If I could choose a superpower to have whilst traveling, it would be the ability to speak fluently the major language(s) of the area that I’m visiting, and to have a solid grip on all the various cultural practices of its people. I’m skilled with languages as it is, but absorbing them takes time that [...]
Posts Tagged ‘language’
The Weather and Us
December 27th, 2008
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I’m home for the holidays, which means that I’ve traveled from a land of rapidly-shifting weather (Denver) to a place where the weather rapidly shifts to terrible (Northern Illinois). Last night, my family and I were going to have a nice dinner at a local Thai restaurant some 8 miles away. A great fog had [...]
Trivial Pursuits?
November 19th, 2008
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So I teamed up with some friends of mine from the Korbel School to compete in the first ever Institute of International Education Denver WorldQuest trivia competition. It was sweet, not least of all because my team won. Actually, we tied with the IIE’s own team, but they were just doing it for fun. Plus, [...]
Everyone knows everything
November 4th, 2008
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I’ve been thinking a bit about social media, the internet, Twitter, hyperconnectivity, Facebook, et al. and it occurs to me that all of these things are allowing us to learn a lot about a lot of different things. We are becoming more well-informed. As we learn to process the endless streams of data coming in [...]
Espanol y Turkce
October 20th, 2008
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So my degree program here at the Korbel School involves proficiency in a foreign language. When I came out here, I just figured that it would be Turkish, since that’s what I had spent the most time working on when I was at Aurora University. OK, now that was about 14 months ago and I [...]
Ανάργυροι
March 13th, 2008
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The title of this post is Ανάργυροι. In Roman letters, it’s anargyroi. We are presented with the root of arg, which near as I can make sense of, relates to silver. The an on the front of it denotes a negative, or withoutness. The bit at the end, oi, means that we’re talking about a [...]
Iblis
March 12th, 2008
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I really do prefer to use the name “Lucifer” when referring to the Prince of Darkness. It has such a sinuous ring to it: LOOS-IH-FURFor being the “epicenter of evil,” the name itself means “light-bringer.” The name Lucy is directly related. In the original Greek, it’s heosphoros, or herperus, or Ἓσπερος, which translates to “dawn-bearer.” [...]
Yeah! إيمينيم
February 23rd, 2008
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التفاح يقاوم الغازات والامساك وحامض البول, اما قشوره فانها تقاوم النقرس والروماتيزم المزمن والحصاة في الكلى والمرارة لذا يجب اكله طريا او مطبوخا بقشوره. وهو مرطب ومسهل ونقيعه يفيد في الامراض الحادة والالتهابية ويخفف من الام الحمى ومفعوله مفيد في الكبد والكليتين والمثانة وضد التهاب الامعاء بغليه مدة عشرة دقائق مع قليل من جذر العرقسوس [...]
Since They Wanna Know
February 18th, 2008
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In case it hasn’t been gazed upon: http://www.breakaleg.tv/video/2007/7/25/the-pilot-part-1.html – Yes, it’s that good, and it just gets better. It occurred to me that I should really be listening to more rap. This is, of course, difficult given the recent loss of the ENTIRE COLLECTION of my music. I just happened to hear a few tracks [...]
Well It’s 50 Cups of Coffee and You Know It’s On
February 14th, 2008
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I was reading a blog earlier today; something chronicling the Long War. There was an Iraqi flag on the sidebar linking to somewhere else. I read the words in the middle; it was the takbir (Allahu akbar). After a second or two, my mind registered the fact that I had read the Arabic script. Martin [...]
