Having seen the fun that Marissa appears to have had with her alphabet thing, I can't help but give it a try. Here is the alphabet:

A - Argentina
B - Being able to wear big girl panties and deal with life as one who is wearing said panties.
C - Candelabras
D - Denise: how awesome is she, really?
E - Eloquence: why it is important, and practical applications thereof.
F - Franz Ferdinand
G - Goat's milk
H
I - Igloos
J - Jack Daniels
K
L
M
N
O - Obama
P - Pure wickedness: why is it so fun to be bad anyway?
Q - Quantum Physics
R - Raisins
S - Seaweeds
T
U
V - Vannie's absence from my life
W - When are you coming to visit?
X - Xanadu
Y - Yahweh
Z - (Z)Xylophones

Hopefully you've seen it before. What I need you to do is pick up to 5 letters and give me utterly random topics that start with those letters. When it's all done, I will write about all the topics you've given me. Woohoo.

So in a vague effort to distract myself from work I have been researching various matters of linguistics, particularly historical linguistics, which I find fascinating, and I have turned up several interesting things.
(by the way, an * before a word means it's a reconstruction)

1. Naturally a lot of Spanish words are derived from Arabic because of the Moorish occupation of the Iberian Peninsula for almost 1000 years. However, here are some I find particularly fascinating:

- 'dado' (dice) comes from اعداد (a'daad), meaning numbers.
- 'azar' (chance, at random) comes from الزهر (az-zahr), meaning, curiously enough, dice.
- 'fulano', which is a fantastic word meaning 'so-and-so' or 'such-and-such', comes from Arabic فلان (fulaan), which has essentially the same meaning.
- 'luta' (lute) comes from العود (al-'uud), which also means lute, and is of course the root of the English word too.
- the word 'hidalgo' comes from Old Spanish hijo d'algo, which nowadays means 'son of something', but in Old Spanish the word algo referred to money or wealth. The use of 'hijo' to mean 'possessor of' derives from the Arabic usage of their word for 'son' to mean the same thing.
- Muhammad ibn Muusaa al-Khwaariizmii devised the algorithm. The world 'algorithm' comes from the Latinisation of his last name, 'Algorismi', which the French changed to 'algorithme' because they thought it was connected to the Greek 'algorithmus', meaning 'number'. It wasn't.
- The English (and Spanish and almost every other European language) words 'lime' and 'lemon' both come from Old Arabic ليم (laym) and ليمون (laymuun), which was the collective plural. Interestingly, the Arabs subsequently forgot this word, which disappeared from the language, and was then reintroduced, spelled exactly the same way but pronounced 'leemoon', from French. So they basically borrowed the word from themselves.

2. A similar situation to 'leemoon' exists between English and Japanese. The Japanese borrowed the word okesutora, meaning 'orchestra', which then got incorporated into karaoke (meaning 'empty orchestra'), which was then borrowed into English.

3. The Russian word под (pod), the English prefix hypo-, the French sous, the Irish faoi, and the Welsh tan (all meaning 'under') all derive from the same Indo-European root!

- First the easy bit. The Ancient Greek word hupo (English has a tendency of turning Greek 'u' into 'y', hence puro-, 'fire') displays a common feature of Greek, turning initial 's' into 'h'. Thus hex- and hept- (6 and 7, think hexagon and heptagon) are cognates with Latin sex and septum. Thus we get Latin sub, related to hupo. The 'b' became 't' (Italian sotto), although I'm not sure how, and French dropped it in pronunciation. So: hypo > hupo > *supo > *subo > sub > *sut > *sus > sous

- Now Russian. In Ancient Greek the word was stressed on the first syllable, húpos. However, in Modern Greek it's hupós (actually, due to pronunciation differences it's now ipó, but that's beside the point). At some point, therefore, the stress shifted, leaving the first syllable weak. Weak syllables delight in being dropped. So we have *pos. From there it's a simple matter of a hardening shift from 's' to 'd' to reach Old Church Slavonic 'pod'.
So: húpos > *hupós > *pos > pod
Incidentally, the word 'pod' is preserved in several Slavic languages exactly without any changes: Croatian, Czech, Polish, Russian, and Slovene all have 'pod'.

