Slogging through it

 Slogging through it.  Christmas mail that is - but we got a little lucky today that one of the trucks did not come and we only had a regular load today, instead of the double-Christmas loads we have been having.  And it will not affect tomorrow, because of the kind of truck it was (although, we can deliver some of it if we want it isn't the Sunday priority stuff).  But yes, I still have to go do some more packages tomorrow, and work on Monday, and then two days off - of everything, I think ... I'm not entirely sure, but it will be nice if it is.  I've almost told myself that I need to make some madeleines and work on my Ruby book if I have Christmas Even off  ... but I'm not committing to that.  Because, I'm tired.  And it sounds nice but still...    I got up too early today - and left somewhat early.. and tomorrow I don't need to be there until eight, and I will probably still get up too early, as I just am in the habit of that time now and sleeping in sounds fun in theory but in practice it hasn't happened often.

Switched over to Catalan for a bit again, as I kept doing my phrases in half-French Latin again at work without realizing it - just that patois of things like 'it is not that' n'etre se quoi or just n'etre ) and 'there's another one of those', and 'get a move on already (imperata se quoi) actually something like 'move yourself or what')' and 'it fell down' (tomber est ce que)... They roll off my tongue so easily and I can tell what they meant but it is quite hard to write them down or translate.  The one was otra se te quoi - meaning 'there's another one of those' which was close in meaning but definitely a mix of two languages (patois).  And je ne sais jamais quoi : I've never known that?  So, I thought it was time to switch over and since the French is so high level on my computer and getting there on my phone for some reason I segued into Catalan instead for some review.

The really funny thing is - Catalan is only available on Duolingo 'from the Spanish side' - as in, it thinks you are a Spanish speaker and all of the other text is in Spanish.  And now - without changing any other settings anywhere else - I'm getting Facebook ads and spam emails to my Google mail in Spanish. *roll eyes*  Oh yay, the interconnected web.

Trying to stay awake until at least eight p.m. tonight as I don't need to clockin tomorrow until eight.  I still need to check the brake fluid in the little car that had a warning light come up - but as soon as I got home (in the mail truck) from the route today I started eating, and then made dinner for everyone, and then ate some more.  Then I had a nosebleed, and decided a steamy bath was in order.  Doing laundry, and languages, and then maybe it will be time for bed.

I haven't even cleaned off the little tree and ornaments and put it up - but I do have some gifts wrapped up.  It's been really hard to shop for anything with my schedule, but I've gathered a few things and the family has bought some other things that they wanted during grocery trips, a few games and computer stuff.

work weekend over, now for the week

Well, as far as I know, I don't have to work tomorrow.  Did mostly French the past few days, and played the game (Stardew Valley) in French, as well.  Have been trying out some of the new things there, meadowlands ranch etc.  Hoping for a more quiet and restful week before school starts.  

I was enjoying using the new soap I had bought at the farmer's market and a cleanser sample I picked up at the store.  I haven't finished the bag, but am still working on the dishcloths.  I'd like to put the bags and new windspinners up on some sort of clothesline thing at the market, but I haven't figured it out yet.  Last night I dreamt I worked at a store again, but it was a cross between the craft store and the hardware store again -- they both had red aprons --  but the merchandise was definitely much more the craft store this time, the layout of the store was a cross though, between the Michael's Store in Fargo (before it got moved to West Fargo) and the Lowes store.  It is quite weird how much my brain retains in details and then builds out while I sleep - it's 'real' -feeling all through the aisles, the signs, the products in the shelves, all the way down to the price tags, but the UPC numbers and the paperwork and the computer systems always seem off enough that it breaks the 'mirror'.  I woke myself up trying to log into the computer on time with the proper password that is always so annoying.  

I was scared a bit by a large cow that jumped up out of a ditch in the twilight of dawn - I thought it was a garbage can but then it got up on the road and looked at me - but I got around it and hoped it got back in it's fence okay.  It's not the first time I've seen a cow there - but it definitely was one of the larger ones. 

