More Classes

So I was looking through some other classes offered by Boulder Valley's lifelong learning program, and they have a Beginning German class. Even though I took German in high school (many, many years ago!) and even though I know Dutch, I think it might be a nice refresher class. I haven't signed up yet, but I'm considering it. We'll see...

Current music: random shuffle. Currently Melissa Etheridge "Mercy" from Lucky
Current drink: Remy Martin VSOP Cognac

Classes, Writing, and Thoughts and Such

Classes: For the most part this as been a typical week. Things are still busy at work, but I'm used to it by now. The one exciting thing about this week is that I start my Italian class tomorrow. It meets every Thursday for two hours and it goes until the end of March. Every time I have taken a language class the class met Monday through Friday. You get a lot of practice and you don't have that much of a chance to get rusty. Since this class meets only once a week, I have to find a way to practice. I suppose I'll figure something out. I already talk to myself a lot, so I guess I'll just have to start talking to myself in Italian. And I also have a feeling that taking this class will inspire me to read a little more Greek and Latin. Or maybe I'll be encouraged to learn another language.

Classes and Writing: As I mentioned in an earlier post, taking this Italian class came from a pact I made with one of my good friends. We were both in somewhat of a rut and wanted to do something new and different. I vowed to take a new language class, and she vowed to take some writing classes. So far she is putting me to shame. She already took a class in food writing, and now she is in a poetry class/workshop. She has to present one of her poems to the class tomorrow. She had two poems and couldn't decide which to present, so she shared them with me and asked which one I thought would be better for the class. Both poems were absolutely beautiful, and that led me to different thoughts as I was driving home from work today. I've been thinking about it all night, actually.

Classes and Writing, and Thoughts and Such: (I have a feeling that what follows will be random and all over the place.) The pact that I made with my friend, the classes we're taking, and the poetry she wrote made me think about a lot of things. For one, I'm really blessed to have such a great group of friends who I would place in the brainy, gifted, talented, and creative group. Even long after we've graduated from college--or *cough* several colleges and grad school--we've never stopped learning and we're always hungry to learn more. Several of us have continued to take classes whether it is to further our careers or skills, to delve into our hobbies, or to indulge in our own personal pursuits. And what makes it more exciting is that our interests run the gamut of editing, stockdog training, poetry, photography, language, and much more. I personally indulge in language and I want to indulge even more. I already know ancient Greek, Latin, and Dutch. I'm taking Italian. I would like to brush up on my German (took that in high school), and I would like to learn French and Spanish and maybe Russian. It would also be cool to learn Hebrew and Sanskrit.

Another thing that I've been thinking about tonight is writing. My friend wrote some beautiful poems, and many of my other friends are also great writers. It makes me hungry for more, and it makes me wish that everyone out there was a great writer. And when I say great writer, I'm not necessarily implying great with spelling or grammar. Although that's nice too. I'm thinking more about content. Since I'm a blogger, I'm always looking for a good blog to read. I've found a few good ones, but, let's be honest, there is a lot of garbage out there. If I roll my eyes and shake my head, that means the content isn't cutting it. I didn't have that reaction when I read my friend's poetry, and I don't get that reaction when I read the blogs of some of my close friends. When I read something, I want to laugh. I want to feel touched or moved. I want to feel good, or I want to feel motivated or inspired to do better things or to be a better person. It is honestly hard to find writing that is capable of that. Frankly, it's hard to find people who are capable of that! Fortunately I have some wonderful people in my life who are. I'm not sure how successful I am at returning the favor to my wonderful friends, but I hope that I have something to offer...

Current mood: inspired
Current music: a random selection. Currently Sarah McLachlan "Building a Mystery"
Current drink: Remy Martin VSOP Cognac

Buonasera!

Well, in order to uphold my end of a bargain with a very beautiful friend, I finally signed up for an Italian class. I'm taking it through the Boulder Valley School District's Lifelong Learning program. It starts in February and ends in March. I think that it will be geared more toward people who will be traveling to Italy, but it will still be fun to do something new and different. It will be odd, however, for me to take a living language. I'm just curious to hear what my accent will sound like. I'm sure my accent will be an odd mix of Latin, ancient Greek, and Dutch. That will make an interesting combination!