- Now the fun part! Back to hupos again. To shift from Ancient Greek to Proto-Celtic we need to make two important and common sound changes. Firstly, drop the -s. Then delete the central -p-. It probably passed through a stage of being -b- first, but then it was dropped. This leaves us with the not-terribly-strong sound *huo. In Proto-Irish, this hw- sound became an f-, and in Proto-Welsh it became gw-. The Proto-Irish *fo survived until the age of Middle Irish, when the inflected form 'faoi' (meaning 'under it') became the standard word for 'under'.
In Welsh this word *gwo became *go, and because it was very similar to two other Middle Welsh words which were also *go (one of them was an emphatic particle), they decided to strengthen it by adding -tan to it. In time *gótan became *godán, and, as we've already learned from Russian, unstressed syllables disappear very easily. So it became the Modern Welsh word 'tan', meaning under. This sometimes appears as the slightly archaic 'o dan', but usually it's just 'tan', even though the 'o' there is the only connection with Italian sotto, French sous, Latin sub, Irish faoi, Greek ipó, English hypo-, and Russian and Polish and Czech pod. Incredible.

Incidentally the Spanish 'bajo' is totally unrelated to any of these words. It comes from Latin 'bassus', according to the Real Academia Española. I have a hunch that Germanic 'under' (which is virtually identical in all Germanic languages) might also be related (the original Proto-Indo-European root is *bhudhno, and I could easily envision some kind of link, ie.:
*bhudhno > *bhundho > *bundho > *vundho > *undho > *undo > under
-- and it might even be related to 'wonder' (another Germanic cognate), but I have no idea whatsoever. I may try to find out.


So there you have it. Algorithm bears only tenuous connections to algorithmus, and pod and faoi both come from the same root, *upo. I hope you found it interesting.

Var är jag? Oxford Jag är Exams next week... Jag lyssna på Tinariwen tags: arabic, language, linguistics, oxford, spanish

People say that the world is a small place. If that's true, then I dread to think how tiny Oxford is by itself, because everyone seems to know everyone else. Here's an example case from last night:

It was guest dinner, which is quite an occasion because it's cheap and there's lots of alcohol and people can bring friends. While there, I talked to Chang (Geographer at St. John's) and he introduced me to his guests, Daniel and Yunnan. While talking to Daniel, I established that he was doing Russian and was a close friend of my friend Rob, at New College. Then I got talking to Yunnan, who, as it happened, ALSO knew Rob because she was at New College too. It also transpired that Yunnan and Rob's friend Maggie went to school next to where Dan used to live, and that her best friend at school was Dasiy Ware. Who is in my Arabic class.
But there's more. Daniel also knew Thomas Barrett, someone else I know who does Spanish and Russian. While we were discussing this, Daniel mentioned how he confused Tom Barrett with Tom Parrot, his best friend at school. And that's when Ollie Willmott (another Geographer at St. John's) joined the conversation and remarked that he knew someone by that name. It turned out, naturally, to be the same person, who used to go to Dan's school and then moved considerably south to go to Ollie's school before coming to Oxford.
This kind of thing is fairly standard Oxford fare.

Var är jag? St. John's College Jag lyssna på Je veux te voir... tags: oxford

So it's thunderstorming right now. I have never seen anything like it. English rain is placid and annoying and light, it can never quite make up its mind whether it's going to develop or peeter out. You can rarely hear it, you can just feel it as it keeps the right balance between being light enough not to annoy and heavy enough to warrant an umbrella. Everyone just plods along annoyed by its inconsequentiality and by the bare-facedness of anyone audacious enough to unfold their umbrella.
Arizona rain is sweet-smelling and makes the flowers bloom, and you definitely notice it, but you don't go out in it. You stay inside and appreciate it - it's only going to last 15 minutes anyway.

Argentinian rain is something else entirely. It's been pounding down for hours now on a scale I never imagined was possible. I fully understand the concept of a monsoon. There is so much rain. You can see it in the air, you can see it ripple when the wind blows, you can see the drops when the lightning appears (which is every 10 seconds, really!). It looks like everything's sweating. There are little waterfalls running down the sides of buildings, paddling pools filling on the tops of the apartments, and all over the city there is the total roar of this pounding, punishing rain. It's unbelievable.

Var är jag? Argentina, underwater Jag är Aghast! Jag lyssna på Oh Yeah - Roxy Music tags: argentina, travel

So I'm sorry I've been a bit silent over the last few days, but I got caught up in everything. So here's what I did!

WEDNESDAY: I had to present a thing in class, basically (warning: TEFL Jargon coming up) an expansion of the core dialogue. That was fun: "A thief stole my DVD player/television/wife!". I got to draw pictures too! After the course I just went home. I was tired from all the exploring I'd done on Tuesday. Whatever, I got the opportunity to sort out some things in my folder, and had entertaining conversations with Tomás and Isabel over dinner. (Chinese food with what I thought was avocado but was actually...something else. I don't remember its name and I couldn't find it in my Spanish dictionary.)