I was also faintly dizzy yesterday morning- like a water compass in the back of my head wasn't pointing correctly, or taking a very very long time to point correctly compared to what it should - walking back and forth across the office while I sorted mail I could feel the 'tilt a bit sideways, and then you stay upright' response kicking in.   I stopped on my way out to the route and bought an extra drink and some peanut butter cookies and took it easier than I normally would for a time, and by about 10 am I was feeling much more manageable.  I had already eaten a breakfast and drank coffee before I left in the morning - sometimes you just don't know what the issue is, possibly barometric pressure this time overall, but I thought having the extra things with me was a better idea than not.  POTS is not fun - and still sometimes, as I have mentioned recently, it lets me know it isn't gone.  But I'm glad I have a better idea what is going on than I did when I was younger.

c'est la vie du poulet

We had a chicken in the yard that needed some assistance, one of our four Sapphire Gem hens, and Esme came in from feeding and watering them to tell me she saw the hen having trouble walking.  So we went out and were lucky enough to be able to catch her up easily - she really was having some trouble for us to catch her without a fight.  We gave her a warm bath on her rear and made her a separate cage in the garage and are trying to do what we read she needs for a clogged vent.  It still might not work, but it's better than not trying anything.  She already took some antibiotic water from the hanging water bottle, which is a good sign.  Will try to check on her again through the night and if the treatment works, it says it could be up to a week of keeping her separate and clean before she is ready to go back with the others. We've been needing to make up some sort of isolation system for a good long time but never had a full need to do so until right now.  It is still something we do need to do more permanently so we can pull one or two out.

 

après des,  après des ça: after this, after that - something I usually say in place of 'oh boy' or 'here we go'... we're gonna get this done, and think again whatever was annoying or worrying me after this gets done

 

Made the jasmine brown rice and used some in fried rice for dinner tonight (before we heard about the chicken from Esme).  I made the rice the same way as my regular natural long grain brown rice - washed twice, then put with a bit of salt, a bit of olive oil and a bit of rice wine vinegar in the water, and 2.5 cups water to the 1 cup of washed rice.  After it had been boiling, I turned it down to low I let it go thirty minutes, then turned off the heat, and let it sit for nearly another twenty cooling down, and put it up in a glass container in the fridge until I was ready to use a little bit in this fried rice. I'll try frying some up with the garam masala another night - just used peppers and onions and porkchop seasoning and soy sauce in this for Esme and I tonight.  The week looks pretty clear - except for possibly the farmer's markets, working on the budget and I've got something planned to do on Tuesday.

French : I am in Section 5 : Unit 14 on Duolingo on my main account, and Section 3 : Unit 6, on my phone.  The phone has speaking exercises and a few other things that the PC account does not have, plus I use it to fill time often when I'm doing other things, like sitting with the chicken while the washing machine spins to make sure she didn't take offense to that (she didn't).  In Spanish, I am at Section 4 : Unit 19 and Section 3 : Unit 10.  I was thinking a little earlier that I wondered what the French lessons would be like once I reached section 5 - because I was looking at someone talking about something on their phone that I had never seen yet - and realized I was in section 5 already, just not on the phone.

more patois

 

a bit more of the strange things I always say, that probably don't mean exactly what they are supposed to - and who knows about the grammar.. it's a patois of probably a rural type of French my grandmother would have learned??, maybe some Welsh, and probably also mixed with Latin that I've picked up over the years to fill in some of the gaps of what I didn't learn correctly from my grandmother.  Between today and yesterday I noted a few more of the ones that I use often.

ga se ve ça va! - translate says it means, 'its okay'??? Not really! I need to know more about this one!)  // I said this today, and I didn't realize it until it had already come out of my mouth.  Why?  I saw a dead spider in the bathtub, that wasn't there a minute ago (had probably been in the overflow when I started to run the bath!).  What do the words mean?  No clue where it comes from - but I've said it many times before.  It's definitely a description of surprise and means I don't like that at all.  I would say in a pinch it means the opposite -that whatever that it is, it is NOT okay.    Esme would come running if she heard me say that loudly and ask What's wrong?!?!

