Taking stock

     Over the past couple years, I have officially tested my skills in both French and Russian, and got a good enough score to officially use them for work. Two years ago, I started Japanese, because it's a fascinating culture that's very different from the other two, and someday I'd like to go visit without being a rude tourist. I'm nowhere near as fluent in Japanese as in the other languages (33 years studying French and 12 studying Russian), but I can pick things up when I watch anime or read manga. Each language is pretty heavily compartmented in my head, though, so I don't think about the aggregate of my skills, I just think "Oh, I speak other languages, a common thing." (Ironically, the word language is one I constantly mistype and need to use autocorrect for.)

     Due to conflicting schedules, I ended up taking two separate Japanese classes for two weeks recently, thankfully in the same book, but on different chapters. Inevitably, that meant I dropped the ball on one of them, since I knew I'd re-do that chapter in the other class in a month or two. To my great surprise, I still managed to pull off a decent grade on the final exam, and I mentioned this to a friend who also speaks other languages. Their response, while supportively over-the-top, made me pause and reassess where I am. (The next part may sound like bragging, but it's truly me being surprised at how my life looks from the outside.)

     I speak, with varying degrees of skill, four languages. FOUR (I tend to forget English because everyone speaks it, right?). Four wildly different cultures, grammars, and lexicons. I recently met someone who speaks three languages fluently and I was blown away at the idea, yet never once turned that lens inward. Add to that the other hobbies I dabble in, and I see why someone recently said "Of course you know how to do that. Is there anything you don't do?" And while the answer is yes, quite a huge number of things, it's probably good to stop and give yourself credit for what you do do every now and then. 

Staycation! (Long post)

      What do you do with an extra week or vacation and no burning desire to go anywhere? Clean, of course! Ok, ok, I know that's not everyone's answer, but that's what we decided to do. We have a 10'x10' storage unit that we've been saying for a while needs to be gone through, and over the winter, things had sort of piled up around the house, so we blocked off a random week to deal with it. 

     For once, I remembered to take before shots of the mess to be tackled, and it looks like a pretty typical storage unit, full of just stuff. 

     We packed for a full day excursion, and arrived Monday morning at 10am, set up a table, and started pulling stuff out. That weird thing in the middle that's wrapped in plastic is a weaving loom my mother got me quite a few years ago. It is absolutely my retirement/"when I have time and room" plan, but I'm not ready for it just yet, and we can't stack anything on top of it. 

Lesson learned

     Many years ago, I took a Russian 101 level class in spring, then immediately went to Russia that summer. Glossing over how that was a horrible idea, I was faced with two options for class in Russia: repeat the absolute beginner class, or skip the 102 level class to join the second year. Being the ambitious person I was, I chose the second option, and regretted it the whole time I was there. The 102 class I'd skipped had some incredibly vital lessons, such as how to conjugate verbs and noun/adjective declension - things you were (obviously) expected to have mastered by level 2, where they piled on the vocab to fill in that framework. Without that base knowledge, I struggled a lot with new concepts and just generally had a horrible time. 

     Fast forward a lot, and now I'm learning Japanese just for funsies. A local community college offered levels 101 and 102, but nothing past that. I looked around a bit and found a regional society that offers many, many more levels of instruction and even uses the same textbook for beginning levels as the community college classes. Sounds great, right? Naturally, there's a catch... the community college covers four chapters in the book per class, while the regional society only covers three. So my options for moving forward are:

• Review two chapters I've already done and have one new chapter in level 3; or
• Skip one chapter and move ahead with all-new material in level 4. 

     Ironically, the one new chapter in level 3 is... conjugating verbs, and noun/adjective agreement. And this time, I did not hesitate at all; I signed right up to repeat two chapters and give those verbs and adjectives all the attention they need. My dad has a saying he uses often - nothing you learn is ever wasted. I'd like to think I got more out of that horrible trip to Russia than just not repeating a language-learning mistake, but hey, if it helps me now, I won't complain too much. 

Dormancy

     Been a bit quiet of late. Some of that is that I've been busy getting things done, and some of it is that I'm simply becoming quieter. My opinion does not need to be given on every issue that comes my way, especially since I'm not completely informed on many of them. Unfortunately, since sketches are usually my opinion on things, that does mean I've done less drawing lately. It's not gone, though, no worries there.