THURSDAY: A big exploration day. María recommended that I should go to the cemetery in Recoleta, so I headed that way after class, but went further north than I'd intended and ended up going along Avenida Figueroa, where there are a lot of parks and other touristy things, so I took the opportunity to take some pictures. Then I went back down to the cemetery and wandered around. Saw Evita's grave. The cemetery wasn't a grass and tombstone affair, but it was more like a minor city, with streets and a square in the centre, and all the graves arranged liked miniature buildings. Dinner was chicken with rice.

FRIDAY: We did some simple grammar exercises, and it turns out I do know what some of these things are, I just learnt them under different names. The crazy thing about English grammar is that so much of it is superfluous and confusing because of the different names given to different things under different systems. Pizza for dinner.

SATURDAY (today): I woke up quite late (doing TEFL all week is tiring, especially in this heat!), but promptly left the house and went south to the Government Square. The Government building is modelled on the US Capitol building and, like all important buildings, has barricades around the whole of its perimeter to prevent protests. Of course, people just hang posters and things from the barricades. Then I went east to Plaza de Mayo and then north along a street with lots of shiny financial buildings into the Recoleta district, where I found a place in Lonely Planet and had lunch there. It was very very nice!
And now for a little digression about the food. Porteño food combines four key aspects: (1) French immigration = excellent pastry and desserts, (2) Italian immigration = excellent pasta and ice creams, (3) Pampas cows = excellent beef, seriously, the best I've ever had, and (4) native spices and herbs and things (ooh, maté). These, put together, make an INCREDIBLE cuisine. I had gnocchi with Parmesan and tomato sauce with chopped beef in it, plus bread, two bottles of sparkling water, and two scoops of rich chocolate ice cream FOR NINE POUNDS. And on the topic of price, near the school is a little place that sells empanadas (basically tacos made with pastry and filled with beef or tuna or whatever) and I can get two of them for $A4.50. THAT'S SEVENTY PENCE! £1.40! FOR AN ENTIRE MEAL!
Anyway, then I went still further North to Plaza San Martín (the liberator of Chile, Perú, and Argentina, I think) and took many pictures of the Falklands Monument. Seriously, what was that war about? Little islands that no-one wants to live on. Obviously it makes so much more sense for them to be English than Argentine, being right next to Argentina. Sigh. Then back to the house via a bookshop where I actually found La Fiesta del Chivo (break reading...better get started on that).

( Semi dull information about the TEFL course, which you may skip if you wish. )

The book I managed to find, La Fiesta del Chivo, is our holiday reading. It's about 500 pages, and it jumps about quite a bit in time, but essentially it's about dictatorship in the Dominican Republic, and it's extremely well written. I remember a passage from the first few pages because it's one I had to talk about for my interview, where Urania is talking to herself.
( I've translated it for your benefit. )

Var är jag? Buenos Aires Jag är Improving Jag lyssna på I've got love for you if you were born in the 80s! tags: argentina, spanish, travel

Oh my goodness, I like this city so much more than I did when I first arrived here. Given that my first experience was a hellish taxi ride through the bad parts of the city from Ezeiza Airport, it's astounding how much my views have changed.
So yesterday: I started at the TEFL School. More on that later. Then I went wandering, and got lost. Here's how it happened. Essentially I confused the TEFL School with the headquarters of GIC Argentina, the company that set me up with the TEFL School. GIC is on Av. Rivadavia, which is south of where I'm staying on Corrientes. TEFL is north, on Av. Gral. de las Heras. All three (GIC, TEFL, and the apartment) are on the same road (Ayacucho) which cross Rivadavia, las Heras, and Corrientes. When I went to the TEFL School (North) I thought I was going to GIC Arg. (South). So when I went further North-East after the course finished yesterday, I thought I was going South East into the centre. So basically I got spectacularly lost, but I managed to find my way back and I saw a significant part of the North of Buenos Aires (Recoleta is the name of that suburb). There are lots of streets named after countries, like Avenida República Árabe Siria, which was a nice surprise. Also Avs. Costa Rica, Ecuador, Honduras, etc. Yesterday I had dinner in the apartment and met Isabel's son Tomás, who studies at the Lycée.
Today I was better oriented, so after the TEFL Course I went the correct direction into the centre and found Av. 9 de Julio, the largest avenue in the world (14 lanes). Then I went South to the Obelisco (a massive obelisk located on the site of the place where the Argentina flag was first flown) and took several pictures, then walked back along Corrientes to the apartment. It's very useful being on Corrientes, because it's essentially BA's Broadway: lots of theatres, restaurants, playhouses, and bookshops. Oh, and as an aside, NEVER try to find something in a Spanish-language bookshop, because it's just impossible. The books are actually not organised at all. Really.
Tonight I had gnocchi and chicken with Isabel, Tomás, and a gentleman called Patricio (who I think is Isabel's brother). It was amazing - we spoke mostly in Spanish and I understood almost everything that was said, plus we had a lot of fun discussing politics and Patricio kept trying to steal Isabel's wine. He comes here every Tuesday for gnocchi, so they must be family, and I look forward to next Tuesday. We got on really well.