engré savoir ne quoi // something on the order of 'it's difficult to know why (that it is difficult)'

on se la // that is how it goes?(translates to 'we are there' actually), maybe 'we are like that' it is usually part of a sentence,  like c'est la vie, but having to do with how things go in general  c'est la vie, on se la ceci ce vie, je ne sais pas être aussi ne toute ça mais c'est la vie, c'est la vie- it's like remembering parts of an old song I don't ever remember hearing??

on prêts , on prêts ça , often sounds like 'amprets' or 'empress' when I'm talking fast // we're ready, we're ready for that, like allons'y but a different tone that means things are correct now for us to proceed, where allons'y means 'let's go'

em brasé // it's bruised, it's damaged (when I picked up a tomato and the underside was leaking)

We really did a lot out in town yesterday, but today I realized I still needed to get chicken feed before the weekend ties me up.  So I pushed myself up, did some chores and went out and did town again, and got gasoline in that car at the same time.  That is still harder for me than it is for most people, I'm certain of it.  I thought about a lot of other things I could do - all the cost-analysis and psychological things that sometimes keep me on reins and just wanting to get home and be done... even getting done the two things I really did need to do was going to be exhausting, no matter how enjoyable some of the rest would be - it was just even more relief to get it done and be home.  And now I'm home and cleaning out leftovers to eat for lunch, looking at recipes for other things to make and thinking about what I can do for the afternoon.  I've started a dishcloth in that yarn from yesterday already, and still need to finish that bag.  There's always more laundry.

 

(at the top) : some more of the geometric windspinners Mark has been working on.  His 'extra large paperclip' sold a few at the market yesterday - the lady said she was going to use them to keep sheet music pinned down.  Several others picked them up and tried them out - but they didn't buy any.  He has sold half a dozen or so of his ergonomic lighter holders that keep hold of a bic-type lighter without letting it fall out even when it is upside down.

I did some Japanese at about 2 am... I should probably tune into my French lessons today, but we'll see where I go from there.  I'm still playing the Stardew Valley in French, which makes it difficult at times to talk to Esme about new things in the update - I give it to her in the French on the screen and the approximate translation I think the English should be (without going to the wiki) and she says OH I know that one, I haven't done it yet, but I think I've seen it.  Jus de Igname de neiges (juice of the snow yam).  She made a crack about that while we were in the canned vegetables at the store yesterday, I don't see any snow yams yet, do you?

I do like my madeleines pans - the pair of them I got this Spring.  I also like trying to remember the recipe from scratch each time and just winging it - it still turns out good.  The dogs appreciate it, as well.  I dropped two of them popping them out of the pans tonight and had to throw them in the sink to cool - but there was much happy hound at the end.  They always do get a few lately, and over the course of the next few days in the fridge they'll beg every time I open the bag.

simplest recipe : 3 to 4 eggs (from our chickens), 1/2 cup white sugar, 3 tbsp brown sugar, vanilla extract (BEAT), 1 cup flour, baking powder, salt, 1/2 cup softened butter (BEAT) - put 1 tbsp in each madeleine pan well, bake at 375 degrees (preheated) for 10-12 minutes, do not flip, use a spoon AND a fork to take them out (fork to hold, spoon to scoop), rub darkened side on a plate of powdered sugar and place on another one to cool, put up in a plastic bag with a paper towel set in the bottom of it.

Did the French language lessons - then began to research the biryani spices and recipe variations some more.  I saw the difference between garam masala (which I have) and biryani masala (which I don't have), and figured I can probably use the entire research to just make something similar enough and find what I like.  That's the goal, really.

engres cau'r ça va

/philosophy post/ I find myself saying this little mantra to myself, and others, even without knowing the true provenance of it, when I'm just trying to get over the hump between now and 'a little ways from now'... was talking with Mark about that, I've gotten so much better on the postal route with the 'encapsulation of useful time'... I'm not wasting time, I'm getting paid and doing a necessary job, but still, it often feels like I'm just pouring the time into a bottle, corking it, and setting it on a shelf to look at but nothing really 'happened' during that time.  I delivered mail, another day, and I'm tired again.  