     Anyway, as things are slowing down with the season change, thought I'd catch up here. In no particular order, here are things that I've worked on recently:

Sewing: Halloween outfit (Slytherin student from Hogwarts, and apparently this was the most people who've ever dressed up for Halloween at work), and work pants.

Exercise: Still doing boot camp two nights a week, and running twice a week at home. The Kenpo Karate class is on break until December; I'm enjoying that quite a bit.

Russian poem: Sinners

Came across this in my wanderings. Am now determined to memorize it:

Грешники
В грехах мы всё - как цветы в росе,
Святых между нами нет.
А если ты свят - ты мне не брат,
Не друг мне и не сосед.

Я был в беде - как рыба в воде,
Я понял закон простой:
Там грешник приходит на помочь, где
Отвертывается святой.
-Вадим Шефнер, 1962

Poetic translation:
Sinners
We all have our sins, like flowers have dew,
Saints among us you simply won't find.
And if you're a saint, then leave me alone,
You're no friend nor brother of mine.

I've lived with troubles, like a dog lives with fleas,
I saw this rule's truth, every day:
Sinners will reach out to help one another;
But saints turn their faces away.
-Vadim Shefner, 1962


Literal translation:
Sinners
In sins are we all - like flowers in dew,
Saints among us, there aren't.
And if you're a saint, you're no brother of mine,
Nor friend, nor neighbor.

I've been in hardship - like a fish in water,
I've come to understand this simple law:
Sinners will go to help where
Saints turn away from.

Cheating

     Sorry for the radio silence; I haven't been inspired to write anything lately, since I've been occupied getting used to a 9-5 job for the first time since 2009. So instead of writing something new, I'm just going to give you a link to a translation I wrote recently:

Russian Fairy tales- Бобовое зернышко.

     I've been spending lunch break translating fairy tales, and have decided to share them with you. Enjoy!

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!

Business is open!

     Hey all, hopefully this will be settling down here now that the business is officially open. If you haven't seen it, the website is here, and the store itself is on Etsy. Stop by and see what's been sucking my time away!

     In other news (yes, there is other news even with a new business),  I've decided to start my own dance group out here, as the ones I'd found aren't quite as demanding or graceful as I'd hoped. I made a deal with my old teacher out in Colorado, and we're going to try a distance learning thing via Skype/ video recordings. I've also switched to a Russian server in WoW in order to keep in practice, and boy does that help! It takes me about six times as long to do quests than it does in the English version, but my vocab and even grammar is getting one heck of a boost!

Quest log: I'm sorry, you want me to do WHAT now?

     In light of these and other changes, I've also decided to drop the online Masters classes I'd signed up for, until I know what my income levels will be. I'm debating a couple alternatives to keep me busy, such as kickboxing through the gym where I'll be dancing, and any number of language classes at the local community college, but that decision has to wait til I see how the business will do. If it takes off, then great! If it is a gradual takeoff, then I'll go sign up with a temp agency to keep me busy (and paid) until it's a means of support.

     So while things aren't super settled in yet, I have a couple plans, and feel like I'm on the right track. Thanks for your patience, and I'll be putting things up here occasionally, as life gets less hectic (ha!). Cheers!

Counting down: 4 days

     This past week has been a frenzy of packing, taking things to the thrift store, taking things to the dump, saying goodbye to people, and preparing for the move that will happen this Friday. My mind isn't doing much better than last Monday, which is not the greatest, because I have my last final exam today at 4pm. I think I know what is needed for it, but the way my brain is(n't) working lately, I'll be lucky to find the right language to work in when I get there.

Though my confusion is from mental exhaustion, not pot.

FTP 38 - Chasing dreams

Since I was young, I knew I wanted to work with languages.

When I was let go from my job five years ago and decided to go back to school, I knew it was the first step to making those dreams come true.

When I sat in my first language class and realized how much I had to learn, I knew it wouldn't be easy, but hoped it would be worth it.

When it hit me that I only had one semester left before I would have to go out and prove myself, I won't lie, I panicked a little.

Tipping points

     When I was in elementary school, I remember there being this huge push to get people to realize that littering wasn't cool. We had special speakers come to our classrooms and talk about how throwing your trash out the window of your car wasn't good for the environment (a word you rarely heard used back then), and that the government was making effort to increase the number of trash cans around. After a little bit, though, it wasn't enough to have trash bins around, and we were educated on how to use recycling bins. Everyone felt big and important because we were doing our part to help save the planet (also a new concept back then).