Tomorrow will be fun.

Var är jag? Buenos Aires Jag är Squee! Jag lyssna på Billie Jean is not my lover! tags: argentina, international, spanish, w00t

This has, without doubt, been one of the most bizarre days of my life. I'm quite tired so I'll only give a brief summary (and knowing me that's all you'll ever get) but it says something that I'm willing to stay up and type this.

I got up at 3:00 in the morning in Cheltenham, which was two hours after I'd gone to bed, rather foolishly. But then again, if you have to get up at 3:00 and you're going to spend the next day doing not much else but sitting on a plane where you can drift off, going to bed doesn't take much priority, especially when you could spend time online gossiping about the end-of-term dance. Then we drove from Cheltenham to Heathrow, about 2 hours, and got into Heathrow in time to do all the boring stuff, plus buy tissues and an adapter (currency number one: pounds). Then it was onto the plane.
I slept through the entire flight. No joke. Two whole hours. I fell asleep in my seat before we took off and I woke up as we were landing. But at least I felt slightly alive. Then it transpired that our flight was late and therefore lots of people were going to get rather angry if they couldn't get their connections. Bear in mind this flight left London at 7:00, and no-one is going to fly to Madrid at 7:00 just to go to Madrid. Everyone on that plane was going to Brazil, Perú, or B.A.
So I had the fun of running around Barajas Airport trying to find Gate U73 (I kid you not), and found it only to see that there was a massive queue and I was in no danger whatsoever of missing my flight. So I bought a bottle of water (currency number two: euros).
Then the flight to Buenos Aires. That was odd. 12 hours sitting next to a man from San Tucumán de Jujuy (which sounds like quite an interesting place) who was about 107 and clearly didn't realise that I didn't understand the Argentinian accent. The flight staff (whom he referred to as "chicas" even though they were all at least 40) didn't really know what he was saying either, but towards the end of the flight I managed to more or less get everything. We covered a wide range of subjects, most of them very briefly, until I lost my wallet.
Yes, I know, how do you lose your wallet on a plane? Well, I managed it. I think it fell on the floor. Someone found it and handed it to the staff, who promptly put an announcement in and returned it to me. The man subsequently claimed to have prayed to Jesus to return the wallet to me and "Mira, cinco mnutoh dehpuéh, si diceh Oh Señor..." there it was. So that was odd. I also re-watched Juno in Spanish, which must have lost things. I mean, how can you possible convey "That ain't no Etch-a-Sketch. This is one doodle that can't be undid, home skillet" in a foreign language, especially to a culture that has no knowledge of the concept of an Etch-a-Sketch?
And the flight was extremely bumpy and eurgh. And the climate here is horrendously humid and everyone asks for tips (I've spent 100 pesos on tips because I had no change [currency number three: Argentine pesos]) and you would not believe the driving. It's actually like Grand Theft Auto. Actually. Really. I'm not joking. If I ever get into an Argentine cab again it will be far too soon for me.

But the house. Oh, the house. It's incredible. The building has one of those fantastic two-doored incredibly old lifts in it, and the flat is more like a penthouse from the colonial 1750s (which is probably precisely what is it). But I have a lot of time to talk about that, and not so much time to go to bed.

So, total time in Sunday, 9th March: 24 hours. Total time I spent in Sunday, 9th March: 28 hours, 30 minutes.

Var är jag? Buenos Aires, Argentina Jag är Elated! Jag lyssna på Taxis and bells outside my 5th floor window tags: argentina, buenos aires, oxford, spanish, travel, w00t

This has been, and will still be, an incredibly action-packed week. For the first time since I arrived in Oxford, I have a social event to occupy me every night. Here's a brief rundown:

MONDAY: I had nothing planned, and actually spent quite a while doing a translation, but then Charis wandered into my room with the token "I was going to work all evening but instead I went to the DoC [Duke of Cambridge] and got drunk" look, before inviting loads of PPEists up to my room. So we had tea and then went out to get kebabs from Hussein's [the vans across the road].

TUESDAY: Shrove Tuesday and Arabist dinner. Tasty pancakes at Conbibos and the first time I really met the other Arabic class in a social situation, quite astounding when you consider that I will be spending all next year with them in Syria. They're all really nice. We went to a restaurant called Kasbar that serves tasty Middle Eastern food, then we went back to Jess's room in Wadham and had shisha. The brilliant thing is that shisha is related to our course.