engres cau'r ça va 

It's hard enough, but it's okay.  / We've closed the hard thing up, and it's okay.  

après ci ca va

after this, it's really okay

aux troussé / à ses trousses 

It's on my heels, I'm being chased by it

Assez quoi! / Quoi?  / A ne se très se quoi / je ne sais quoi

Enough already / What is it? / It doesn't matter a bit / I don't know what it is

 

Some of that feeling, I've come to realize, isn't all anxiety, some of it is my ADHD.  And I'm using my own brain against myself (in a way) to keep myself on the task at hand, and since that is a huge effort, it feels like anxiety, but it IS getting the job done.  And I'm getting better at it.  But the 'extra tired' also comes with that territory, of doing the task and also doing the task of keeping myself on the task.

In the past, when I first started doing mail, there was so much more to worry about overall that I would actually feel mini anxiety panic attacks - because there was so much to worry about, and I was here pouring time into this task and trying to make it make everything else okay, eventually.. finances, life, goals, ultimate understanding etc etc.. I let my brain spread out too thin and didn't keep it on task - and then when I was finished with the route I STILL had all the regular worry waiting at the end of the 'string' of time.  I would spread it all out all day long like a huge four dimensional matrix in my head and look at all of the red flashing lights and then turn myself into a ball of stress.

It took a long time to hold my feelings in my hand, separate them down into their elements and look at them and not feel that domino-effect cascade of panic with it - and not have that panic come and take me over at the end of the day or whenever something else went wrong later.  That's a lot like the kids who sit still all day and then have a meltdown at the end... but all this time it was just masquerading as something else in me.  But also, the answer to it was in me - I just had to look at it for what it was telling me, so I knew what I needed to respond with.

So sometimes I have to take myself by the lapels (figuratively), and go through the paces:  I am one creature, at one sequential time, that this sequence has a beginning, and an end, and is moving at a set pace that I cannot change much.  The only thing that will make this feeling better is to continue along this time-string doing this task until it is done. (small breaks can help sometimes, but that's also a bad habit - it's like stopping while climbing a rope, you're still hanging there, and getting through to where you can put your feet down is so much better)  So, I'm doing this, and will continue to do this until it is done.   Because it is a task that does need to be done, and I'm the one here to do it.  And then, later, we will think about the other million things.   THEN I can let it overwhelm my timestream and matrices like a Rubik's Cube and work like an overactive pinball machine trying to make sense of this Universe.  But not while we're doing this NOW... and yes, somehow, that still feels a lot like anxiety, but a different color.  And treating it just as 'I have anxiety and worries' never helped before, like having this reminder about time does when I know it is this.

 

an attempt at what it feels like, to be stuck doing the one thing, but your brain continues to bounce while you try to hold it to the one orange line that is the shortest distance between the two points, it is naturally wanting to be a quantum particle anywhere at all within the triangle 

languages : I did mostly French, Japanese and Russian today with just a touch of Finnish to see if I still remembered the words.  I also did the 'minimum' on both profiles (about 50 xp) and we'll see how much time I have tomorrow.

faire le ménage ou apprendre quelque chose?

One small layer of my brain says I should be cleaning - I'm doing some laundry - I should be baking more madeleines because I'll eat them, but there are no eggs (except under chickens) as they were all boiled and fed to dogs.   Instead I'm practicing my French to Spanish, because I keep reaching 'through' the French to get the Spanish from the English... and that is just how my brain is set up.  I will be doing my Russian lessons later, as well, but for now, this seemed to be the rubber-band effect I needed in my brain.

Spanishdict.com : using that for 'blind' retrieval of Spanish words from English - and that is hard - spelling them and not grabbing the French word.  When I consistently keep reaching for the French, I've been writing it down on a list of things to practice, to connect the three angles of the triangle (French--English--Spanish) a bit better.