Current mood: tired
Currently watching: "Machines of the Gods" on Ancient Discoveries on the History Channel
Current drink: Penfolds Thomas Hyland South Australian 2005 Shiraz

Winter Storm and More of This and That

Winter Storm: the weather people in Colorado have been predicting a nasty storm all week. They said that it would hit Friday night and that we would have a good amount of snow on Saturday. Near the end of the day on Friday, I thought that they would be right. When I looked out my office window, the clouds had rolled in and things looked pretty dreary. When I woke up this morning, I looked out of my bedroom window and didn't see much snow. All I saw was some snow that was left over after a storm that we had last week when I was out of town. Apparently the rest of the state got a good amount of snow, though. It seems as if the western half of the state and the mountains got the most snow. There were reports, though, about icy streets in and around Boulder this morning. People saw the sunny skies and lack of snow and took that for granted. There were quite a few accidents on the freeway in the morning. I wouldn't know what the weather was like in the morning, because I didn't drag myself out of bed until around 11:30. I was catching up on some much needed sleep.

This and That:
Chores: I spent most of the day cleaning the apartment. I haven't done much around home since I got home from my trip. The place needed a good cleaning and some organizing. I'm only one person, it shouldn't be this difficult. Although, when the average person sees my place they wouldn't think it is a chaotic as I think it is. And I suppose they are right. I've been in the apartment of some of my friends where you can't see the bottom of the bathroom and kitchen sinks and where you can't see the carpet of the floor. I suppose I'm not so bad.

Work: Work at work has been busy this week, but I feel like I'm back on solid ground right now and not sinking in quicksand. I haven't had to take any work home with me this week, but I have had to do a little freelance project for an old co-worker who is now with another publishing company. I really don't know how I managed to find my way into doing freelance indexing work, but I sort of enjoy it. And it brings in some extra money which is always a good thing.

Classes: A few months ago a good friend/co-worker and I were talking about how we both needed to do something "different" with our lives because we both felt as if work was taking over our lives. We decided that we should each take a class of some sort. We made a pact and we drew up a contract on the back of a lottery ticket that she had which obviously didn't produce any winning numbers. She promised to take a writing class, because one of her big passions is for creative writing. I promised to take an Italian class. We sealed the contract with our signatures. She has already taken her writing class, and I still need to take my class. I found an Italian class through Boulder's community education, so all I have to do is sign up for it. It doesn't start until February, though. Since I've taken Latin for so many years, I thought that Italian would be the obvious choice. It will be interesting, though. I know Dutch and I took German years (and years) ago when I was in high school, but since then I've been a dead language specialist. I even own a T-shirt that says, "the only good language is a dead language." So it will be interesting to be in a class for a "spoken" language. I'm sure we'll learn all the touristy stuff like how to introduce yourself, how to ask for directions, how to order food (and wine!) in a restaurant, etc. That will be interesting, but my elitist and overly ambitions ego really wants to be able to read Dante in Italian some day. Maybe some day...

The Things You Learn

Proof that you can teach an old dog new tricks. Here are some random things I learned today. And you'd think that at my old age, I'd already know everything I need to know!

Apparently a peanut is technically not a nut. It is a legume. This is why I watch Food Network and Alton Brown.

While working on an index for my freelance project, I learned that beta decay is a type of radioactive decay. Really? My knowledge of science is questionable, though. When I took science in college, I took a geology class. I'll take rocks, earthquakes, and volcanoes (from a distance) any day. No chemistry--the thought of explosions, acid, and scalding burns scare me. And I never liked the stale scent of formaldehyde (thank God for spellcheck) in a biology class. In college I also took a physical anthropology class. But give me something old and dead and I'm happy. Hence my love of Classics.

And here is something I already knew, but I thought I would share it with the rest of you. This is what I received in my Word of the Day e-mail (with some commentary I added for fun).

According to a story, probably apocryphal, former US Vice President Dan Quayle once said, "I was recently on a tour of Latin America, and the only regret I have is that I didn't study Latin harder in school so I could converse with those people." I don't know why but I can hear Bush saying the same stupid thing.

Latin is a dead language. No people speak it as their everyday language. Really? Sometimes I do...
The area south of the US is called Latin America because most of the people down there speak Spanish or Portuguese, both derived from Latin.

Latin took its name from Latium, a region in ancient Italy. Various dialects of Latin eventually blossomed into the Romance languages: French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, and Spanish, while Latin itself faded away. IT'S NOT DEAD YET!!!

Fortunately, you don't have to travel to Latin America to use this week's terms from Latin. They have been borrowed into English and are now part of the language.

de novo (day NO-vo) adverb: Anew; from the beginning.

[From Latin de novo (from new).]

There is your lesson for the day...