Daily Haunts

22 November 2011 at 9:18 pm (Education, Entertainment, Internet, Journal, Multilingual, Music, Plinky Prompts, Roleplaying, Sex, Writing)
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The internet is my home as much as the brick-and-mortar construct is, and the time I spend in either proves the fact. So here are the places where you're most likely to bump into me (without creeping me out and making me cry stalker, that is).

Funny Picture of Nun Religion

1. Elliquiy (http://elliquiy.com/forums/). If sites were places where we could actually live, upload our consciousness or whatever, that would be my home. An adult roleplaying site and wonderful community, which has been my largest gathering of friends, information and support network, and purveyor of creative fun times for over three years. I wouldn't get hung up on the 'adult' part of it all, if I were you; I get my kicks out of writing elaborate storylines which happen to include adult themes, not mindless smut. There are also countless books I wouldn't have read, movies I wouldn't have watched, sites I wouldn't have visited, without recommendations from there. I've raked up over a year's worth of online time there, and I'm not leaving any time soon.

2. World Enough and Time (http://worldenoughandtime.net/forums/). The 'little sister' of Elliquiy. Smaller, quieter, more literary. It was created by a magnificent, inspirational woman who, sadly, passed away about half a year later. Me and a handful of others are doing our best to keep the place alive in her memory. RIP, Nightbird.

3. WordPress (http://.wordpress.com/). I've been blogging since 2006, first on Yahoo360, then on LiveJournal, Multiply, Blogger, and finally WordPress. Blogging, as a form of writing, is a compulsion – I've posted a few thousand entries, both composed by myself and reproducing material by others that I find inspiring. I'd find it extremely hard to live without a platform to put thought into words, as longhand doesn't quite do the trick for me. Especially during the month of November, with its big writing projects.

4. Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/). Yes, it's an open resource that anyone can edit, and therefore as open to spreading misinformation as can be. On the other hand, there's a staggering amount of information there, not to mention endless links to more credible resources. A wikisearch is always my first step in any kind of research. If anything, it allows me to get my terminology right; as a non-native English speaker, I can be wildly off the mark when I try to translate something I know in Greek, but even the most approximative initial search has led me to what I really wanted to know, in very few steps.

5. Last.fm (http://last.fm/). On top of all sorts of radio stations by user or genre, it allows me to create my own radio station, mixing actual preferences and suggestions and synchronising my Winamp with my music library, so that everything I listen to, online or offline, is logged and added for never-ending refinement. What more could I ask for, especially when I want to stream music I enjoy for hours without having to choose albums all the time or when I can't use the external drive where I store my mp3s?

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Cunning Linguist

17 November 2011 at 11:47 pm (Education, Multilingual, Plinky Prompts)
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I already speak a few foreign languages (including the one I'm communicating in right now), but there's no such thing as knowing too many of those. As long as they don't get all mixed up.

Beach ball language activity

I learned English and French (starting at the ages of 6 and 10 respectively) to emulate my best friend. Never mind that I went much further than she ever had, in both – I'm a licenced teacher of both. Later I learned Latin at school, though I didn't go very far there, and shortly afterwards learned Spanish in a two-year, exhilaratingly accelerated course. My Italian is entirely self-taught, and still very basic, but the whole set of languages can still identify me as a Romance linguist of some skill.

I know I will never be able to learn all the other languages I'd like to, so, if forced to draw up a shortlist, it would have to include Gaelic, Russian and Turkish.

Gaelic is a bit of a cheat, because I'd love to focus on both the Irish and Scots varieties separately. Celtic culture has fascinated me for many years, and one simply can't understand a culture without understanding their language. That is something I instinctively knew from the beginning of my linguistic career. Not knowing the words of favourite songs isn't too much of an issue for me, but I'd still want to!

I had some Russian lessons as a child, through a televised course. Hard as it is, I enjoyed it immensely, and definitely want to pick it up again sometime. I find there is something particularly alluring about languages using different alphabets; as if using a different coding system is an extra challenge that I relish.