WEDNESDAY: Chinese New Year party! Tasty food at excellent prices at Paddyfields. Major celebrations and new friends, namely a second-year geographer called Adam Bailey who hates England just as much as I do.

THURSDAY: Linguist Drinks. We had this last term too. They happen in St. Giles House, which is rather posh and just next to John's. Much revelry and drunkness, only this time none of the tutors turned up. I ganked two bottles of (gasp) SPARKLING WATER! Jack took the wine.

FRIDAY: Tomorrow is another film night. I'm happy about that because it's an excellent film, Peter Greenaway's The Cook The Thief His Wife and Her Lover. Plus I'm having lunch with Charis at Loch Fyne (Amazing! fish restaurant).

I did lose my wallet though. That was a low point. Damn it.

Var är jag? St. John's Jag är Chipper! Jag lyssna på 40ft (Franz Ferdinand) tags: arabic, films, hiatus, oxford

Oh, the occupational hazards of being a University Student, even outside term-time. Namely, it's 4:00am and I'm still up even though I have to get up in four and half hours to go to work at 9:00. Luckily, it's only across the road, but even so, come on, Duncan!
I think before I go into any detail about how Oxford is I'll have to explain the British university system, particularly as it relates to Oxford and The Other Place (click the link if you don't know what I'm talking about there).

The British University system is, to my mind, vastly superior to the American one, at least for someone like me. The school system generally forces you to specialise a lot earlier than in the US, which means that in University you only study your subject. There's no such thing as a major or a minor, such your degree, because you aren't doing any other subjects. In Oxford, which is full of abstruse and brilliant terminology, we refer to 'reading' something as a way of saying it's the subject you're taking your degree in: "I'm reading Chemistry". The system is the same throughout the country though. So my subject is Spanish and Arabic, or in a more general way, EMEL (European and Middle Eastern Languages).
Now to the organisation of Oxford - there is no single university building or campus, but a series of colleges. You apply to a particular college, not Oxford University, and you owe a great deal more loyalty to the college than to Oxford University itself during term-time, and often colleges have rivalries between them as virulent as the general one between Oxford and Cambridge. You live in college, eat in college, and a majority of students have their tutorials in college too. I don't - I go to a few of the numerous shared buildings, along with everyone else doing either Spanish or Arabic, for my lectures, and to St. Catherine's college for Spanish tutorials.

There's great variation in the colleges - some are large, some small, some are quite poor, and some are extremely wealthy. St. John's is the wealthiest by far, with an endowment of over £300 million pounds, and consequently it's in an excellent position to dole out money to us starving students. It also owns a massive amount of land all over the country, and overseas as well. The whole of Oxfordshire is owned by some or other of the colleges. St. John's also consistently comes near the top of the Norrington Table (the academic rankings) and has been top for several years, until last year when Merton beat it out. That's why we dislike Merton. We also dislike Magdalen and Christchurch because they're extremely posh and full of people who swan off to Dubai for the weekend on "Daddy's credit card". Grrr. We also hate Keble, which is next to John's, because we used to own their land, and still do, technically, but there's no academic rivalry with it - there'd be no point. There's even a Society For the Destruction of Keble, which advocates stealing the bricks from Keble's buildings. This has become quite a problem, it would seem.

The University's shared buildings lie outside the grounds of any of the colleges and are generally specific to a particular degree. The Taylor Institute is the massive language library with a basement full of rolling mechanical bookshelves, an upper reading room with ancient books in Old Spanish, and an entire room full of the works of Voltaire. The Oriential Institute is the centre for Arabic, Hebrew, Farsi Persian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Armenian. Both are happily within about a minute and a half of St. John's - one of the other reasons it's so brilliant.

St. John's has the best attributive adjective out of the whole lot. We are Iohannonites.


In the next installment: the academic structure of Oxford - my tutors - just what are collections? - some geographic specifics of St. Johns - the Oxford Union.

Var är jag? Cheltenham Jag är I am actually asleep... Jag lyssna på Destination Calabria tags: arabic, fresher, oxford, spanish

Right, I'm very very sorry that you haven't heard from me for...ahem...ages. I'm horrendous and dishonourable, and I should be beaten. The fact is, though, that putting things on LJ isn't terribly productive because I can't be expected to record everything that goes on, and the people I talk to are here in Oxford anyway, and because I have so much going on! Work, and all. You know how it is.
Except you don't, because you go to American Universities.
Now that it's the holidays (well, it has been for a while, and that's all relative - I still have work), I may feel up to divulging details of Oxford in segmented chapters of glee. However, only if you'd like to. Please leave a comment expressing how you think this plan could be implemented to maximum effect!