Mark made me the extra colors of the pushpin magnets I was asking for - the red for French a week or so ago, and now the blue for Spanish - and I've been putting them to use this morning putting up the words I have a hard time grabbing the Spanish word (blue) for from the French (red).  And as I was reaching through this brain network I sat down and drew a little map of some of what it feels like where languages are stored.  Of course, the more I work with a language recently, the more it takes up more space and connects in with other things.  That 'pool' of blue for Spanish isn't completely a good thing - because it is pooled there half isolated and hard to retrieve.  But there is always the base of French, ASL And English that were there in my infancy.. wrapped and flowing through everything - and everything else gets connected and shoved in and around it like a big squishy purse or drawer where the files are not well organized.

(separate thought : perhaps Latvian shouldn't be such a tiny dot, I recognize and can insert words on Clozemaster far better than I do many of the others - although I get 10/10 on French there, and 9/10 on Spanish, getting 7/10 on Latvian, which I've barely studied, is nothing to sneeze at, and I do a pretty good job on BaltoSlav languages on Latvian words and Ba ba dum has Lithuanian that is closest, flag striped yellow/green/red : I have played a bit more on Bern Istaba as well, the children's site for Latvian similar to the English site Starfall Esme used to play on)

But I have swept and put the rugs in the laundry - I'm afraid perhaps the valve is leaking again, but we have to pull everything out to look at it, take the screws out of the wall and shut off the water - I've cleaned the floors in several places, looked in the fridge for anything to chuck out and so forth... with the truck not easy to get to town in, I don't want to get into a plumbing job or other major project.  If the valve is leaking, it is a tiny trickle that I have only barely noticed from a low spot in the garage floor that holds the water there if it gets there...  So many more things need to be dusted and cleaned, it is neverending.  And this is my first day off that didn't automatically come with 'ten other things' planned for me to do, so I've been sort of drifting from one thing to another and not held fast onto any one big thing I have to do today.  I haven't done a shred of art in a long time, well maybe a sketch or two, and the language map above probably counts in some way.

I did go look at the garden - everything has been very wet and is wanting warmth and sunshine, maybe even some fertilizer.  I pulled some weeds, fed the chickens, gave them fresh water - and Mark and Esme are doing things with the greenhouse plants.

bits

 yesterday was a very long day, with almost ten hours of driving out on a route - not the one I had been assigned to at the start of the day, but an emergency situation where I had to pick it up for someone else - and another carrier came after their route and helped me with the last half hour of it, which would have been another hour otherwise, so that helped some...  Esme had her wildlife competition for the year, she placed seventh in the region for high schoolers, and that makes a wrap for this school year

As I was driving, sans radio, because it was all unfamiliar and I didn't know where the next thing was most of the time - thoughts came to me that I had forgotten most of the Czech words for clothing, although I remembered them for French (of course) and Spanish

So here:

https://www.czechclass101.com/czech-vocabulary-lists/clothes

and this:

vocabulary : Welsh, French, Spanish, Czech

shirt : crys, chemise, camisa, košile

-----dw'in hoffi'r crys

-----j'aime la chemise

-----quiero la camisa

------líbí se mi tato košile


shoes : esgidiau, chaussures, zapatos, boty

    esgid ( singular), chaussure, zapato, bota

pants : pants, pantalon, pantalones, kalhoty

jeans : jins, jeans, vaqueros, džíny

socks : hosan (sanau, hosanau(singular))

    chaussettes, (chaussette (singular))

    calcetines (medias), (calcetin, media (singular))

    ponožky (ponožka (singular))

hat : het, chapeau, sombrero, klobouk

dress : ffrog, robe, vestido, šaty

coat : cot, manteau, abrigo, kabat 

clothes : dillad, vetements, ropa, oblečení

 

Yesterday's language clock, with the split sleep, and a little bit of Spanish (on my mobile) put in during my mandatory ten minute lunch break

Still Iced In 2024

 

 

 

Still frozen in on our little farm - that freezing rain over all of it made it so difficult.  We are low on dog food, and propane - and really no way to get out or for anyone to get in.  Hopefully we have a break tomorrow - it is supposed to get up to 31 degrees.. and they still think they have me scheduled for early in the morning on Monday.  That is yet to be seen.

