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11:22 p.m. - 2002-04-22
Indulgence
I took another quiz. Sigh. But this was intriguing, since "Trading Spaces" is one of my addictions, and I love to decorate. Here:


take the which one of the trading spaces cast are you? quiz!


I guess it's a good thing that I'm not Ty, since heck, I'd rather have him than be him. But Genevieve is cool. I like her.

I spent some time today trying to memorize the conjugations for Hungarian. After muttering the various conjugations, I thought to myself: why on earth did I decide to take Hungarian?

Truth is, I don't even have a reason! My classmates chirped on the first day: My mom/dad/grandparents/wife is Hungarian or Well, I visited Hungary before, and now I want to learn the language.

The question came to me, and I answered, Well, I'm American, and I know English, of course, and I can speak German too, and I thought, well, I can learn another language. Why not?

Now I'm convinced that I am either (a) maschochist or (b) a meglomaniac, or (c) a maschochistic meglomaniac. Hungarian is hard. I don't know what I was thinking, but for some reason, I'm all the more determined to learn the language. Maybe it's because people's eyes always bug out when I say that I speak German (seven years in the US, and now somewhere in my eighth year, in Germany this time). And then they proceed to tell me, "Oh but German is so hard!"

So now I think I'll have a new comeback: "You think German's hard? Try learning Hungarian!" (and try learning Hungarian in your non-native language. Does that make sense? I'm a native speaker of English, currently in Germany, learning Hungarian in German).

I can't wait till next week. This weekend will be busy, and I just want to sleep all weekend and not have to worry about waking up early. But wait. I don't have class on Wednesday! So I can sleep in then. But then, maybe I'll wake myself up with one of those stress-dreams, where I just dream all night about work I have to do (in real life!) or a decision I have to make (in real life!). I hate those dreams. I've been having a lot of those lately.

Before I go: Here is a quote I found by Li Young-Li: I'm highly aware that I'm a guest in the language. I'm wondering if that's not the truth for all of us, that somehow we're all guests in language, that once we start speaking any language somehow we bow to that language at the same time we bend that language to us."

That made me think, and I am still thinking. Yes, i am a guest in German, Hungarian, and Italian. Am I a guest in English as well? What does he mean by this, I wonder...perhaps this will be the topic of my dream.

Speaking of which--it's nearing midnight and I must get myself to bed--I've a long day of classes tomorrow.

 

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