Friday, July 30, 2010
Monday, July 26, 2010
8 Things
8 things that I'm enjoying about learning Dutch so far:
1. I looooove vowels. Dutch has words with unbelievable numbers of vowels in it.
2. It is sometimes near enough to English to look like a totally decipherable bad text message to me. Or an LOLcat. Example: "Wat zei u?" is an actual grammatically correct sentence meaning "What did you say?" Love.
3. The letters k, v, z. These letters are ignored far too often in English.
4. It sounds cool and foreign. I have come to realize that I could never learn Spanish because I had no interest in learning Spanish. Almost everyone here speaks it. It sounds same ol', same ol' to me. Dutch sounds different, which therefore makes it interesting and exciting.
5. Guttural "g". Very fun to say.
6. New phonemes that I haven't got nearly enough use out of in the past.
7. It is refreshing to be studying another Germanic language as opposed to Latin languages because my native language is in the same language group. You can definitely see how Dutch and English evolved from the same roots only to diverge due to time and separation.
8. Many Academic librarians are required to have another Master's degree to pair up with the MLS. If I were to go after another Master's I would get my degree in History. Students are usually required to be able to have at least a reading knowledge of a foreign language. If I do this, this whole Dutch venture would actually serve a purpose rather than just appeasing my childlike sense of curiosity and wonder :P
1. I looooove vowels. Dutch has words with unbelievable numbers of vowels in it.
2. It is sometimes near enough to English to look like a totally decipherable bad text message to me. Or an LOLcat. Example: "Wat zei u?" is an actual grammatically correct sentence meaning "What did you say?" Love.
3. The letters k, v, z. These letters are ignored far too often in English.
4. It sounds cool and foreign. I have come to realize that I could never learn Spanish because I had no interest in learning Spanish. Almost everyone here speaks it. It sounds same ol', same ol' to me. Dutch sounds different, which therefore makes it interesting and exciting.
5. Guttural "g". Very fun to say.
6. New phonemes that I haven't got nearly enough use out of in the past.
7. It is refreshing to be studying another Germanic language as opposed to Latin languages because my native language is in the same language group. You can definitely see how Dutch and English evolved from the same roots only to diverge due to time and separation.
8. Many Academic librarians are required to have another Master's degree to pair up with the MLS. If I were to go after another Master's I would get my degree in History. Students are usually required to be able to have at least a reading knowledge of a foreign language. If I do this, this whole Dutch venture would actually serve a purpose rather than just appeasing my childlike sense of curiosity and wonder :P
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Fabric Yo-Yos
I made these fabric yo-yos (Exhibit A) just to learn how to make them. I think they turned out really nice--I will be making more of these in the near future. Especially since all of my shirts are really cheap, and if I pin them to my shirt it makes my shirt look less cheap and more cute (Exhibit B).
Exhibit A:
Exhibit B:
Exhibit A:
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Austin
Oliver and I drove to Austin last night to see White Ghost Shivers play at the Continental Club at midnight. There is one word to describe the performance: am-a-zing.
We arrived at the Club at 11:15 to meet my cousin, only to find that the club was at capacity and there was a line outside the door. It turns out that we had to wait for people to leave before we could go in. We waited in this line until about 11:50 when we barely squeaked through the door. It took about 30 more minutes for the band to actually start playing. I don't need to describe this since there are Youtube videos, but I will say that there were tons of people there dressed in old fashioned frocks, and people attempting to do the Charleston in the cramped space. I was standing next to a lady with an interesting knitting tattoo.
This was the first time I've been able to see any kind of 1920s revival "bawdville" type band play, and it left me yearning for more! WILL be going to see White Ghost Shivers again--hopefully I can fix myself up an old fashioned dress.
Today I went to San Antonio to find me some Dutch learning utensils and came up utterly empty handed. It turns out that these materials do not exist in San Antonio. I went to 3 book stores. Nada. Had I wanted to learn these far flung languages, I would have been in luck: Irish, Gaelic, Swedish, Swahili, Brazilian Portuguese (!).
Stupid San Antonio. I continually lose my respect for you.
In crafting news:
I found a sweet dress at a thrift store for $2 that I can shorten. It looks 1950s-ish.
I also started working on the apron experiment after my friend Emily helped me with basic pattern reading:
I also knitted about 2 rows in the past month. Slow, slow, slow.
