Keep it short?

     One of my French teachers once told me that, as a graduate student, she was given a very specific writing assignment. First, the prof had them write a five-page paper about a topic of their choice. After being turned in and graded, they were given back their papers and told to condense it into a 3-page paper. The same thing happened again: break it down into a one-page paper. Then three paragraphs, one paragraph, five sentences, and one sentence. The last stages of the assignment were to get the ideas conveyed in the original five-page paper across in five words, three words, two words, and finally a single word. What an incredible challenge.
 
     That story has stuck with me since, and I finally realized the importance of it this week while (where else?) in the shower. I've been wanting to get back to writing stories again for a while- not these blog posts, but actual "make up a world and everyone in it" stories- but I'm having troubles writing. Remembering my teacher's story made the light go off in my head: Our society has trained us to be as succinct as brief as possible. Granted, many people are not effective at it, but we all still strive for it. Hurry, hurry, be brief, get to the point, stop beating around the bush, summarize, use abbreviations, shortcuts, text speak, hashtags, keep it less than 160 characters.

Time and books

     When I was younger, I read a book about Merlin and King Arthur that suggested the reason Merlin was so wise is that he lived backwards in time. Therefore, to him, everything was clear as day, because it had, in a sense, already happened.

     Now, first of all, to a linguist- even a young, untrained one- this brought about a fascination with the problem of verb tenses he would have to use. If it were true, and his intellect was running backwards through time and into a progressively youth-ing (roll with it) body, then he'd have started off as a doddering old man with no idea how to speak, take care of himself, or reason. Ok, fair enough, that's how a lot of lives end, so makes sense, and he'd be so venerable and respected by then that there probably would have been people to help him.

     But think of the problems with language acquisition! No one's going to babble baby-talk or use simple words to someone they believe to be wise beyond everything. If Neil deGrasse Tyson walked up to you, pointed at a dog, and said "What's that," you'd be confused as all heck, think it's a trick question, and answer with as many details and scientific facts as possible! Ok, maybe that's just me, but you see my point?

Reasons why I love French

     In an effort to retain (and expand) my French abilities, I bought a number of random books in French from a used bookstore. One of them, a collection of letters written by the second wife of Louis XIV, might sound horribly dry, but is of particular interest to me, what with the French play I was in about how she came to be queen. The play was fantastic, if slightly stressful, and made history all the more fun to learn.

     In reading the book, a number of things stand out. For one, people at that time used to write a lot more about their feelings, their thoughts, and their affections for each other. This is probably due to the tediousness of writing with quill and ink, and the fact that a letter took hours to write, and days or weeks to be delivered. If that was the only way to stay in touch with people, you would naturally want to give them insight to who you are and how you feel, rather than just facts and getting up-to-date on what's going on. While I see how it is probably not everyone's cup of tea, it is absolutely beautiful in French, and makes one feel calmer and more at peace in a world where beauty and joy are often overlooked.

     One of the phrases she uses, in speaking of her solitude and loneliness in a cloister after the king's death, comes when she mentions that food is no longer of particular interest to her:

Il faut nourrir la machine quand c'est le coeur qui meurt de faim.  

It is necessary to feed the body, while the soul dies of hunger.

Unfortunately, it loses something in translation; the word she uses for the body- a machine- implies the separation of the clinical physical needs of a being from the boundless passions of the heart and soul. When you consider that this is a woman who lived in Versailles at the height of French fashion and modernity, yet loved the king so much that she advised him against marrying her, for the sake of his political position, it speaks volumes about the importance she placed on physicality vs passion.

     When people learn that I am a polyglot, one of the questions they inevitably ask is "which is your favorite language?" Without hesitation, I always firmly reply, "French." They frequently seem shocked that I don't even have to stop and think about it, but I have yet to meet anyone who speaks French and another language who didn't love it. Don't get me wrong, Arabic has a rich history, Russian is pretty (in it's own rough way), Gaelic is comforting, and sign language expressive, but French just has a passion for life that I haven't found anywhere else. Whether good or bad, full of suffering or elation, the French language just seems determined to grab life by the throat and wring every drop of passion out of it as possible. 

     Perhaps that's why we've stolen the phrase "joie de vivre" from them: because no one else is so full of life. Cheers!

SciFi lesson and attitude

     When I was younger, I read voraciously. For a variety of reasons, I didn't like hanging out with people too much, so I spent most of my time curled up in any available nook or cranny with a book. My mother encouraged us to read The Classics, to which I attribute a number of British spelling tendencies and odd sayings , but what really caught my attention was scifi and fantasy. I was constantly being warned that I would rot my brain out by reading "useless stuff," and that it was just an escape from the real world, but I feel like I learned a lot from reading such novels.

     One of the most important lessons I learned from books, I feel, was how to treat others. The Classics were very big on honor, nobility and ethics, something that would come in handy when I started working, but was a bit out of touch for modern-day kid/ early teen interactions. One day, as I was reading my way through the Xanth series by Piers Anthony, I came across a version of the Iterated Prisoners' Dilemma, and a simplified answer for it (since the book was aimed at young teens, after all.) Here is a brief summary:

     Two men are arrested, but the police do not have enough information for a conviction. The police separate the two men, and offer both the same deal: if one testifies against his partner (defects/betrays), and the other remains silent (cooperates with/assists his partner), the betrayer goes free and the one that remains silent gets a one-year sentence. If both remain silent, both are sentenced to only one month in jail on a minor charge. If each 'rats out' the other, each receives a three-month sentence. Each prisoner must choose either to betray or remain silent; the decision of each is kept secret from his partner. What should they do?

