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IM and Skype and virtual lectures... My own admin just 'approved' my taking these courses, and French following, because it will help (or actually create) a language department here.
And it's official, Catalan does make an American Spanish speaker's head hurt.
Nice that it's free for me, although the tradeoff will be there in about 24 months. It'll be nice to be in one timezone.
Anyone have any second-hand teleportation devices? I'll settle for Hermione Granger's time-turner.
Glad my acquaintance is a profesora! Payback comes when her two year old gets older, and I either get him free courses here or I pay for them. I'm enrolled at no cost.
My books should be here by midterm... I'm jonesing for a text already.
I just hope that she moves back to the mainland, after having seen a piece of Paradise. Aloha! Parent
Less than two weeks later, I got an email from one of them saying they were coming home and could I put him up for a couple weeks while he house-hunted.
I'll never forget his reaction when his plane landed in Burlington a couple weeks later, first week of May. He was beyond ecstatic at the fresh, new green breaking out all over the place in this northern climate, something that doesn't happen in perpetually green tropical or near tropical zones. Just sayin'.
IOW, each to his own. Personally, I'll take that ecstatic break-out of spring after a long winter here in the northern tier any day. How can you enjoy spring if you haven't been through winter?
I'm not religious, but it makes me understand why the Christian idea of the resurrection has always been so powerful. I see it in nature incredibly vividly every year. Parent
By the by, I recently heard the story of how the War Eagle cry came to be. Something about an eagle circling the football field and then dying at mid-field. OMG! so sad and so disturbing. Parent
"My daddy can beat up your daddy!" Parent
He lets his players play... and the Big 10 isn't used to that. He'll also be able to recruit a few deep south speedy 320 pound players.
Yes, they exist. Just not in Big 10 country. Ask CaseyOr about Samoans at Washington, for example, or look at some of BYU's players. Parent
With Andrew Luck's decision to forgo the NFL draft and return to Stanford, the Cardinal seems as well positioned as any team for next season. Why would Harbaugh want to make a move to the hapless 49ers? Can it really be as simple as blind ambition? Parent
And the fact that he has a chance to coach with a Niners org, with a storied tradition of winning SBs, while not having to uproot his family, are worth double and triple points.
Following the deeply disappointing and at times hapless coach Singletary, he'll initially have a lot of fan good will on his side and a fairly low hurdle to step over. The real pressure comes in the 2d year, when everyone will expect significant progress and will have largely forgotten the previous coach's failures. By the end of Y2 and into Y3, he'll need to produce.
And if he fails with my Niners, there's always a decent head coaching job at one of the major college programs available, and he'll still be a fairly hot item given his clean, winning record at Stanford. Parent
If I learn Spanish here in the States, a goal of mine, will I not be able to understand people in Spain? Or just in Barcelona? Parent
I can't say enough yet, but my professor says it's as distinct as portuguese from spanish, and more distinct than, for instance, the difference between European portuguese and Brazilian portuguese.
Here's one anecdote based on only a name: Pablo Casals, the famous cellist, was Catalan. He said his name was Pau Casals, from the Catalonian dialect or/and language.
I think everyone, or almost everyone, from Catalonia now speaks Spanish, but the language continued 'in the family.'
Similar happenings in, say, the USSR...Russian versus Ukranian. Similar, not the same.
A fascist attempt to make everyone the same.
My American Spanish, which is strongly Colombian style, is extremely close to European Spanish, except to me a z is 'zzzzzzzzz,' but a double l 'll' is jjjjjjjjj. In Argentina, that same double l is almost a 'shhhhh' sound. In Spain and Mexico, it's a 'Y' sound. llama is 'lama' for us speaking English, 'yama' for northern American and European Spanish, and 'jama' for south American Spanish...
I haven't learned enough about the culture yet exept that there were plenty of Catalonian pirates. One of them was Cristobol Colon, or Christopher Columbus, to us... he wasn't really Italian, say the Catalonians, but a Catalan pirate captured at about 10 or 12 by the Castillans-- Ferdinand's folks, not Isabella's-- she was Aragonian.
there are more cultural differences, but I'm just now learning them, along with the language differences. It keeps the brain active, thank goodness! Parent
One of my fantasies is to spend time in that area of Spain that runs from Barcelona to Bilbao. To see the Guggenheim and the town of Guernica and all the Guadi architecture. Gosh, I want to go there. Parent
His ashea were interred with hie fellow Internationql Brigadeers a few years ago. Parent
Had I not mislearned this some 50 years ago my life would have taken a different direction.
No, not a joke. Factual errors by a young supposed prodigy lead to different lifes all years afterward. I "stepped on my wee-wee" in front of a lot of influential people in an extemporaneous speech at a gathering.
I'd be willing to bet I've screwed that one up since then any time I've spoken of it.
how about this... wow. such a simple fact, yet so flawed to fact-y people. Parent
Franco did horrible things to many people in Spain, which is par for the course for evil dictators. The treatment of the Basque people was particularly egregious. Did the same happen to the Catalans? And do you know how the Basque and the Catalan are connected, other than both being part of Spain?
The Basque were amazing sailors, explorers and traders. In fact, there is some evidence that indicates Basque sailors landed in North America before both Columbus and Leif Erickson. Parent
In South America, for insrance,people with the last mame 'Echevarry' a name looked down upon as a little bit inferior, again during and posyt Franco considering Baque roots, gets discriminated against. but in the America's, it's considered purely Spanish.
Genetically, Vasqueros aren't 'true Iberians,' or are the 'only true Iberians, whether French or Spanish. In south America, seen as purely European, even more so than "criollos," 'pure' Spaniards with old Birthright papers.
And I forgot today is Saturday. No class till Monnday at 2 a.m. Otherwise, I could have stull been asleep.
Yep, a long year ahead. Parent
And it's appropriate that our word in English -- bizarre -- comes from the Basque.
As for culture, I remember as a kid greatly enjoying watching games of jai alai in part because of the odd nature of the curved funneled stick being used to catch and redirect the ball. Parent
For social-political reasons, there's been a huge movement in Ukraine for the last 20 years or so to differentiate Ukraine from Russia in every possible way, but according to my friends, it's a largely bogus recent invention.
No idea independently whether that's true, but that's what my friends (descendents of "white Russian" emigres from the '20s) say most emphatically. They are ethnically Ukrainian, but have always considered themselves essentially Russian. Parent