171; now that the first semester is over

As a first year student in the Faculty of Arts, I have several goals I intend to achieve this semester. I have found that high school and university are quite different matters on so many levels, such as class hours, the number of assignments, time management, self organization, and independence. Taking a step from high school to university can be a life-changing transition, because we have to start all over again back at one. So, the first goal I wish to accomplish this semester is to survive all the changes. I intend to try to fit in with the new faces and new environment. Also, I cannot help but notice the increasing amount of assignments, and although there are more free periods than in high school, I cannot play around like I used to anymore. Plans have to be made wisely in advance, and I have to check the long to-do lists daily so as to make sure I do not miss any tasks. With all the assignments that come crashing in, and very limited time to do them, it is not an exaggeration when I say I am getting by and barely surviving. I think it would be nice if I can manage to finish this semester without any F’s, which is basically my second goal. I have an intention to make the amount of effort required to at least come away with a B+ GPA. It is often said that grades do not mean anything, which is probably right. However, I still disagree. To me, good grades mean winning a battle against the dark, lazy side of myself, and conquering the voice in my head that tells me to give up. And lastly, while I am still a freshman, I wish to stay happy. One thing I have learned as I grow up is that life gets harder. Like in high school, just when I thought life could not get any more complicated, university came into view. Life is like that. So, knowing all too well that I am going to be a sophomore next year, I would like to embrace and cherish the freshman moments while the year 2011 still lasts. At this point I know what I am supposed to do with my time; I am going to try hard for good grades and my own happiness. It is a brave new beginning, and although university life is sometimes a struggle, I know for a fact that I will be alright.

- Me, June 26th 2011
Second writing assignment: example paragraph

Let’s see. First goal? Yeah. I got it alright.
Second? Well, no F, but it’s still a MAJOR FAIL. I got a C+ on Use of Thai Language. How humiliating is that. Thai is my friggin’ mother language! That being said, I never really did care about it. Besides, I always came away with a B or B+ at Thai anyway in high school.
Last?  Maybe.

167; i’m sorry

I’m sorry that our story didn’t have a better ending.
I’m sorry that somehow fear crept into my mind.
I’m sorry that that fear told me to take a step back.
I’m sorry that my decision had an effect on you.
I’m sorry that I left you scarred.
I’m sorry that I made you cry.
I’m sorry that you couldn’t somehow get past it.
I’m sorry that I denied even what was left of our friendship.
I’m sorry that I didn’t even say sorry first, but you did.
I’m sorry that you blamed it all on yourself.
I’m sorry that I wholeheartedly believed it was your fault.
I’m sorry that it was actually mine.
I’m sorry that I didn’t realize that I had hurt you so deeply.
I’m sorry that I did.
I’m sorry that at that moment my intention was to hurt you.
I’m sorry that things aren’t the same between us.
I’m sorry that you had tried, but I hadn’t.
I’m sorry that I didn’t know any of that until now.
I’m sorry that I didn’t love you better.
I’m sorry that I don’t deserve you anymore.

163; The Awful German Langauge

I was surfing the net (again, and ignored studying as usual). And I stumbled upon this German writing, and after having read for a while, I found this English original.

What struck me as so funny is his use of the German language, and the way he talked about German. Here’s an example:

My philological studies have satisfied me that a gifted person ought to learn English (barring spelling and pronouncing) in thirty hours, French in thirty days, and German in thirty years. It seems manifest, then, that the latter tongue ought to be trimmed down and repaired. If it is to remain as it is, it ought to be gently and reverently set aside among the dead languages, for only the dead have time to learn it.

LOLOLOLOLOLOL. THAT’S VERY TRUE.

I was laughing the whole time reading his experience in Germany and his opinions about die Deutsche Sprache. He went on and on and on about the genders (der, die, das) and gave humorous examples. Like, he found it strange for a tunip to be a she, but a girl to be an it. I guess he must have been reading in German and came across all the strange things about this language. He translated this from German to English to show how weird it is:

Gretchen: “Wilhelm, where is the turnip?”
Wilhelm: “She has gone to the kitchen.”
Gretchen: “Where is the accomplished and beautiful English maiden?”
Wilhelm: “It has gone to the opera.”

