Joy in a soggy land
Five blocks this morning, before lunch; a view, with chickens. Memory jogs and back to reading blogs.
Got hailed by a person who a few months ago joined an online book group we've been part of for a few years. She's a student at the American University in Beirut, Lebanon, and wanted to find out more about the books chosen for discussion. This young woman speaks and writes Arabic, French and English fluently, and is working on her Spanish. After an exchange in which I wistfully mentioned I had studied French in high school, decades ago, she urged me to practice. Today she steered me towards a French TV network website, which has a trivia quiz en Francais, answers to be typed in in less than 20 seconds. What with my rusty French and learning disabled keyboarding skills, I was lucky to get the answers to three questions in before the bell. I even ran upstairs and got my trusty Larousse English/French dictionary, but realized it would take too long to look up unfamiliar words. So I plunged in. I will go back and try again.
We made a run to REI, the outdoor equipment store, to get some items for our trip to Joshua Tree National Park next week: Tidy little mess kits, sleeping pads that are not inflatable, and just an inch worth of padding away from the ground, the odd stuff bag and pair of socks. Climbing chalk. We still haven't tried setting up our new tent.
Had a very nice seafood dinner at Chinook's, and a swell discussion about writing, fiction, drama and other essentials.
Got hailed by a person who a few months ago joined an online book group we've been part of for a few years. She's a student at the American University in Beirut, Lebanon, and wanted to find out more about the books chosen for discussion. This young woman speaks and writes Arabic, French and English fluently, and is working on her Spanish. After an exchange in which I wistfully mentioned I had studied French in high school, decades ago, she urged me to practice. Today she steered me towards a French TV network website, which has a trivia quiz en Francais, answers to be typed in in less than 20 seconds. What with my rusty French and learning disabled keyboarding skills, I was lucky to get the answers to three questions in before the bell. I even ran upstairs and got my trusty Larousse English/French dictionary, but realized it would take too long to look up unfamiliar words. So I plunged in. I will go back and try again.
We made a run to REI, the outdoor equipment store, to get some items for our trip to Joshua Tree National Park next week: Tidy little mess kits, sleeping pads that are not inflatable, and just an inch worth of padding away from the ground, the odd stuff bag and pair of socks. Climbing chalk. We still haven't tried setting up our new tent.
Had a very nice seafood dinner at Chinook's, and a swell discussion about writing, fiction, drama and other essentials.
posted by isabelita at 1:01 PM
2 Comments:
I am studying Latin, and continue studying Spainish, but my most anticipated language that I will learn is ancient Greek, and I am taking that next Fall, or starting it. That means that soon, or at least in the next couple of years, I can translate ancient Greek texts. How cool. Just like now I am translating ancient Latin texts. Nothing so great as that. I want to learn Hebrew too, but there isn't a class offered at the university where I am in graduate school. But, I am thinking of doing it online. I can do this, I know that I can.
zelda, you're far more ambitious than I am. I think I would like to be able to read in French and/or Spanish, but am not yet doing much about increasing my skills.
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