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Friday, March 21, 2008

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

  • I'm kind of coming out of blog-retirement, but I won't make any promises.

    As those of you who read my facebook status will know, I am ueber ueber ueber EXCITED about having started an Arabic course this week. I've been wanting to learn Arabic for about four or five years now and kept on postponing it, often with flimsy excuses. So when I saw a sign advertising the University's intensive course over the Easter holidays, I decided to stop dithering and get started.

    I've been giddy with excitement about it since I paid for the course two weeks ago - ask my housemates, they had to live with it!

    But, honestly, I was also slightly worried. I have a natural ability with languages, possibly due to being bilingual from the age of one. And I've learnt French, German and Spanish (to some extent) since then with no great difficulty. I know fairly well how I best learn a language. However, I was worried that my language ability might be limited to the Germanic and Romance language families. That the writing system and complete different-ness of Arabic would prove too much for my brain. I was excited, but also worried that it might turn into a big let-down.

    Which is why I'm absolutely thrilled that these worries didn't come true. It is difficult, true, and it is taking a while to wrap my brain around the reading and writing. But I'm managing, and I'm enjoying it, and my desire to learn the language has grown even more since we began. The ten hours this week are never going to be enough!

    Just in case you hadn't twigged by now - I'm EXCITED!

Thursday, December 06, 2007

  • Interpreting

    Interpreting is really hard, and I love it. I've decided my brain is a masochist - it enjoys being chopped into pieces and made to do three things simultaneously.

    And I can't decide if I prefer simultaneous interpretation out of French or out of German. German is definitely my stronger language - it just flows, I can think more freely in it, and stuff just instinctively sounds right or wrong. I can think in French too, but it's a bit slower and I know the rules as rules, so get hung up on them. My vocabulary isn't as extensive in French, either. So you'd think interpreting out of German would be easier. But it isn't always and I'm trying to work out why.

    I think it's because I instinctively understand the German. So whereas I hear jambe in French and know it means leg in English, when I hear Bein in German, my brain gets confused: "What do you mean, you want me to translate Bein? Bein is Bein. What do you mean, but what does it mean? Bein means Bein, you silly sausage. A Bein is a Bein is a Bein." And this goes on for what feels like hours, until I finally convince my brain to think outside the German box and provide me with leg.

    I love it - it's challenging and exciting.

     

Saturday, November 24, 2007

Sunday, June 17, 2007

  • Should I sell an egg?

    Apparently you get a lot of money for one. (Enough money for me to purchase an awful lot of sperm and be choosy about it!) But you also have to reckon with the fact that in 18 years or so someone might come looking for you.

    This conversation led us to the conclusion that there's something fundamental to your identity about knowing who actually created you. It's not just the genes - it's who created you.

    Wobbly examples: Frankenstein and Pinnochio - the person who created them was 'father', not the dead bodies or the wood (the genes, sozusagen) they were made from.

    CS Lewis talks about the difference between us and Jesus being that we are created and he is begotten.

    Do you put something of yourself in what you create?

    Are things we create always, at least partially, like us?

    There's a deep lesson in there, simmering at the back of my mind, but I can't quite touch it yet.