This speaks so much. And then there’s these trennbare Verben which are basically 2-part verbs. Funny enough, I’ve never been able to come up with a clear example for anyone who’s asked who has no idea about German and wonders what this kind of verb is. But Twain really chose the right word for it. His word of choice is abreisen which means depart. The main verb reisen means to travel (and ab means away), and the past tense of it is (for the genders he, she, and it only) reiste. So I’m quoting him:

The Germans have another kind of parenthesis, which they make by splitting a verb in two and putting half of it at the beginning of an exciting chapter and the other half at the end of it. Can any one conceive of anything more confusing than that? These things are called “separable verbs.” The German grammar is blistered all over with separable verbs; and the wider the two portions of one of them are spread apart, the better the author of the crime is pleased with his performance. A favorite one is reiste ab — which means departed. Here is an example which I culled from a novel and reduced to English:

“The trunks being now ready, he DE- after kissing his mother and sisters, and once more pressing to his bosom his adored Gretchen, who, dressed in simple white muslin, with a single tuberose in the ample folds of her rich brown hair, had tottered feebly down the stairs, still pale from the terror and excitement of the past evening, but longing to lay her poor aching head yet once again upon the breast of him whom she loved more dearly than life itself, PARTED.”

And then the pronouns. This was the exact same thing I had thought about when I first learned German pronouns. The word he’s talking about is sie. There are two forms of that in German: sie (she, her, they, them) and Sie (very formal for ‘you’ as in both subject and accusative object). He said:

Personal pronouns and adjectives are a fruitful nuisance in this language, and should have been left out. For instance, the same sound, sie, means you, and it means she, and it means her, and it means it, and it means they, and it means them. Think of the ragged poverty of a language which has to make one word do the work of six — and a poor little weak thing of only three letters at that. But mainly, think of the exasperation of never knowing which of these meanings the speaker is trying to convey. This explains why, whenever a person says sie to me, I generally try to kill him, if a stranger.

Other than that, he had also observed that German words randomly tend to be really really really really long. Here are some of the words he mentioned:

• Freundschaftsbezeigungen
• Dilettantenaufdringlichkeiten
• Stadtverordnetenversammlungen
• Generalstaatsverordnetenversammlungen
• Alterthumswissenschaften
• Kinderbewahrungsanstalten
• Unabhaengigkeitserklaerungen
• Wiedererstellungbestrebungen
• Waffenstillstandsunterhandlungen

Well, I have to say he did find out a lot of things. The next and last funny thing I found about his essay is his inability to understand Nebensätze (Sentences where the verb has to be at the end of the sentence due to the rule of conjunctions), and when he saw or heard the verbs at the end of the sentences, he went berserk.

Sixthly, I would require a speaker to stop when he is done, and not hang a string of those useless “haben sind gewesen gehabt haben geworden seins” to the end of his oration. This sort of gewgaws undignify a speech, instead of adding a grace. They are, therefore, an offense, and should be discarded.

Hahahaha! Actually the Germans don’t put all those verbs at the end of every sentence. Mhmm, what can I say, it’s just a part of speech, mainly used in speaking. See, if I wanted to say ‘I had a car’, I would say ‘Ich habe ein Auto gehabt’ — here ‘habe…gehabt’ simply means ‘had’. That’s what the Germans call the perfect tense (but it’s really not the same as English present perfect tense), and it’s equivalent to the past simple tense. I could also say, ‘Ich hatte ein Auto’, and that would still mean the same thing. I guess it’s this use of many verbs together that bothered him. LOL.

His essay was thoroughly interesting, mostly humorous, and very elaborated. He ended the essay with an audioscript.

