Where I Have Been For the Past Five Days

[amberdulen]

No updates recently because I've been swamped at work trying to find out if a burner can fire on recycled oil that is made out of wood chips and smells like barbecue chicken. Result: It can, and I rock.

The Chinese lady from Canada finished her stay in the lab yesterday afternoon. That was sort of sad.

Book club on Tuesday: The Notebook by

Comments

Mmm!

[subsidaryforge]

I could just drool over the RFF Calender even without, well ... seeing it at all. So much work has gone into it from so many fronts that it has to be awesome.

Heard vaguely of the Notebook, but never read it. I don't trust anything called The Notebook. If it was called The File System, maybe. But The Word Processor would have been almost as bad. Albeit not as bad as The Email with Flowered Stationary.

Have read about 2/3rds of Ulysses. Recieved headache. Gave up. Although the language was intruiging, I found that my usual nonchalance about "real plot" withered away under the sheer force of Joyce's randominity. At least it wasn't Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. That made sense, but I wish so deeply that it didn't.

Mm. I think I've also heard, vaguely, of a Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Most common question in the world, but what's it about?

Re: Mmm!

[amberdulen]

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is about a girl growing up in Brooklyn in the early 20th century, but the summary makes it sound like a stupid American Girls novel. It's frank, funny, and (I think) an accurate portrayal of how people really think, speak and act, which is the golden standard for me. (The fact that I got it from my 90-yr-old great-aunt helps.) I just got a huge kick out of it.

Yeah. Ulysses was way too random. Plot please? I've never read _Portrait of an Artist_ but if you say it's that bad, I won't.

Re: Mmm!

[subsidaryforge]

Sounds fantastic -- natural sounding verbiage (i.e. not using the phrase "natural sounding verbiage') is really important to me's well. And I like laughing after DUMB MOLL FLANDERS AND ALL YOU DUMB BRITISH LIT REQUIREMENTS

(coughs)

Portrait of the Artist is less random than Ulysses. Which is too bad. If it was equally random, I could have got stuck in the language and stayed there. As it is, it was just pompous and offensely self centered. Poo!

[anonymous]

I've given up Esperanto in favor of improving my Spanish; now I have to figure out how.

Do you get cable? If so, see if your cable company carries Univision or Telemundo, and watch some of their programs.

Start browsing Spanish-language internet websites.

Look up whether there are churches in your area (most probably Catholic) that have Sunday services in Spanish, and attend from time to time.

Look for Spanish programming on your local radio stations.

Look for books and magazines in Spanish. If you're in a smaller town, you'll probably have the most luck with large chain bookstores.

[amberdulen]

Thanks! No cable, sorry, not much of a local Hispanic population either so no church services, but I'll be trying to pick up books in Spanish.

[catamount3]

Maybe we could brush up on our Spanish together or something. I've had four years of the language and live in SOLEDAD, of all places, and I still suck at it. -.- (Of course, this may partially be because I have problems with the English language sometimes, despite it being my primary language. o,O)

Isn't the calendar utterly AWESOME?! I can't wait for it to be completed. ^____^

[amberdulen]

Really? I'd love to have someone to practice with, especially with so much background, but, um, how?

Holy cow, YES, teh_calendar is teh_BOMB!

[catamount3]

Maybe we could try to write notes to each other in spanish? Sans dictionaries! o,O
I find my problem is remembering vocabulary and conjugation. I mean, I could look it up but when it comes to talking.. Gah!