Christmas was...hmm. A very low-key affair, yet again, but I like that. Just me and Mum and Grandma, but who else? Ploy came over on Christmas Eve, but was busy, so yeh. (Ploy was a 2nd-year Chemist at John's, but she left because she absolutely hates Chemistry. The problem is, she's very good at it. She's from Thailand, but lives in England and has just moved to Cheltenham.) In the manner of Misses Sasha O---- and Marissa M---- C---- (from whom I draw most of my daily entertainment, let's be honest!), here is a loot list, with important things highlighted in bold.

FROM DAD: a Dalí calendar and a projector.

FROM GRANDMA: A wind-up torch and some hot chocolate, and a giant wall poster satellite picture of Phoenix.

FROM MUM: Another Dalí calendar, The 13 1/2 lives of Captain Bluebear, The QI Book of Animal Ignorance, loads and loads of chocolate, the 7 sins of chocolate hot chocolate set (for example: ANGER - spicy Aztec hot chocolate), the 12 tea of Christmas assortment (along similar lines, except there's no connection between the present on the day and the tea), and a load of other things. Oh yeah, and A FOUR-WEEK TRIP TO BUENOS AIRES IN MARCH/APRIL!

Var är jag? Cheltenham Jag är Gleeful traveller Jag lyssna på Berri Txarrak- Bueltatzen tags: argentina, hiatus, international, oxford, presents

...you're reading a literary critic and you find quotes from your tutor.

"...translated into English by Desmond Stewart and recently described as 'arguably the most widely known book of modern Arabic fiction both inside and beyond the Near and Middle East' (Robin Ostle, introduction to Egyptian Earth)."
(The Oxford Guide to Literature in English Translation, ed. Peter France, pp. II b. 6)

YES.

Var är jag? St. John's College, Oxford Jag är Joy! Jag lyssna på My conversation with Andy Holloway... tags: arabic, hiatus, oxford

There is far too much to say about Freshers' Week, as predicted, and anyway most of you wouldn't understand the British terminology, let alone the American terminology. Just one particularly annoying note: the two halves of my EMEL course (Spanish and Arabic) are kerrazy disorganised and it just so happens that I have Arabic every day from 11 to 1. I have the best teacher of the whole OI (Oriental Institute), as I am reliably informed by my college mother, Claudia Lewis. However, the main thrust of this information comes in knowing that it conflicts with two of my weekly lectures: the one on Fiesta del Chivo (midday every Tuesday) and the one on Spanish Versification (midday every Thursday).
So that should be interesting.

NB: Comments about Hermione and Time-Turners will earn you an instant Kill (and I signed up for The Assassins so I know what I'm talking about).

Var är jag? St. John's, Oxford Jag är It's Freshers' Week. Jag lyssna på Type type type type type tags: arabic, emel, fresher, oxford, spanish

Dammit. Today was not a good day.

1. Kent. Oh Jesus. The new single...Ingenting...I didn't think I could be so disappointed in my life. It's basically dance music. There is no guitar, hardly a surprise since Mänty left, but still! It's dance music. It's a betrayal of everything Kent ever was and ever sounded like. The depth is gone. It's always possible that the album will be much better than the single - it wouldn't be the first time Kent's put one of the worst songs out as the single - but even so, it probably indicates the general bent of the music, and that bent is basically O-Zone in Swedish. It's an okay song, but not for Kent it isn't.
So Kent is now a Tier 2 band. I have no Tier 1. No favourite band. What happened there? Kent will probably go back up, unless Tillbaka till samtiden is massively bad and I-Empire (Angels and Airwaves' new CD, out in November) is really good. Judging by the respective singles that's quite possible.
This is just like if scientists conclusively and empirically disproved the existence of God - and I'm the Pope.
Maybe I have to just keep listening to it...

2. Swedishfriend has not yet responded to the e-mail I sent him 14 days ago. I know he's lax about responding, but not this lax, and he said he was had to work all this month so I know he hasn't gone off on yet another trip to Öland.

Fuck.

Var är jag? Cheltenham Jag är Melancholy Jag lyssna på Oh god, anything but Ingenting tags: fuck, gap year, kent, music, swedish

Dammit. Today was not a good day.

