along the middle, and then snaps along that line with a sharp sound. The sink full of glass crackles and glistens.
Tidbit loves to hunt geckos. They are her new squirrels and she doesn't yet know whether or not they are possible to catch. She catches them sunning themselves on the walks and runs at them. They remain still until the last moment, and then dart away, quick as lightening, into the lattice or bushes or lime trees. One evening she goes at one with such vehemence that the force of her impact throws her onto her back. For a moment she looks like a ladybug flipped over, running her little feet ineffectually in the air.
I've enjoyed almost all the food I've had on the island, and I'm eager to explore all the nooks and crannies, the variety of restaurants. Besides all the marvellous seafood there is more Thai food than I've ever seen before, and there seem to be a thousand places selling fresh fruit. Other surprises - a mariachi band beside one of these fruit stands, in a sort of alley on the way to Wal Mart, singing and playing for all they were worth, and hardly anyone to listen... a European Grocery next to the post office - I went in, and was a bit disappointed to find mostly Slavic products which I couldn't read and had no special attachment to. I did buy Nutella and have gotten my sister hooked on the stuff.
I've ordered a library card. On Wednesday they have a writer's group. I think I'll attend, for the few weeks I'm here. I'm hoping it'll be a casual sort of thing I can pop into on breaks.
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