Lazy day

     This Wednesday, classes were cancelled for something called the CultFest/ CogFest here at St. Pete's. Apparently, it's a thing that the NY school puts on where anyone- from any country- can do a (five minute) presentation on whatever they've been researching for the past couple years. Since the topics that were proposed looked absolutely stultifying to me, I decided to take a day off instead. The day dawned grey and windy, so I slept in a little later than usual. The first five hours of my day were spent reading the Hunger Games trilogy, a series I do recommend, although I agree with critics that it doesn't really give a strong female lead character. Katniss pretty much just reacts to everything that happens to her, rather than actually planning out her life. Still, it's better than the Twilight or 50 Shades trilogies that we've been subjected to lately, so pick it up!

     Having been cooped up inside the house for so long, I decided to take a walk. It was my usual rambling, unguided, and informational walk that usually starts with "I wonder what's in this direction," and ends when I'm tired. Yesterday was no exception, and I got substantially more familiar with the area around our apartments. As usual, however, I got stopped and asked for directions, something that happens at least once a day, if not more. I'm not sure if people think I just look helpful or what, but it's a consistent thing in this country. At least now I know how to answer!

T minus 3 weeks

     This past Friday marked the three week point until I leave for the trip to the East coast and Russia, and it's slowly starting to hit me what exactly that means. As much as I complain that I'm bored, and I'm not working on my life goals right now, the last few weeks have been extremely restful, and have allowed me to focus on some things I've been ignoring, such as my attitude towards speaking Russian and my health goals. In just eighteen days, however, I will have much larger things to think about!

     Back in January, a friend from WoW got me started on a website to help lose weight and stay active. Between 2008 and 2010, I had gone from just over 200 lbs to 180 lbs, simply by cutting out sugar and snacks while I was gaming, but then I kinda got stuck at that weight. Irish dance was keeping me fairly fit, but I wasn't really paying that much attention to how much of certain things I was eating, and the fact that I wasn't really doing anything outside of Irish dance. When I started on this website though (www.myfitnesspal.com if you're interested), I got quite the wakeup call as to how much I was eating, and why I wasn't losing weight. In the last six months, I've lost a further ten pounds, and feel so much better, even to the point of not being out of breath at the end of some of our dances.

FTP 10 - Let it go

     About a year ago, as I was restructuring my life (and, unbeknownst to me, just before I lost my older sister and would be deeply in need of uplifting thoughts), I picked up a book called More Notes from the Universe. It was on sale, and looked like it had some pretty inspirational ideas, so I figured why not, and started reading a couple pages a day. For the first time in my life, I willingly dog-eared pages of a book, because these were things I really needed to hear. One that's been pretty relevant lately goes like this:

     In a world where it's ridiculously easy to get self-righteous when you see someone else cheating, speeding, breaking the law, cutting ahead, etc etc, it really pays to stop and think for a moment. Instead of getting yourself all worked up and being angry or stressed at the unfairness of it all, wouldn't it be better to just let it go, relax, and look at your own life? For better or for worse, they'll get what's coming to them. What's coming to you? Are you ready for it? Don't let that amazing opportunity slip past you, just because you're blinded by someone else's bad choices- you're worth more than that. 

Reading and languages

     When I was young, I devoured books. Put a book in front of me, and as long as I could get into the author's style of writing, the rest of the world would vanish until I finished the book. Stopping for things like eating or sleeping was just such a hassle, and I'm sure I got into trouble numerous times for staying up too late with a book under the covers. At the time, I could not understand people who didn't get into reading- I was sure something must have been direly wrong with them in order to pass up such a great experience and a chance to explore both the real world and new ones.

     Fast forward a number of years, and I start to understand those people. The first revelation that lessened my desire to read was that there are only so many ways to tell a story. I look for patterns in everything, and eventually I realized that most books can be ultimately broken down into:

• character development,
• conflict,
• solution,
• happy ending.

Bringing sexy back... maybe.

     I recently came across (and subsequently acquired) a shirt that says, "Smart is the new dumb". I'll be honest, I got it primarily because it made me laugh, rather than as any particular societal commentary or whatnot. A few days later, however, I was having a conversation with a friend, and he offered for consideration the phrase, "Nah, in my opinion, smart girls are sexy."

     Individually, the two incidences don't really amount to much- a funny shirt and a random opinion, no worries, right? As usual, however, it got me to thinking. Let's see if my logic bears up to peer review:

Update on interviewing

As mentioned in the previous post, I went out yesterday to a job interview for an IT position. "How hard could it be?", I figured, "After all, I've done IT before, it's just getting used to a new system." While I was right about that particular train of thought, I hadn't realized that my recent attempts at bettering myself had taken a toll on my ability to suck up and fit in.

Going by my usual habits, I got in to Boulder and parked about half an hour early for my interview. Unfortunately, it was incredibly hot, and the email sent to me had specified professional dress (something I intentionally own very little of), and I didn't want to hang around and get all sweaty. So I did the super-un-cool thing of arriving for an appointment more than 15 minutes in advance. The books that I'm reading at the moment are "Committed", a book that looks very chick-ish, and is about marriage, and "An Intro to Islam",