1. Kent. Oh jesus. The new single...Ingenting...I didn't think I could be so disappointed in my life. It's basically dance music. There is no guitar, hardly a surprise since Mänty left, but still! It's dance music. It's a betrayal of everything Kent ever was and ever sounded like. The depth is gone. It's always possible that the album will be much better than the single - it wouldn't be the first time Kent's put one of the worst songs out as the single - but even so, it probably indicates the general bent of the music.
So Kent is now a Tier 2 band. I have no Tier 1. No favourite band. What happened there? Kent will probably go back up, unless Tillbaka till samtiden is massively bad and I-Empire (Angels and Airwaves' new CD, out in November) is really good. Judging by the respective singles that's quite possible.

2.

Var är jag? Cheltenham Jag är Melancholy Jag lyssna på Oh god, anything but Ingenting

I have discovered my new talent: getting hopelessly excited about obscure music that is unavailable anywhere, particularly music "from the Baltic Region" (oh dear, my life is beginning to sound like INLAND EMPIRE now). So the bands I particularly desire CDs from (Autobuss Debesīs, J.M.K.E. and Vennaskond) have been cast into obscurity, and unless I go to Latvia or Estonia (respectively), I am unlikely to get them. They aren't on Amazon (except for one J.M.K.E. collections album). I can't even listen to them on iTunes. They are NO-WHERE.
Except the Autobuss Debesīs website does have some clips from most of their songs. It's like a mini-iTunes, except you can't download the whole song and they don't have anything from their most recent album. I'm marginally annoyed(
I'm also annoyed that Amazon.com is the only one which has both the new Kent single (Ingenting) and the new album (Tillbaka till Samtiden), so consequently I'm not going to get Ingenting until the middle of October, even though it comes out on the 17th. Amazon insists that it comes out on the 24th, or at least they're shipping it on the 24th, and unless we pay $100 (I am not joking: $30 for the two CDs and $70 for shipping) it won't get here until after TbS is released. TbS itself won't arrive until NOVEMBER.

What I think I'll do is cancel the order for TbS (which we still can do, since the products haven't even been released yet) and order it on Amazon.co.uk, which means that I'll get TbS around the same time that I get Ingenting.

This convinces me that my musical life would be considerably eased if I lived in Sweden or Finland: unlimited access to Swedish (Kent), Finnish (Värttinä), Estonian (Vennaskond and J.M.K.E.), and Latvian (Autobuss Debesīs) music.
Plus Sfelia is just so much cooler than the world at large, honestly. Once I finish Oxford I will probably live in Argentina, Chile, Spain (maybe) or Sfelia. Or I might go and live in Namibia, because it's remote and beautiful and Spanish and Arabic are completely useless there.

Jag är Flängd i roten tags: estonian, finnish, international, kent, latvian, music, swedish

How has life changed so much in the last few months?


Life: I'm in Cheltenham now. It's nicer than much of England: far enough from London not to be filled with commuters and child-scaring buildings, not far enough north to have poisonous air - but it's still England. It also has a lot of festivals: the Science Festival, the Book Festival, and the like, but I seem to be consistently away when they happen. Not that I'm complaining.

Grandma: One of the bad things about Cheltenham (aside from being in England) is that my grandmother lives only about half an hour away and so manages to impose her company, and consequently her idiotic remarks, on us. To give you a sample, according to her all my good qualities (whatever they might be) come from my father, Norma is prettier than Mum, and my uncles are under a great deal of stress while Mum just saunters along with a simple and fun existence.

Norma (The Bottom): Maybe it's a good time to say a bit more like Norma. My oft-quoted fact is that she has a bottom the size of Brazil. She also broke up with my father and he pined for weeks. Then her surrogate, Peter, disobeyed a direct order, and now she's back with him with a renewed sense of The Right To Monopolise. If they marry I'm not coming to the wedding. I'll arrange to be in Mongolia instead.

Travel: I am indecisive. Perhaps it's the plethora of options, but I don't deal well with anything involving more than one choice. Whenever my mother insists that I must come up with a travel destination, it takes me days. Perhaps because I have to go through every single destination in the world (which is more fun than it sounds, but still incredibly time-consuming). Also, even though my 18th birthday is coming up and I want to go away, I won't. Why is this? Because I don't want to go alone, my mother doesn't want to go anywhere interesting (she wants to go to Morocco or Egypt, although that's better than Norma, who goes to Italy for everything), and Swedishfriend hasn't responded to my e-mail.

Art: INLAND EMPIRE was fantastic. I think I might begin to understand it now that I have it on DVD, but total elucidation is a long way off. Although I should have been reading my Oxford books, Pale Fire and similar literature have consumed my time. I've ordered the new Kent CD (Oct 17th) and single (Sept 17th) from Amazon, so I should get those once they're out.