 

Anyway, working on my French language.  DuoLingo says I have now gotten to B1 level - so I went and found an hour long plus French detective movie (with Lea Thompson, Miss Detective, it was good!) and watched it with just the French subtitles on for clarification of what I was hearing.  I understood a lot - not all, but a lot.  I can think of French translations for most, but not all, of the sentences I am thinking in English. It gives me a good idea what I need to learn still (besides spelling, which I am still not great at).  

I finished the crochet rug for in front of the stove, and started another one as the original one I took for the sink side of the kitchen had been in the bathroom where I put on my shoes.

Mark wants to make dog cookies with pumpkin, flour, eggs and bacon grease for the dogs to tide them over.  They're not out of dog food yet, but they can see the bin emptying and they all have expressed concern.  That is what you get with Catahoulas - they are such conversationalists.  They've been talking with the cats about being in front of the propane heater and etc etc.. as well.  I can just sit in that room and watch the air currents from the heat sources and the lights and watch the animals communicate and almost feel like I'm relating to some ancient yurt scene of ancient times.  All while I take yarn and form it into cloth, and drink hot fluids.

I asked Esme if she wanted to go sledding out there in this - the hills are perfectly slick, and she sounded just like Mark and I combined: 'I'd rather not.  Let's just say we stay in here and be warm, ok?'  Ha. I'm still remembering her swearing when she heard I had just walked home from where I abandoned the truck the other day - and then she gave me a big teenager hug, and said she was glad I was safe.  She doesn't want out in this : and I understand.  She has been feeding and watering the chickens, though, and getting their eggs - which is no small task when they are all in the house together.  We use the empty water pitcher to ford the way to the nest, and then grab the eggs and put them in the collector basket.  

 

We do have plenty of chicken feed to make us to the warm spell -- and I need to remind myself to stock up on feeds if at all possible in case we get a repeat of this for February.  I don't want one.  But I want to be even better prepared for one.  I thought I was fairly well prepared for this one, but then it lasted longer than expected, AND I was asked to go out to town more often than originally scheduled BUT did not feel safe enough or have enough money to bring much more resources home in between it all.  I could have bought more propane one of those days, but I was already worried about going in the ditch and in the ditch with a full canister of propane in the back of the vehicle is just 500% more No-Fun-At-All, enough to make me not even try.  Gah.  At least if I had bought more dog food though, I could have went back to the truck with the sled and brought it home.  Things to Think About.  Things I wish we didn't have to think about.

I do think Esme will help us bake, if we choose to do that in a bit.

She tried to boil some eggs last night to go with her dinner - she didn't like the freezer meals we were using up and she wanted to make something of her own.  But she didn't boil them long enough in this cold temperature.  I do that sometimes, too.

crochet rug, 27 by 16, scrap yarns and stash yarn (the blue-grey stuff) that was leftover from making my huge shawl a few years back - still using that to keep warm, as it wraps all the way around me and ties in the back or at the side.  Minion cat has said the shawl is wonderful, because she can lay on my lap and rub her chin against the fuzzy part and feel like she is being held by a mama cat.

Blue Shawl, from 2018, with two kinds of yarn

Going through part of my yarn ends and scraps to make sure I have enough to finish the second kitchen rug I'm working on.  I do.  I only got halfway through my collection and started sneezing and said 'yep, there's enough, put this all away and go make tomato sauce'.

Making tomato sauce with garden tomatoes in the freezer, and black olives, and frozen meatballs from a few weeks ago - and Esme and I are having that for dinner tonight.  Mark is also making more Brazil Nut cookies... every year he gets on a habit for Brazil Nuts, and the last two years I've asked him to watch the House episode where the guy gets Selenium poisoning from 'chestnuts of peru' (brazil nuts) just because it reminds me of that.  Ha. 

Two workdays language geek

 

As a part-time postal carrier my work week revolves around the weekends, when the full-timers are usually off.  I work during the week sometimes, sometimes I work the entire week with no days off... but it's all sort of up in the air and week to week I'm not sure of anything except - I'm usually working the weekend unless I arrange for something else to happen.  Also - I passed two years on DuoLingo streak the other day... but since the hearts upgrade I'm still quite unhappy with how sensitive the spelling and such is and how much that stagnates my progress.