And to wrap up this post, a fail inspired by the recent explosion of the local cricket population:
We arrived at the Club at 11:15 to meet my cousin, only to find that the club was at capacity and there was a line outside the door. It turns out that we had to wait for people to leave before we could go in. We waited in this line until about 11:50 when we barely squeaked through the door. It took about 30 more minutes for the band to actually start playing. I don't need to describe this since there are Youtube videos, but I will say that there were tons of people there dressed in old fashioned frocks, and people attempting to do the Charleston in the cramped space. I was standing next to a lady with an interesting knitting tattoo.
This was the first time I've been able to see any kind of 1920s revival "bawdville" type band play, and it left me yearning for more! WILL be going to see White Ghost Shivers again--hopefully I can fix myself up an old fashioned dress.
Today I went to San Antonio to find me some Dutch learning utensils and came up utterly empty handed. It turns out that these materials do not exist in San Antonio. I went to 3 book stores. Nada. Had I wanted to learn these far flung languages, I would have been in luck: Irish, Gaelic, Swedish, Swahili, Brazilian Portuguese (!).
Stupid San Antonio. I continually lose my respect for you.
In crafting news:
I found a sweet dress at a thrift store for $2 that I can shorten. It looks 1950s-ish.
I also started working on the apron experiment after my friend Emily helped me with basic pattern reading:
I also knitted about 2 rows in the past month. Slow, slow, slow.
And to wrap up this post, a fail inspired by the recent explosion of the local cricket population:
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
20 Things : D
1. Wake up early solely for the sake of enjoying my day off.
2. Postcards made it to Ukraine and Finland!
3. Successfully completed C25K workout #1.
4. Cool morning breezes.
5. Interesting blue/purple clouds with occasional sun holes.
6. "Sweet Transvestite" on my iPod.
7. Hummingbirds.
8. Sweet endorphins from workout.
9. Discovered that Rufus can "roll over" with voice command alone.
10. Woke up too early, decided to take delicious mid-morning nap.
11. Handcrafted Blue Star Pilsner Beer and Amber Ale.
12. Free Tuesday @ San Antonio Museum of Art.
13. Imperfection immortalized: ancient Roman statue's right testicle hangs lower than the left.
14. Spectacular hand-blown glass ceiling.
15. Realized that I enjoy art more for its historical implications and colors rather than any deeper meaning that may be gleaned from it.
16. Enriched stash of post-cards.
17. Tree shadows!
18. Garlic mashed potatoes.
19. Perfectly brewed ice tea.
20. Not doing the dishes.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Dutch
I have been inspired by reading the Swedish American in Sweden blog that I stumbled on when I was trying to figure out whether the "prison" portrayed in a Swedish movie I saw was legit (it was!). The blog chronicles the adventures of a young (mostly)-American guy who moves to Sweden just for the heck of it. I ended up getting stuck in a tractor beam reading post after post after post. They're pretty funny...and also thought provoking.
I've harbored the fantasy of moving to a foreign country for a LONG time--probably since middle school. So anyway, the blog has inspired me not to move to a foreign country (I can't even convince Ollie to move to another state), but at least try to learn the language of my roots and perhaps someday visit a foreign country.
Since my great grandparents came from Belgium, I have got a powerful hankering to learn Dutch.
My sweet grandma is very prideful of of our Belgian roots--she has 2 pairs of wooden shoes in her house which I used put on and clack around in often. She visits Belgium every few years because we still have some cousins who live there. I did a report about it in middle school and found that it has two national languages: French and Dutch. Grandma says the French speaking Belgians are stuck up.
So, I will learn some words from utterly-useless-in-Texas Dutch regardless of my track record for being flaky about ventures like this.
Learning for the sake of learning. Love it!
I've harbored the fantasy of moving to a foreign country for a LONG time--probably since middle school. So anyway, the blog has inspired me not to move to a foreign country (I can't even convince Ollie to move to another state), but at least try to learn the language of my roots and perhaps someday visit a foreign country.
Since my great grandparents came from Belgium, I have got a powerful hankering to learn Dutch.
My sweet grandma is very prideful of of our Belgian roots--she has 2 pairs of wooden shoes in her house which I used put on and clack around in often. She visits Belgium every few years because we still have some cousins who live there. I did a report about it in middle school and found that it has two national languages: French and Dutch. Grandma says the French speaking Belgians are stuck up.
So, I will learn some words from utterly-useless-in-Texas Dutch regardless of my track record for being flaky about ventures like this.
Learning for the sake of learning. Love it!
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Us and Them
Here is the difference between us and our neighbors distilled into two poignant images:
Our walkway/balcony:
Their walkway/balcony:
Our walkway/balcony:
Their walkway/balcony:
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