Coming
from a university that gives an average of 8 days off per semester, I am
thoroughly enjoying the plethora of holidays here. I had the day off yesterday
– not for Saint Patrick’s Day, for elections. I’m not sure why all the foreign
nationals were let out of school, but we were okay with it.
I spent
a good part of yesterday finishing Socrates’ Parmenides. The whole thing sounds
much like this section:
“the
truest assertion of the being of being and of the not-being of not-being is
when being partakes of the being of being, and not of the being of not-
being--that is, the perfection of being; and when not-being does not partake of
the not-being of not-being but of the being of not-being--that is the
perfection of not-being.”*
I know,
right? I can figure out what they mean, but I’m convinced that they are
purposely stating it in the most convoluted way possible.
As for
the rest of the week, I am pleased to say that I have finally started my formal
Arabic independent study. I’ve never done an official independent study before,
and I’m quite infatuated. My teacher is really sweet, and with just the two of
us we can move faster, bring in random facts and connections between Hebrew and
Arabic, and have a good time.
I have
no fewer than three language classes on Mondays, counting the independent study. In the morning I have three
hours of Hebrew. This week we finished by talking about how to write an essay
in Hebrew. I was surprised to find that one of the essays I had typed had
appeared as the sample essay for this exercise (as a positive example,
thankfully.)
One of
the fun things about language classes is that you get to go back and relearn
everything you already know about writing from English. Things we went over
included: acknowledging sources, paraphrasing, how to structure an argument,
and last but not least, how to use paragraphs. I distinctly remember being told
some of these things in third grade, but a reminder never hurt.
We’re also
currently expanding our legal vocabularies in Hebrew – I now know the word for
‘statute of limitations.’ The supreme usefulness of this word is demonstrated
by the fact that some of the native English speakers in the class didn’t know
its translation.
However,
that’s still better than my Monday colloquial Arabic class, where the punch
line of a joke we were reading was the word ‘suppository’, which the majority
of people in the class didn’t recognize in English. Even knowing the word
didn’t help that much; looking at our faces after we watched the video, the
professor abruptly announced a five-minute break – fifteen minutes before class
ended. We were puzzled but didn’t complain.
That’s
about my selection of anecdotes for the week; things haven’t been overly
exciting, but they haven’t been dull. In addition to what I’ve mentioned, I’ve
gone grocery shopping, cleaned, done laundry, hung out with friends, done some
creative writing, and the like. Mainly, I’ve enjoyed having a holiday in the
middle of the week.
Everyone
in the States seems to be on Spring Break at the moment, but I don’t mind
missing; I get a two-week break at the end of the month, besides which I’ve
managed to miss the worst winter in Boston history. This has so far been a very
pleasant semester; hopefully it will continue to be so. Until next time!
*Plato (2009-12-19). The Works of Plato (25+ works with an
active table of contents) (Kindle Locations 19671-19675). . Kindle Edition.
(when you copy and paste, it automatically gives you the
citation. Isn’t that handy?!)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
No comments:
Post a Comment