A glimmer of hope on the civil aviation horizon here in Poland. Word is, that it is possible that LOT will lift some of their restrictions on carry-on luggage on Monday. I fly on Tuesday, and I am NOT HAPPY about consigning my laptop, other electronics, and irreplaceable fieldwork files to the same company that couldn't deliver my bags here with me nine weeks ago.
As it now stands, no hand baggage at all, not even handbags. No books or magazines. No notebooks or writing implements. I could be a whimpering basket case after 10 hours in the air.
One Day at a Time didn't tag anyone, but I'm taking the book challenge anyway:
1. A book that changed my life: I am really stuck on this one. I can’t really remember when I didn’t know how to read and I can't think of how my life has been moved in a different direction by reading a specific book.
2. A book that I’ve read more than once: well, there are lots. See #8. Or #4. Or Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, say.
3. A book I’d want on a desert island: The Bible. I’ve always wanted to read the whole thing, and I’d have the time.
4. A book that makes me giddy: Hm. Not sure. Giddy isn’t a word I tend to use about myself.
5. A book that I wish I had written: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Also Possession by A.S. Byatt.
6. A book that wracked me with sobs: I might tear up when I read, but I can’t remember sobbing. I cried when Hawthorne died in I think it was the Edwin Miller bio (what, I didn’t expect it?!) and I was very melancholy when I’d finished a book on Maria Callas and Ari in late June. I love biographies, but it so often seems that subjects’ later years are so much less than they had wanted, and that just makes me so sad for them, and frankly, apprehensive for me and the people I know and love.
7. A book that you wish had never been written: That’s easy: Brett Easton Ellis, American Psycho. It made me sick. Well, I already had a cold; that’s not what I mean. It made me sick for what it can mean to be human. God, I can’t believe that BEE is in two consecutive entries of this blog. Ewwww.
8. A book that I am currently reading. Wings of the Dove, Henry James, for like the fourth time. I have it here with me in Poland; it’s inscribed by my friend who wrote the notes to it; and I dream of salvaging a very bad paper I wrote about it into publishable shape.
9.A book I am meaning to read. I have a long list, mostly for my lit review. But for fun, perhaps Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam. That’s sort of a busman’s holiday, to get me thinking about civic participation.
10. What's your list?
I was reading online tonight and suddenly the title "A man in full" sprang to mind and I remembered a bizzare January in Orlando in which I first read THAT craptacular novel and then - then, if that and the miserable head cold were not enough, I had to buy some abyssmal book by Brett Easton Ellis, which made me want to kill myself for being a member of the human race but first burn the book.
Alas, no matches, no lighter, so I settled for hiding it - unfinished - as far back in the hotel drawers as possible and then throwing it in the trash when we checked out. I've NEVER thrown out a book - but such dreck. I really felt that such trash had no right to exist.
Yeah, too much solitude is not good. 10 more days.
A former colleague has the misfortune to be on the spot for the planning director's job in my hometown. (You may remember that the title of this blog reflects a fantasy from my former working life as a planner to chuck it all and sell desserts oceanside.)
Poor bastard, he thinks he can have it all - planning career and some rewarding teaching experience on the side. But alas, some citizens think otherwise: " How dare he not be working to fight developers 60 hours a week?"
I've been following this chatter for a couple of weeks, and it reinforces my gratitude that I left planning while I still had some potential to do something else. Here's how the blogs and newspaper see it:
local paper:
blog #1:
life on the margins:
The only saving grace in all of this is that, Schadenfreude-style, it's nice to know that I wasn't alone in all of this. It happens everywhere.
Does it really make democracy better? I don't think so: I think it just makes decent people, who don't like every detail of their lives raked through the newspapers, want to find other professions.
Wow, I haven't written in awhile. This is a really lame old keyboard, so I'll be short.
2 more weeks in Poland unless I can find a cheap way to come home sooner. I am already worrying about how to get all my stuff packed without carryons. With the laptop and other equipment, I'll be VERY glad if everything makes it back, unstolen and undamaged.
I am ready for US projects that don't involve air travel. I cynically wonder if last week's "uncovered plot" was a conspiracy between the US govt and the airlines. The US loves to frighten its citizens, and the airlines all hate carryon baggage. This scheme works perfectly.
As you can tell, terrorism is still an abstraction to me. Maybe next week I'll be starting to feel differently. But, after all, we do not have a panic attack (most of us) every day when we drive to work, and 50,000 US citizens are killed every year in automobile accidents. That's about a quarter of a million people since 9/11/01.
Hm. Maybe it's terrorists who are running the Big Three!?!
I've spent the whole day working on language - reviewing cases, making new vocabulary cards, working on listening assignments. I'm not sure if it's the best use of my time, because as long as I pass the course I don't think it really "matters" how well I do, but in a way I'd like to combat my usual negative attitude of "I'll never be able to speak and understand this language well" to see if maybe - beyond review of grammar - I might actually have something to show for my 6 weeks in class.
Here's how I think I score on the four language modalities:
Speaking - I can usually communicate a need or thought in ordinary conversation, although as with writing my limited vocabulary slows me down. My teachers seem to feel that I speak well, and with relatively good pronunciation. I'd say this is my second-best skill. That's odd, because in English my reading ability (and writing ability) far surpass my ability to speak well.
Writing - probably the best of my skills. When I write I have time to think about the correct syntax and endings.
Understanding spoken language - worst of the four. Things I would easily understand if they are written I can't understand if I hear them. As with French, I often just don't hear the individual words, just a blur of sounds.
Reading - this depends a lot on what the subject matter is. I did well at the museum this week (art vocabulary), but reading ordinary newspapers is a challenge - too idiomatic somehow.
This course is geared a lot towards speaking and listening. Our teachers know we are bright, analytical people who speak other languages and who "get" grammar. So we have situational work and of course listening to our teachers repeat our phrases, but correctly. I wish there was MORE prep for the situations, and more repetition. The kinds of things I talk about easily are things I've drilled many times, until the syntactical units are ingrained. But I haven't internalized any of the things we've talked about this summer because it's all so fast and superficial.
We have a lot of writing, and if I go over the corrections they make, I could learn quite a bit.
I am not sure how to improve my reading. I've found that it helps to look at word families - I build some knowledge of how Polish is constructed, how verbs make nouns and adjectives, how nouns are related to verbs etc. Is it just a matter of practice, practice, practice, on texts that are relevant to me?
It seems that it's mostly a matter of repetition. I have to repeat things tens of times before I remember - and even then they are fugitive if I don't use them. Ah, the aging brain. But I am trying to keep a positive attitude and remember that I like - and am good at - language acquisition.