 

So, this is Saturday and Sunday.  My daughter's birthday was on Saturday but we did things for her on Friday because I knew Saturday was going to be a full day with getting dark early etc etc..

 So I got home, we made dinner and watched a movie and did the dishes and I did a minimum amount of a few languages and crashed.  That is a typical Saturday.. yes. 

 

Sunday I run Amazon packages, and it starts a little later.  It was also Daylight Savings Time so my animals had me up 'early'.. and I got a little language work in because hey, I was up anyway.  Made dinner after work, watched some tv episodes on DVD, did a few language things and played a game, then crashed.. took a Welsh grammar lesson in the middle of the night when the dog had me up, but I failed it by two questions and have to retake it when my credits on that site pop back up. *sigh*  One 'cat's tail' apostrophe in the wrong place or a ddim () nawr instead of a erbyn hyn and it goes down.

I haven't been called in yet on Monday, and my chart is up in the other screen.  I only do the charts for a little bit, and it gives me an idea what my 'average' is... and how much I switch off for variety.  It's also been a stressful few weeks and I realize I fall back to doing more in French at times when I have stress - the grammar level is much much higher than the Spanish or the Japanese, but still, my brain likes it better and starts sub-translating more again as below:

On the route - aucun côté ou autre côté?  Ah!  Na ça va... ça va a ci.

I have no idea why I think aucun côté instead of something like 'ce côté' or 'mon côté' or even 'pas du côté' but it's in my brain that way when I don't have to go the other side of the vehicle and I think it's a mnemonic thing that the two terms 'aucun' and 'autre' feel right and left handed pair to me...

language processing

Just a little note mostly for myself.

I have noticed when I am listening to languages that most foreign languages process into my audio 'eye' instead of my actual audio 'ear'...  This might be because I am synesthetic (synesthesia, senses blending together) or because I am also dyslexic or  maybe it is how the two meet in the middle.

When I hear most foreign languages I 'see' the words in my head and that is how I process them, from the 'sight' of the words transferred from what I hear.  However, this makes the recall of what I just heard slower and it has to go through layers to remember what words I heard in what order.

English and Welsh, surprisingly both process through my audio 'ear'.. as in, I remember in an audible recording in my mind what was said instead of a visual picture of what was said.  If you had said something to me in English while I was listening to something else I can 'pick up an echo' of what I heard and respond to you.  People do it all the time.  And I've noticed that if I heard a sentence in Welsh I can use this same channel for Welsh.  It is there for me to 'echo' as I heard it, and then try to pick it through if needed but usually the words I know translate over almost immediately and the others are left to visualize.  With other foreign languages, almost the entire thing is visualized first, with the audio being lost until I try to pronounce the words separately.

I'm not quite sure what it means, but it is pretty amazing to me.  Each time it hits me I feel : 'This is the way it should be.  This is why this comes faster to me than other languages.'

French is in between -I know many things but the sentences need to be rearranged to match English's sentence rhythm and pattern.  Things that are 'so French', like 'je ne sais quoi' are there, but not other phrases. 

I also notice a lot of 'back and forth' feeling with the French as if I am visually hopping back and forth over the sentence to rearrange it for myself before translating.  But even listening to some children's stories I was able to work it out quickly enough to understand without having to pause over and over.

With Welsh, the hopping and back and forth happens like a skip recording on a tape player, and 'echoes' when I ask it to, without a visual overlay of words as an automatic part of the information.  I think this is a much more 'natural' way - the way children learn a language - so it has been easier for me to pick up phrases and get the accent for Welsh than it ever has been with any other language.

I've described trying to listen and respond in Spanish as 'rolling down a hill'.. I feel like everything is crazy wrapped up and spinning and I'm not sure of enough of what is happening to do anything but hold on tight until it stops (which in real Spanish conversations, it hardly ever does) and then I can sort it and try to figure out what I heard and try to answer.