Turkish is a much more recent addition to the list, though it dates from before the onslaught of Turkish soap operas on Greek TV (which started long after I had left the country and my exposure was curtailed). When I was younger, in times of greater tension between the neighbouring countries, I heard the joke often: 'Learn the language, you'll need it to communicate sooner than later.' I don't know about needing it… but I do know the modern Greek language has borrowed a lot from Turkish and I'd like to learn the roots of the loans, properly.

Since none of these languages have classes anywhere near here, I guess I'll be making Linguaphone richer for years to come…

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Citizen of the World

11 November 2011 at 10:21 pm (Britain, Family, Multilingual, Places, Plinky Prompts, Travel)
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I'm already living in a country other than the one I was born and raised in, so that already puts me into a minority. But changing countries again? Well, never say never…

Lost in translation

Taking the plunge and moving to the UK from Greece at 35 was a big adventure, make no mistake, especially for someone like me, who is not overfond of change. The fact that I was moving to start my own family made things at once easier (because I had the undivided support of at least one person) and harder (because it would be for life and would require some permanent adjustments).

The last few months, however, have forced me to consider moving to another country again, at least for a few years. With the husband, the family's sole breadwinner, out of work for a few months, we had agreed we would accept any position that would have him, no matter where it demanded us to move to. Most opportunities would not take us beyond the UK borders, but there have been several overseas cases that we considered quite seriously.

Mind you, my opinion weighed more in each decision than husband's. He would do his thing among people little different than those back home; I would be the one dealing with the daily vagaries of life abroad, so I'd be the one that would need the most support to cope.

France, Italy and Spain were all quite possible. I speak all three languages (my Italian is still a bit weak, but immersion would work wonders); husband's French is chancy, but he'd be able to learn anyway, and so would our son. I wouldn't mind him growing up trilingual at all. And I would be grateful to go further south again, somewhere with decent day and night lengths at all seasons, and enough sunlight.

Austria is somewhere I'm sure husband would love to live, especially since he already speaks decent German. Unfortunately, I don't, and I refuse to learn it. German is the one language I've tried my hand at and gave up because I didn't enjoy it. I don't think I could live somewhere where I'd have to deal with it every day. I'd rather go to Sweden, although practical considerations (language barrier and climate issues more severe than here) made us drop that option early.

There were even positions in China and Nepal, as well as around the Arab world and southeastern Asia, places where neither of us would go, no matter how good the money might be. I come from the country that invented democracy, and has taken it all the way to anarchy several times in its history – totalitarian regimes disagree violently with me. Not to mention I don't look good in hijab.

No matter where we ended up, though, it would have to be for at least a few years. Moving house is an ordeal when you go to the next town over; I wouldn't care to pack up and go back a couple of years later. Not to mention the damage to the young one's development if he were shifted from one culture and language to another before really settling down anywhere. I can't quite imagine living permanently in any of those countries, but then I've never been in any, not even as a tourist. I want to leave my options as open as possible, anyway.

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Le Violon Rouge

18 November 2010 at 11:32 pm (Art, Entertainment, Movies, Multilingual, Music, Special Days)
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Arthouse movies can be unbearably pretentious. They can also be overwhelmingly awesome.

I saw this movie years ago, as an avant-premiere screening at a little festival in Athens. I had seen Girl, Interrupted there the day before, and the big name was The Beach, which was coming up right after this. So The Red Violin ended up shown at 10am on Sunday, perhaps the most unfavourable slot in the entire weekend. I’ve never been so glad I got up early to be there on time.

The movie traces the story of the eponymous red violin from its tragical creation in 17th-century Cremona to the present, through five interlaced stories (four plots and the auction scene that links all the rest), in five languages (Italian, German, English, Chinese, and French), covering five countries and – borderline – five centuries, all starting with a five-card tarot reading. It’s a masterful weave, and it would have been a blockbuster without its multilingual status.