A Fourth of July Oration in the German Tongue, Delivered at a Banquet of the Anglo-American Club of Students by the Author of This Book

Gentlemen: Since I arrived, a month ago, in this old wonderland, this vast garden of Germany, my English tongue has so often proved a useless piece of baggage to me, and so troublesome to carry around, in a country where they haven’t the checking system for luggage, that I finally set to work, and learned the German language. Also! Es freut mich dass dies so ist, denn es muss, in ein hauptsächlich degree, höflich sein, dass man auf ein occasion like this, sein Rede in die Sprache des Landes worin he boards, aussprechen soll. Dafür habe ich, aus reinische Verlegenheit — no, Vergangenheit — no, I mean Höflichkeit — aus reinische Höflichkeit habe ich resolved to tackle this business in the German language, um Gottes willen! Also! Sie müssen so freundlich sein, und verzeih mich die interlarding von ein oder zwei Englischer Worte, hie und da, denn ich finde dass die deutsche is not a very copious language, and so when you’ve really got anything to say, you’ve got to draw on a language that can stand the strain.

Wenn aber man kann nicht meinem Rede Verstehen, so werde ich ihm später dasselbe übersetz, wenn er solche Dienst verlangen wollen haben werden sollen sein hätte. (I don’t know what “wollen haben werden sollen sein hätte” means, but I notice they always put it at the end of a German sentence — merely for general literary gorgeousness, I suppose.)

This is a great and justly honored day — a day which is worthy of the veneration in which it is held by the true patriots of all climes and nationalities — a day which offers a fruitful theme for thought and speech; und meinem Freunde — no, meinen Freunden — meines Freundes — well, take your choice, they’re all the same price; I don’t know which one is right — also! ich habe gehabt haben worden gewesen sein, as Goethe says in his Paradise Lost — ich — ich — that is to say — ich — but let us change cars.

Also! Die Anblick so viele Grossbrittanischer und Amerikanischer hier zusammengetroffen in Bruderliche concord, ist zwar a welcome and inspiriting spectacle. And what has moved you to it? Can the terse German tongue rise to the expression of this impulse? Is it Freundschaftsbezeigungenstadtverordnetenversammlungenfamilieneigenthümlichkeiten? Nein, o nein! This is a crisp and noble word, but it fails to pierce the marrow of the impulse which has gathered this friendly meeting and produced diese Anblick — eine Anblich welche ist gut zu sehen — gut für die Augen in a foreign land and a far country — eine Anblick solche als in die gewöhnliche Heidelberger phrase nennt man ein “schönes Aussicht!” Ja, freilich natürlich wahrscheinlich ebensowohl! Also! Die Aussicht auf dem Königsstuhl mehr grösser ist, aber geistlische sprechend nicht so schön, lob’ Gott! Because sie sind hier zusammengetroffen, in Bruderlichem concord, ein grossen Tag zu feirn, whose high benefits were not for one land and one locality, but have conferred a measure of good upon all lands that know liberty today, and love it. Hundert Jahre vorüber, waren die Engländer und die Amerikaner Feinde; aber heute sind sie herzlichen Freunde, Gott sei Dank! May this good-fellowship endure; may these banners here blended in amity so remain; may they never any more wave over opposing hosts, or be stained with blood which was kindred, is kindred, and always will be kindred, until a line drawn upon a map shall be able to say: “This bars the ancestral blood from flowing in the veins of the descendant!”

I underlined parts that I liked. When I first started writing my journal entries in German, it kind of looked like this. XD Somehow English is much easier when it comes to expressing things. Mark Twain was so funny, and “he did capture the essence of the difficulty of learning German.” (quoting Roland)

And with that, I de- to continue studying for the exams, part.

160; a love note to someone who hasn’t lurked in my blog for such a long time already

Hi there.

I just want you let  you know that what you’ve written about me was amazing. I love your piece. And I’m not the brightest girl, I know that, but it’s a flatter, really, to see that you think I am. I wish I could be half as brilliant as you, in fact. However, I’m never gonna say of all this to your face, because we’re so over this kind of complimenting stuff, but still. I just want to say this. That I think you’re amazing. And I adore you.

Love,
me

148; i’m in over my head

If only you could hear the words I’m not speaking,
if only you can understand what I’m not saying,
if only you were around often enough,
you might notice that I need you more than you know.