     I didn't really connect what was going on in school with the real world though, until one day I realized that something was wrong. I'd become accustomed to watching the trash on the side of the road while my parents drove, and seeing what interesting items I could identify out as we drive past. This was a pretty common sight back then:

It wasn't that people didn't see it, it had just been such an integral part of the scenery for so long that they forgot (or didn't care) that it was important. It was a fact of life: people threw trash out the window of their cars because that was more sanitary than keeping it within the vehicle, right?

FTP 37 - False motivation?

     Is a lie still a lie if the telling of it makes it true?

Now, I'm not talking about lying to get around things or get out of trouble, I'm talking about those little white lies that you tell people to motivate them to improve themselves. If someone is really struggling with a concept/ move/ routine/ whatever, and you say things such as, "I know you can do it!" or "You're really improving!" (even though they may have hit a plateau), or "I have faith in you!"

     Even if you don't really believe those things, if saying them makes the person more positive and self-motivated, and they do break out of a rut and start getting better, is it still a lie? Is it a white lie, in that it does no one any harm? Is it a justified lie, in that you got done what needed done with no negative consequences? Is it not even remotely a lie, because by saying it, it became true?

     Regardless of the answer, I'm still going to keep doing it, because helping others succeed is a wonderful goal. Every now and then, though, in the small hours of the night, I feel guilty for being not completely truthful...

Why languages?

     As both a linguistics major in college, and a speaker of three languages- ones in which I am reasonably fluent, anyhow, never mind the smatterings of others I've picked up- people often ask why I chose to study language. The answer is a complex one, and ironically contained within itself, but here goes an attempt on why I am fascinated by languages.

     1) Language and thought. There are a number of different theories on whether language forces thought patterns into a certain path, or if thought patterns are learned before language, and therefor forces linguistic style into a certain shape. Regardless of the chicken or the egg question here, there is clearly a connection between language and thought, and I am fascinated by how people who speak other languages- or even other dialects- can view the world differently. For example, studies show that people who speak languages that differentiate between perfective and imperfective verbs (i.e. verbs that imply an end points vs those that don't, such as 'completed' vs 'worked on') focus more on whether a task was finished or not rather than how long it may have taken. Little things like that permeate literally everything we say and think, and that, to me, is awesome.

Yes but, for how long?

     2) Langauge and culture. Different cultures hold different things to have more importance in life, leading them to lexicalize different concepts. Lexicalization is giving an entire concept a single word, rather than having to describe it each time. As cultures mix and merge, they borrow each other's lexicalizations, since there's no one word that is a direct translation. That's why, for example, we have to use "c'est la vie" to denote the necessity of just accepting that some things happen succinctly, and "schadenfreude" to point out when someone is taking joy from others' misfortunes. Those concepts were not important or recurring often enough as English developed to become words of their own, but to the French and Germans, respectively, they were. I love finding out backstories and etymologies to explain why things developed the way they did, and what the lives of earlier people were like that made those ideas so necessary.

FTP 28 - Mistranslation and idioms

     For the last four-five weeks, we have been translating a 20-page Russian story called "The Return," written at the end of WWII, about (surprise surprise) a general coming home after the war. He is worried about how well he will adapt to civilian life after serving five years in a war, and rightfully so. Using the considerable number of resources at my disposal, I felt I had a pretty secure grasp on what was going on, but was getting more and more upset with the story as it progressed.

     By about page seven, he has returned home to find his children, now seven and eleven years old, barely remember him, his son has taken over command of the house, and his wife- as I read- was desperately happy to see him. For ten pages, they had conversation after conversation about how much she missed him, she was dead without him, please stay home now... and he was incredibly mean to her, calling her a liar, saying she made a laughingstock out of him, calling her names, etc. She had admitted to him that an older gentleman (who had lost his wife and children in the war) had been coming over to help with the children, but all they had done- as I read it- was hug, and she let him give her one kiss. Being as that the first seven pages had been the husband flirting with a young woman on the train ride home, and staying at her place instead of going to his own city, I thought that was pretty rich...

