Spanish Duolingo is a different experience than Russian Duolingo–since it was one of the first languages available when the app was created, it has graphics with every sentence. They don’t always…quite fit the message, though.
So cheerful!
At least this guy has the decency to look ashamed.
Sometimes, a sinister narrative emerges:
I’ve been using the app Duolingo to learn Russian and to review Spanish for the past year or so. Spanish was one of the first languages available (along with French, German, and I think Italian); Russian was added in 2015. I’m still holding out for Thai (they have Vietnamese, so they haven’t shied away from tonal languages), Mandarin, and Latin.
It’s interesting to see the differences in the more beta-version Russian, which is a little more bare bones in terms of graphics and types of lessons (primarily, there’s no “speak this into the microphone in Russia” and no conversation with bots, the way there is with the Spanish program). During the Spanish course, pretty much every question/phrase is accompanied by a giant-mouthed smiling cartoon. The Russian course has graphics, too, but they are a little more stock-photo. Both yield intermittently hilarious results. Below, a narrative of sorts.
Previously, I had gotten practice sentences in Russian that included statements such as “My girlfriend can’t cook, but she eats a lot” and “Big Brother is watching.” Then I reached a unit on the body…
Oh dear.
But on a cheerier note…
This was the best picture they could find for “eye”??
I mean, there was at least one other available photo of eyes…
So many questions…
And statements….
and eventual levity.
It’s a weird time to be binge-watching The Americans, which is what I’m currently doing since I have a one-month trial of Amazon Prime.
What else is in this world? Oil spills, civil war, the murder of civilians, a terrifying president-elect and a possibly more terrifying cabinet. Other things, too, of course. Many more hopeful and cheering, but damn.
It’s hard to compare right now to earlier times–when we didn’t have the ability to know every terrible thing that was happening in the world, or the confusion that comes with a vast glut of often conflicting information, or the feeling of impotence at being unsure of what you can do to make any difference, other than protest and throw money at problems–but compared to recent times alone, right now feels pretty rock-bottom.
Given that it feels like we’re living in a Black Mirror episode, two plotfinders: Both of these are Black Mirror-esque, but are definitely not Black Mirror. I’ve seen them all (not the whole third season, but the shows I’m trying to find are from before season three came out).
SPOILERS will be included eventually, because, well, I’m trying to *find* these episodes/shows/whatever they are, not recommend them to people. But I’ll put them in white so you don’t have to see.
1. This was the more Black Mirror-like of the two. It’s about a young woman (I believe British) who keeps getting terrifying emails that show a video of someone wearing a hoodie murdering someone. The implication is that she’s next. The woman is very timid and when she goes to work her coworker tries to talk to her but she’s afraid.
SPOILER below (highlight to read):
**It’s her. She’s the murderer. She puts on her hoodie and murders people in an elevator.
2. This was less like Black Mirror but had the same sort of uncanny horror feel. It’s about a guy who opens a portal in his house that lets him trade places with an alternate-universe sort of version of himself. There’s some weirdness with his alternate-universe wife, who looks like his regular wife but seems to have some kind of shoe fetish or murder fetish (I may have been sleep while watching this).
SPOILER:
The alternate universe version of the protagonist doesn’t want to go back to the alternate universe and traps the protagonist there by sealing the portal or whatever. I think.
Blah.
I needed a month off after that. Mostly because every time I thought about writing, it started with me not knowing what to say and ended with me having too much to say and never stopping. Also, this blog is generally trivial. The election of a racist, misogynist, hotheaded reality TV star with no political experience is the opposite.
Whenever I try to put my thoughts down I find myself spiraling deeper and deeper into disclaimers. Disclaimers like: I voted for Clinton and it was an obvious choice for me. But that said–I’m not a fan of Clinton. Or of politically dynastic families/partnerships in generally. But THAT said–she was by far the most qualified person and for me it was definitely not just “the lesser of two evils.” It was “someone who has many policies I disagree with” versus “ABJECT HORROR.” But that said…in a different election without such stark possible results–living in a state that was always going to go Democrat–if there had been a third-party candidate that I felt strongly about (there wasn’t), I would have voted third party. I never felt like I wanted to say “I’m with her.” But that said…I understand that the office of president involves making excruciatingly difficult decisions. It’s not something I could do.
