Entry 10 - Catching Up On Latin

Bad news!  My Teach Yourself Zulu book is gone, my Teach Yourself Russian is gone, and I'm overdue for another YouTube video.  The good news?  Well, there isn't any, really.  However, I'm determined to brush up on my Latin with the aid of my trusty new Collins dictionary. 

Here's what I'm studying tonight:

I. Lupus et Agnus
Ad rivum eundem lupus et agnus venerant,
siti compulsi. Superior stabat lupus,
longeque inferior agnus. Tunc fauce improba
latro incitatus iurgii causam intulit;
'Cur' inquit 'turbulentam fecisti mihi
aquam bibenti?' Laniger contra timens
'Qui possum, quaeso, facere quod quereris, lupe?
A te decurrit ad meos haustus liquor'.
Repulsus ille veritatis viribus
'Ante hos sex menses male' ait 'dixisti mihi'.
Respondit agnus 'Equidem natus non eram'.
'Pater hercle tuus' ille inquit 'male dixit mihi';
atque ita correptum lacerat iniusta nece.
Haec propter illos scripta est homines fabula
qui fictis causis innocentes opprimunt.

Alas, the italic text is what I do not get.

Entry 9 - Tackling Another Language: Portuguese

I didn't expect to be absent for this long. I've been very busy. First of all, I have started learning Portuguese. Secondly, after knitting many lines, I've finally learned how to cast on stitches in addition to knitting or purling them. I've found a great site for knitting a tallit, and I've begun knitting it.

Portuguese: basic phrases...

Knitting: casting on...

- - -

Well, my weekend was nice. I walked the plaza and saw some unique people. For example, I saw a man - he had the most "pimped-out" bicycle that I've ever seen! I went to Kim Long's Asian Market and Pho KC in downtown Kansas City, and they had the best chicken soup. I also went to a BBQ restaurant in the City Market, which, in my opinion, is ten times better than Arthur Bryant's! Not only is their food a higher quality with a larger variety, but it is also accompanied by live, local music - in fact, almost every product and service of theirs is local! This BBQ and high-meat diet was joined by a large smoothie in the morning and a long hike during the afternoon. The lake was beautiful, I tell you... I definitely enjoyed my weekend.

On my hike, I saw a ball of loose cotton - oh, nope; my bad. I saw a newly dead pelican!

 I saw a strange car on the plaza....

And a man with a very interesting bike....

With our dead pelican's memorial....

And my father's hand... err, nevermind... let's not say anything here!

But, ah! Smell the flowers at the Kaufman memorial! What a lovely smell, a lovely sight!

With all the fun things happening, I've still had a rough week. Someone stole all of my papers - for every class! when I was using the restroom. I was barred from doing a lab in science class, and I barely finished an assignment in Geography. While it was fun, it took forever trying to scour the Internet for random residential addresses in Durban, South Africa. I know... it may not sound like a challenge, but I found no real-estate website that displayed an address in Kwa-Zulu Natal. I couldn't even run across random addresses when trying to find tutorials for addressing South African envelopes. It's funny, really... I told my teacher about this problem, and she said, "... many students including myself made it up." Ha - that was a relief! I hope this week is better.

This week is turning out better. My IED class (or, "Introduction to Engineering and Design") is using Skype in school for the very first time, I got a new Latin dictionary (two dictionaries!) for free, and I've improved my knitting. It's not so bad this week. I had fun.

I'm very thankful for what quality - and quantity - of events I had this preceding week. Thank you, Mighty One!

Entry 8 - Psyche On The Road

What is Psyche On The Road? Here's what it says at their site:

This site was made for a dual purpose.  The first is to warn people about the dangers of distracted driving.  Citizens of the United States need to understand that a text, snack, or any other in-vehicle task besides driving isn't worth the risk.  The second reason for this site is in completion of Activity 14a in the Human Relations Media packet labeled Danger behind the Wheel, assigned by STAR towards the end of September, 2010.  This website was created October 17th, 2010.  This site is a part of a project for Project Ignition.

Basically, Psyche On The Road is a local group for Project Ignition, which promotes safer driving practices not commonly addressed.  This is the project of the Belton High School's STAR students. Jason Weinzierl created the site.

Entry 7 - Editing Latin Wikipedia

I've contributed two articles to Vicipaedia: I created the "esraj" article, and I created the "gay literature" article. It's quite hard to translate English articles to Latin. I would use the Italian as a guide, but some of these articles are only available in English or Russian. Thus, my translations oft-times make no sense.

Using Vicipaedia and Wikipedia has made me wonder: what is the standard way of adopting foreign words? The phonology and gender is hard to logically determine.  Should the new word be masculine, feminine, or neuter? Should the word keep its spelling mostly unchanged, or should the sound be mimicked? If we should write the words as they sound, then how should we annotate the dzh sound in Latin orthography? If anyone knows anything about this, I'd like to hear your words!

Here are the articles I started:

http://la.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litteratura_homophylophilia

http://la.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esraja

Ugh... I hope somebody corrects these: the grammar and spelling is horrible!

Entry 6 - Я люблю на Климбетика и Киндер-Рок!

Я любдю эти рок-группи. Их лучший! См. этого сайту.

Это видео за Климбатика... Любите!

Entry 5 - Russian Words I Forget

There are a lot of words that I need to practice. This is going to take some work!

1. РУКА
2. ДЕЖАТЬ
3. ПОДУМАЛ
4. ГОСПОДИН
5. ДЕСТИЯ
6. БАРИНА
7. КАВИЧКА
8. ТИРЕ
9. ИЗРАНИЛА
10. ВСЕРОССИЙСКОМ
11. ГОТОВ
12. ТЕЛО
13. РОХОЖ
14. ИЗБИТОГО
15. СЪЕХЗДА
16. ДВОЙНИК
17. ДО
18. ПОЛУСМЕРТИ
19. ЧЕЛОВЕК
20. ВДРУГ
21. ЗАПЛАКАЛА

On a positive note, I got to practice with a native speaker. Sadly, it was not vocal. Not that I could handle it. Man, I have learned something today: I need to start using chat rooms!

Entry 4 - Hebrew: דברו מילים אלה

I just uploaded my first practice video. This one's for Hebrew. I try to identify as many things as I can, and explain them to some degree. But, sadly, I don't know many words, so I ask for your help. Watch the video below. What words am I missing? Do I have an acceptable accent?

Cheers!