This is why I couldn't learn to speak and hear Spanish the many times I have taken a try at it.  Although I've succeded in being able to read it on a n elementary level.  I've tried with Esme when she wanted to learn - but it just never will be useful for me in conversation and I definitely couldn't teach her.  She didn't want to learn French.. although I tried that and had a bit more success with her, she just started saying she only wanted to learn Spanish.  She still says she wants to learn it - but she won't stick to any program to try.

1936 French book, signed by Eileen Fealy and her entire class, perhaps from Wittenberg University, Springfield Ohio?

French 'secondary school' reading book for classroom work.
'Sans Familie', par Hector Malot, Edited with Notes, Exercises, and Vocabulary by Albert L. Cru published by the John C. Winston Company, 1934

Dated inside October 9, 1936 'Eileen Fealy', and signed in front (and back) covers by her classmates/students?

I collect French and German books and primers when I find them for not too much money, and delight in reading them.  This one came to me several years ago through a library sale.  The librarian told me it had been donated to a local language group that now no longer used the library, and had donated their collection to be sold in the bookstore.  I didn't look at the signatures a lot then - and have read bits of the book here and there to improve my translation skills.  Last night, I recognized that there were two sets of names in the book that shared last names 'Clarke' and 'Click' - and Mark said, 'That will probably let you narrow that book down to exactly where it was used, what high school, in what town.'  That was an interesting challenge, and a mystery... and I began to look to see if I could identify anything more of the origin of the book I had been reading - and was once read and cherished quite long ago.

Miss Eileen Fealy drew several pictures in the book, as well - mostly faces and doodles.. she kept dates (her Christmas vacation dates, and a running 'x' off of the days she was in class?)  I wonder if she was the teacher or more likely, a student?  Sadly, I found nothing that could pinpoint who she was... but several other names did come up, during a very short span of years, at the Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio - during the graduation years of 1938 to 1941.  The book is dated 1936, and was published in 1934.   It satisfies my curiosity enough to find five signature names in the same college.. that it was probably used there.

For the record, in case anyone finds this and recognizes any of the names in the future - here are the names I can actually read in the book.  There are about thirty-eight signatures in total - but some of them are too hard to read or have been smeared in the back cover.  There are only a few signatures in the back - so I only photographed the front page.  Several of the signatures also have 'nicknames' in them, adding to the charm of the memory.

Eileen Fealy (or Fialy?)
Virginia Lee Kite ?
Oliver Clarke (in yearbook)
Roger Borohers ? "Butch"
Georgianna Cotter
Jeanne Todd
Geneva Davis "Nevie"
FH McNutt "Squirt" - this name shows up in the online yearbooks as Franklin Holbrook McNutt and FH Mc Nutt interchangeably
Reda Lapinsky (a name I found on the honor roll in 1934 and led me to the yearbooks)
Carl DeWitt "Moocher"
Muriel Jaffa
Janice Gold
Philip Goldberg
Betty Baldwin
Bettee Hornar ? Bettee Horner?
Emily Clarke (in yearbook)
Martha Corry
Jeanne Todd
Myra Click
Elizabeth Click "boots" "jooty" ?
Jeanne "Jinks" Johnson
Anna (R, reed, or ruth, or ?) O'Connor
Martha Compton (in yearbook)
Corra Mae Brooks
Abbie Whitaker
O H B "Oh He's a Bum' (funny)
Isabel Sheperd 'Izzie' (also in the yearbooks)
Betty Rowe
Don Williamson
Mary Louise Lyman
Helen Kohl
Jeanne Lawrence?
Carol Fenton (in yearbook)
Doris Thomas
Billy Morris "alias Willie"
Eunice Bryant
W H Hughes
and three or four more I really can't make a good try at -- maybe Richard Smith, Nancy Tulless? Lorna Fatherty? Saint Broca? 

If anyone has any more information - correction on possible translations of names.. I would love to find out more.  Maybe this will just by some miracle make its way to someone who was in this class that might still be alive - or their son or daughter, and they will get to see the signature.  (I am keeping the book, but publishing this because it is an awesome piece of history and someone else might enjoy it)