I have recursive disclaimer disease. It’s a retrovirus.
I wish that America did not have a de facto two-party system and that our political system was more of a proportionate representation.
I don’t know the answers (or all of the questions). For now I’m reading, listening, donating to the ACLU and environmental organizations and others TBA, peacefully protesting, and trying to balance acknowledging the fact that everything is different now with the equal fact that all other aspects of our lives must continue (disclaimer: this is easy for me to say, not being in anywhere near as dire a situation as someone who isn’t white, who isn’t straight, who’s an immigrant, etc), even with a radically different backdrop.
Discussing the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine:
Student: So TR offered Columbia 10 million dollars. But Colombia said no. So then he offered more money, and more money, but they wouldn’t take it!
Me: Well–he offered them 10 million and didn’t want to offer more; that’s why he went to the Panamanian government. He didn’t ever offer more than 10 million.
Student: Oh, I just added that part for dramatic effect.
Discussing an analogy (“A hammer is to a nail…”) whose answer was “as a screwdriver is to a screw”:
Me: Good–why is the answer “as a screwdriver is to a screw” and not “as an axe is to a board”?
Student: Because with a screwdriver, you can only use it on a screw, but you can either use an axe on a board or you can use it to kill someone.
Discussing an excerpt about a man, John Podgers, whose main pastimes are eating and sleeping:
Me: What’s the main idea of this passage?
Student: Well, to me the main idea is…
Me: <encouraging face>
Student: To me the main idea is that John Podgers is living every man’s dream.
Over the weekend I was trying to remember every costume I’ve ever worn for Halloweens past. For some reason not being able to remember what I did on a specific holiday in a given year (I see you, 4th of July 2007…or, actually, I do not) really bothers me (rough life, I know).
I don’t think my parents dressed me up when I was 6 months, 1.5, or 2.5…but I bet they will let me know in the comments if I’m wrong!
After that I was – in chronological order but with some years that I can’t remember and some when I had multiple costumes: a monarch butterfly, a fairy (I remember being confused that people kept asking me if I was a fairy princess…I was a regular fairy, okay?!) a queen (or I might be confusing costumes with what I wanted to be when I grew up), a stoplight, a television set, a goose with butterfly wings, a wizard, my friend Maya as a child, my dad from the 1970s, dressed up (sometimes you have a dress that’s too fancy for any other occasion), the grand canyon, a prairie bride, outer space p0rnography (graduate school…graduate school), a video game space invader, the tooth fairy, Rainbow Brite, Vanna White, the viral Youtube video “double rainbow,” a peacock, a stained-glass window, a zebra, a bloody zebra, a traffic cone, a thunderstorm, BMO (from Adventure Time), black swan.
I would say what I really WANTED to be this year but…I have to keep it in the pipe for next year. It was just too unwieldy to wear to a concert.
I posted the other day about a couple on the train and my dawning awareness of what they were doing. A few days later, another young couple sat near me (this time on a crowded train, and actually, the woman sat next to me and the guy kind of crouched on the floor) and noticed I was playing Candy Crush (NO SHAME). “Ooh, I wanna see what level she’s on!” I heard from within my colorful daze. “Hey, I’ll play your level if you play mine for me,” the woman said, “I can’t beat it!” Later, the man looked up from his own game, paused, and said, “You know, I think the Soda version is really all about the fish.” This couple, too, bid me a pleasant good night (and good luck, literally).
Sometimes on the train you hear conversations and think, “It would be cool to have that profession.” Other times, this:
Person A: “A guy had a stroke and started bleeding and they had to cut a hole in his neck.”
Person B: —
Person A: “A kid shit on the floor and I had to clean it up.”
Person A: “A kid threw up on the floor and I had to clean it up.”
Person A: “A girl puked in the sink, and I had to clean it up!”
Person B: !!
Person A: “A guy got in a fistfight over a pizza.”
And that is why you don’t work at Chuck E. Cheese if you can help it.
I was in the dressing room at yoga last week getting ready for class when I heard the other woman in there say, “That is a SKILL” because I had just put my sports bra on from the bottom up, by stepping into it. Finally, someone appreciates the skill that seventh-grade gym class begat!