With the exception of my trip to Spain, receiving the Kent single Ingenting will probably be the only speck of light in the tar-like obscurity of my whole gap year. The whole time, from the moment I tossed my cap left my fingers at graduations, through that dismal English summer, not being able to get work, and travel stalemates, right until the moment I will step over the threshold of the gates of St. John's, has been wasted.

Var är jag? Cheltenham Jag är BBleh. Jag lyssna på Sarbatoarea noptilor de vara tags: england, gap year, hiatus, kent, lynch, travel

12 quotes from movies I like.  You have to identify the movies.

1. "Good for you! You've decided to clean the elevator!"
(Dark Star: Erin H)

2. "Care to indulge in a little necrophilia?"
(Brazil: Emerson F)

3. "No hay banda! There is no band! It is all...an illusion..!"

4. "You could have obeyed me!"
"But Captain, to obey, just like that, for obedience's sake, without questioning...that is something only people like you do."
(El Labirinto del Fauno (Pan's Labyrinth): Emerson F)

5. "Oh please, Elizabeth, tell me: exactly how does one 'suck a fuck'?"
(Donnie Darko: Marissa MC)

6. "Yes, yes, poor little daddy, forced to live in the real world."

7. "A brutal fahcking murder!"

8. "Such a good word.  'Gargantuan.'  So rarely get an opportunity to use it in a sentence."
(Kill Bill, Vol. 2: Nabila H)

9. "Why do you think I'm calling you? Just to say hello? ... Of course I like to speak to you! Of course I like to say hello! Not just now, but any time!"
(Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb: Erin H)

10. "Have you come for me?"
"I have.  Are you ready?"
"My body is, but I'm not.  Can't it wait?"
"You all say that."
(The Seventh Seal: Rachel R)

11. "You could have killed yourself!"
"That was the idea.  I'm desperate!"
"So am I, but I don't jump off terraces."

12. "So...d-do you just cut them up like regular chickens?"
"Yeah...just cut them up like regular chickens."

Var är jag? Cheltenham Jag är Anxious Jag lyssna på Straaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaange....what love does... tags: deep thought, lynch, movies, quotes

I think that one of the reasons that I don't do well on job-hunting is that I find it incredibly hard to write drivel, rubbish, and bullshit.  I mean, this question: "Explain the importance of teamwork?"  Aside from the fact that it shouldn't have a question mark at the end, what does one say to this? It's just rubbish.  I can't write rubbish.  I can knock out a scene, a short story, whatever, in about an hour, no problem, but bullshit takes me ages.  I wrote a paragraph to answer that and it took me an hour.
Yet another reason I don't think I will do well In The Real World.

Var är jag? Cheltenham Jag är Perplexed Jag lyssna på Jimmy Eats World - Kill tags: deep thought, fuck, future, gap year

It's a post about Classical music!
Yes, I decided that I was becoming unappreciative of Classical music, so I am embarking on a re-education programme, during the course of which I have rediscovered just how much I adore the New World Symphony by Antonín Dvořák.  When a Symphony's four movements are named Adagio, Allegro molto, Scherzo: molto vivace, and Allegro con fuoco, you know you're on to a winner.  I used to listen to this Symphony a lot a few years ago, along with Janacek's Sinfionetta.  Czech late Romantic composers never fail to deliver, I've found.

Plus, I found a fantastic version of the New World Symphony.
It's played on an organ.
I want to marry it.

Now, on to РИМСКИЙ-КОРСАКОВ (Rimsky-Korsakov for the Cyrillic-illiterati) (and Rimsky really should be Rimskij to avoid confusion with Римскы).

Var är jag? Chelt Jag lyssna på New World Symphony tags: gap year, music

I'm now back in Cheltenham again, having been in Guildford while Mum was away in America.  She's back too, so life has returned to what can pass for normal, ie. looking for work.  It isn't as easy as it sounds.  I'm quite an unemployable person for one simple reason: I hate people.  I really do.  It's very sad, but I find people hard to deal with, so I'd have a great deal of trouble being a salesman.
I'm sad about people dying: specifically Kurt Vonnegut and Anna Politkovskaya.  I know that Vonnegut died last month and Politkovskaya died ages ago, but for some reason I feel especially sad about it today.
The Cheltenham flat is now a lot cosier than it was: I brought a lot of stuff back with me from Guildford.  A LOT.  Almost every book I really like I have with me, plus every DVD and CD I own.  Once again I am with the likes of House of Leaves, Ulysses, People of Paper, Naked Lunch, and Riotous Assembly.  Hoorah.  All I need to do now is read Gravity's Rainbow and then I can start on my books for Oxford - and there are a lot of them.

Var är jag? Cheltenham Jag lyssna på Battle Without Honour Or Humanity tags: deep thought, future, gap year