The red violin is created in 1681 by Niccolo Busciotti, for the son he’s sure his wife Anna is about to give him (Luna). Tragically, mother and child die in labour, and the distraught artisan varnishes the violin with his wife’s blood and abandons his trade. There is a suggestion that something of the unborn child’s spirit has passed into the instrument, which goes on to bring misery to its owners.

Vienna, 1790s (The Hanged Man): The violin belongs to a very talented but sickly young boy who is raised in a church orphanage. A rich noble sponsors him to start a career, but the boy dies of heart failure before his first recital, out of sheer fear of having his violin taken away from him if he’s not good enough. The violin is buried with him, but the grave is robbed later.

England, 1890s presumably (The Devil): A young noble acquires the red violin from a band of gypsies. He’s a talented artist as well as a dilettante, but when his lover travels to Russia, he loses inspiration and takes to opium. On her return, he’s such a mess that she abandons him, he commits suicide, and the violin is carried off by his Chinese opium dealer.

In China, the violin belongs for a time to a young girl who dreams of being a professional, but when Mao’s revolution outlaws Western music, she is forced to entrust it to a music teacher, disgraced for his Western affiliations, for safekeeping (Justice).

Today, the old Chinese music teacher is dead and his secret stash of instruments is being auctioned off, in Montreal. Several people come to claim the red violin, but only an expert brought in to ascertain whether it is really the notorious Red Violin is genuinely touched by its spirit. He ends up allowing a fake to be auctioned off, stealing the original for his daughter, and the movie ends leaving the viewer wondering if the circle of misery will continue or if the original spirit is finally at rest, since the tarot reading is complete and fulfilled (Death, reversed).

The acting is understated, with Samuel L. Jackson as the expert and Greta Scacchi as the dilettante’s lover the only recognisable names, the settings and costumes glorious in their detail, and the music is absolutely sumptuous. I came out of the screening wanting it so badly that, if it hadn’t been a Sunday, I’d have gone straight into the Virgin Megastore next door and looked for the soundtrack. Required viewing for anyone interested in music, at the very least.

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Pardon My Klatchian

2 November 2010 at 11:24 am (Education, Entertainment, Multilingual, Plinky Prompts, Rants)
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Sod this bloody debate, already.
F-WORD. The only word in the English language that can form a grammatically complete, stand alone sentence. The word of all words, the only word you can use in any situation.

I admit, one has to love the euphemisms for swearing. ‘Pardon my French’ – very language-specific, isn’t it? Smacks of English native speakers who can’t (be bothered to) master another language; hardly suitable for someone like me, and my fluent French, for which I won’t apologise to anyone, thankyouverymuch. ‘Colourful language’ makes it sound like normal, polite speech is ho-hum and colourless. I very much doubt extra swearing would have improved most works of literature, which count as prime examples of vibrant, living language.

Where do I stand in the ‘colourful language’ debate? Like in so many other things, smack in the middle. (Cookie to those who caught the Pratchett reference in the title, by the way.)

I do think there’s too much swearing in the media (read: TV) that doesn’t need to be there. Nothing like a good expletive or five to add force to your point. Too many, though, detract from your point, because there’s nothing special about them any more. If beeping out the swear words makes you sound like you’re talking Morse code, you’re doing it wrong. (Jerry, Gordon, do you copy?)

On the other hand, I definitely don’t want public language sanitised. That doesn’t only mean media language (where would we be without comedy shows, Quentin Tarantino and South Park?), but whatever common people are allowed to say, since conversation is inherently a social thing – unless one only talks to themselves, in which case allow me to sidle away now.

Perhaps I’m inured and just block out most of the F-bombs; after all, they’re overused and don’t nearly have the effect one would want, not beyond wasting breath and saliva. But I don’t want society at large to end up like the one depicted in Demolition Man, where every word is watched and every swear word penalised. It looks like a long way there from having some old biddy overhearing a four-letter word and looking daggers your way, but by no means impossible. Go Google Mary Whitehouse. I’ll wait.

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