And finally, I was on the train late one night with a bunch of people, including some very dapperly dressed guys, and as I was getting off I heard their argument, which began with:
“Your toiletries bag is four times the size of mine!”
People have been talking to me in public more than usual. Especially young couples on the trains–why, I don’t know. Full moon?
I was taking the F home around 9 pm – the train was mostly empty, so the only people near me were a couple sitting across the car – when I started to hear murmurs and to get an unusual feeling…the feeling when you realize that the people across from you seem to be trying to guess what your name is. They were being pretty quiet but when you hear things like “…Lizzy?” followed by a long pause, some muffled consulting, and then “Andrea, no…” something about the conversation isn’t normal.
After “…Lizzy?” I looked up and met eyes with the guy of the couple, and I had really started to think I was right about what was going on, so I couldn’t help breaking into a huge smile. He did as well, and then when I looked back down at my book he whispered excitedly to his girlfriend and then said “Lizzy.” in a more declarative way.
I had to abandon my book. “Nope,” I said.
“Ah, ah, ahh….Mary?”
“Not even close.”
“Tell us the first letter, at least!”
“Hmm…Okay. It’s C.”
“C..C…Cynthia??”
By this point we were one stop away from mine, and they were still calling out things like “Carly? Carrie?” so I made a show of standing up to proclaim “You’re never going to get it, and the next one is my stop.”
“Nooooo!” the girl said, and actually kicked her feet. The train stopped and the doors opened, and the guy made as if he was going to get off the train to follow me. “We have to know!” he said.
“It’s Claire…have a good night.”
“Goodnight…Claire!”
(I found the whole interaction charming and uplifting but my roommates’ response was THAT IS CREEPY AF. People! So different.)
There aren’t many books that I reread. Most of them are middle grade fiction or YA–The Changeling, The Mozart Season, Superfudge, numerous others. The only adult novels I can recall having read multiple times are Graham Swift’s Waterland, which I’ve probably read there times; Murakami’s Norwegian Wood, maybe just twice; and Into Thin Air. There are books that I want to reread, but…there are so many other books check off both “want to read” and “have not already read.” It’s not a fair fight.
It seems like people rewatch movies more often than they reread books, which makes sense from a time perspective; I haven’t really done that much either, though. Outside of the movies I watched repeatedly only as a child (Cool Runnings, the Rainbow Brite origin story), the movies I’ve seen most (and the only ones I can’t at least approximate a count for) are Clue, Princess Bride, and Everybody Rides the Carousel. I know I’ve seen Bladerunner, Me & You & Everyone We Know, and Something’s Got to Give (it was my comfort background movie when I lived in Bangkok and only got two TV channels, one of which turned into HBO Asia on the weekends) maybe three or four times each. Amelie and Event Horizon twice. Two by Jim Jarmusch twice each (The Limits of Control and Only Lovers Left Alive). Beyond that I can’t think of many more.
**Oh wait. Yes I can: Hocus Pocus.
The king of Thailand, Bhumibol Adulyadej, died on Thursday. I wore yellow corduroy pants to remember him (yellow is his color, I believe because of the day of the week on which he was born). I lived in Thailand for a year after college, and during the first year I was back in the US I wore one of the King’s commemorative bracelets (kind of looked like a LiveStrong bracelet, but with Thai script–you could only buy them at the post office) most of the time. That was how I came to be friends with the owners of Absolute Bagels, the best bagels in Manhattan–my first week in NYC I walked in there and the woman behind the counter was wearing the same “long live the king” bracelet that I had on.
Every time I went to the movies in Thailand–which was ALL THE TIME, because unlike the UK and some other countries, they released American movies the same day that the US did (actually the day before, if you want to ponder time zones) and because movies were about $2.50–I stood, along with the rest of the audience, for a short movie about the king’s life. It was set to extremely emotional music and I think I literally cried, at least a sniffle, every single time. From an outsider’s perspective, the King seemed like a much more revered version of the British Monarchy–his powers weren’t codified and he didn’t run the government the way monarchs of some nations do, but the prime minister and the army listened to his advice. De facto rather than de jure ruling, which worked, mainly, because he was so beloved.