A still from the movie

Pollyanna

     As my father is (inordinately) fond of pointing out, there is nothing in life that you learn that does not come in handy at some point down the road. Yesterday was an excellent example of that, in a myriad of ways. Monday night was insanely hot, and I decided (at 3 am as I finally started to drift off to sleep) that I was only going to go in for the second half of Russian classes yesterday, if my sinuses had cleared up by then. They're not 100% healed, but I felt like I'd been a slacker for long enough, so off I went to school.

     Well, off to try to go to school anyway. When I reached the elevators, the button was already lit, but no one was around. Odd, since they're usually fairly fast. After a while, however, it became apparent that the elevators were simply not working, so I had to find stairs. Russia, of course, does not bother with such niceties as "Emergency Exit" signs or "Stairs are this way" placards or anything like that. I put my "let's keep trying things until something works" skills to use, and found the stairs after a bit of searching. You had to go through the room where you dump garbage, out onto the balcony behind the building, and back into the building on the other side of the balcony, through a door that looked like it had last been used back when the Romanovs were still in power.

Not creepy AT ALL...

A weekend off

     Since I still don't have internet in my block, I decided to go to the local Coffee House (literally Кофе Хаус for those of you who know the cyrillic alphabet) and test out the "free high speed internet" that everyone was talking about. I'd hoped that maybe things had improved since the last time I tried using free internet at the McDonald's back in 2010, but alas, it was not to be.

     While I will admit that the internet here allows for much faster loading of things like comics, Facebook, and email, trying to use Skype to talk to my family back home was nothing if not stressful. Even with the video shut down, there was horrific lag and random gaps in the transmission. While the 15 Mb limit that was present last time was not in effect, the provider did manage to shut down the connection every 15 minutes, instead, and make you click on their little "aren't we awesome for giving you free wifi?" ad that popped up in order to get back on. Add in the thump thump of bad Russian-voiceover American techno in the background, and I have to say, I'm not impressed.

     I did manage to make friends with the lone representative of Croatia in the program here, however, as she is the only other strong-minded, outspoken woman in the group. The two of us ended up going out for dinner on Saturday, and stayed out talking until 2 am (it's very hard to judge time when it looks like 4 in the afternoon until right before the sun sets, at 11:30 or so). She managed to put words to a couple things that have been bouncing around in the back of my head, even if they're not terribly complimentary.

Reflections

     Despite having come to Russia to study, well, Russian, I find that the attitude and cultural differences here are pushing me to do a fair bit of soul-searching and self-evaluation as well. Feeling disconnected from society at large has given me the space to really reflect on who I am, who I want to be, and how to reconcile the differences between the two. Don't get me wrong, I'm still soaking in the culture and language, but it's become almost a subconscious thing while I focus on other things (which I suppose is a good thing... I picked up the words and pronunciations of the announcement on the subway the last time I was here before I even knew what the words meant).

     As some of you may know, I was raped six years ago, and it has had a huge influence on my life. I denied it for a good long while, and when I finally admitted it, I hid behind it as a reason for not facing some of the more broken parts of me. A friend in WoW finally smacked me upside the head with some truths I needed to hear, and I've been working with both him and my amazing, accepting, and wonderfully supportive man to get past it. Having the space to work through the crap in my head is a welcome bonus, and I'm hoping to be both better at Russian and in a better place in my head when I get back. Unexpected bonus!

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.

Being multi-lingual

   Ever since my dad brought home a Berlitz Teach Yourself French book when I was seven years old, I have been fascinated by the idea that people can communicate in more than one way. I hadn't really had foreign language exposure much (that I could remember or identify) at that time in life, so finding out that people referred to objects with a different word was awesome. Then I found out that different cultures lexicalize different ideas- that is, create a single word to encompass an entire concept- and I was hooked. I wanted to get into the heads of different cultures and languages, and see what made them tick- why certain words or ideas were more important that others, and how it affected one's outlook on life.

     Fortunately, the school system that we were in at the time required all students to take Intro to Spanish in 6th grade, and Intro to French in 7th grade. Given that I already had a background of rudimentary French from working with dad, I stuck with the French, and took it all the way up to my junior year in high school. I started to take the senior year, but after the first few weeks, when people were still saying "jer sweez.... uh...." I decided my time would be better served elsewhere. A couple years after I graduated, when I finally got a chance to go to Paris, I was delighted to find that I'd retained enough of the language (mostly by reading French comic books!) to get around, and had a lovely time there.