Tag: english

I wish…

I wish I could just go to Japan for a month to teach English again. I wish it were an option only for the alums of our program, so they know that we know what we’re doing and that we won’t need much support. It could be a way for schools to test out having an assistant language teacher with the program. Then, if they like it, they hire a full position. If they don’t, they only had to pay someone for a month.

And we get to revisit the country and culture and the work and students we so love and miss, but without having to commit forever or move fully.

Win-Win-Win situation right there.

Post-a-day 2022

Mass

I did the second reading on Friday. My grandma’s cousin, the priest presiding over the Mass, had asked me to give a brief reason for and explanation of what I was going to do, just before I began. And so, with some trepidation, deep breathing, and many tears, I said, “My Opa’s first language was German. So, I will do the second reading in German, for him.” And then I did.

Der erste Brief an die Thessalonicher 
Das Schicksal der Verstorbenen
13 Brüder und Schwestern, wir wollen euch über die Entschlafenen nicht in Unkenntnis lassen, damit ihr nicht trauert wie die anderen, die keine Hoffnung haben. 
14 Denn wenn wir glauben, dass Jesus gestorben und auferstanden ist, so wird Gott die Entschlafenen durch Jesus in die Gemeinschaft mit ihm führen. 
15 Denn dies sagen wir euch nach einem Wort des Herrn: Wir, die Lebenden, die noch übrig sind bei der Ankunft des Herrn, werden den Entschlafenen nichts voraushaben. 
16 Denn der Herr selbst wird vom Himmel herabkommen, wenn der Befehl ergeht, der Erzengel ruft und die Posaune Gottes erschallt. Zuerst werden die in Christus Verstorbenen auferstehen; 
17 dann werden wir, die Lebenden, die noch übrig sind, zugleich mit ihnen auf den Wolken in die Luft entrückt zur Begegnung mit dem Herrn. Dann werden wir immer beim Herrn sein. 
18 Tröstet also einander mit diesen Worten!

Post-a-day 2021

Childhood parent

Today, I got to hear a recording of my mom when she was 15, turning 16. It was a tape recording of a phone call for fathers’ day, and her birthday was going to be the following day. The recording started with my Opa, her father, talking to his father. He then handed the phone off to my grandma, who sounded a lot like my mom sounds. Then my two uncles went on, in age order, and then my mom. I cried, and so did my mom, when she started speaking. I somehow felt myself wanting to give that little girl a hug…

I had never heard her voice other than how it had sounded in my lifetime. I had heard people mention that she had gone off to college (at Rice), and had come home sounding all snooty (versus the strong southeast Texas accent of where she’d grown up and where my grandparents remained, even after their children had grown up and moved out). To me, my mom has always sounded like the regular Houston accent. Whenever she is with her family, she always ends up talking just like they do. However, she otherwise speaks with the extremely neutral Houston accent. (Truly, even US Americans find it hard to believe that Houstonians are from the South, because we really just don’t sound like it. Only our use of “y’all” makes it clear that we are southern.)

However, on the recording today, I heard a bright-eyed, teenage, southeast Texas girl speak with delight. I almost couldn’t hear my mom in her at all. She most certainly was southern and from southeast Texas, but I was shocked at how little she sounded like my mom.

On the second listen, though – it was only a minute or so that she was on the call – I began to find her in the girl. The way she spoke, and the intonations, the cadence and emotion – those were all clearly my mom. But that accent and voice… I could tell she was a lifetime away, unaware of what life would bring her beyond age 16 and a driver license after her drive training over the next couple weeks…

It was bizarre, but I would love to hear more from her. The tape had a whole section of her and my aunt, who is younger, singing the songs from Godspell (my uncle was in the musical back then), and I really heard my mom there, in the singing. That was super cute.

Anyway, I am wiped, and on multiple levels, so I’ll go attempt sleep, now. (It’s set to 79° in here, because my grandma doesn’t have the body structure and function to keep the body heated anymore. Apparently, she even uses a heated blanket to keep warm enough overnight… with the 79° air…) We’ll see what happens…

Post-a-day 2021

Español

And suddenly I am using Spanish again. I had a desire to reply in Spanish the other night to a coworker’s message – I was only guessing from context that she spoke Spanish, of course, but it was a highly supported guess – and went with it. And we have been doing Spanish ever since. Yippee!

Yes, it has genuinely been fun for me. I haven’t used Spanish for real in so long, it has been slow-coming. But it is already faster now than it was two hours ago, and then even faster than it was the other day to start. This is a part of me that has been in waiting for quite a while, I think. She is ready to live vibrantly again, and much more so than way back when when I lived in Spanish as a child.

Let’s go, woman. Vamos, chica. 😉

Post-a-day 2020

Frenching

Today, I posed a question to myself. Though, I didn’t actually have words to the question until after I answered it. You see, I was looking at myself in the mirror, about to go downstairs to go on an afternoon walk (since I still can’t run after my accident three weeks ago). In my head was French and the excitement of living in France as an adult – something I have only dreamt of doing, but have tasted as a student – due to this Netflix show called Emily In Paris.

I was somewhat lonesome today, and wanted a movie or series to keep me company while I cooked for a long while. I somehow ended up with Emily In Paris, and fell in love. We had a full and satisfying relationship all day long today (think Jim Gaffigan on Netflix shows being like dating), and I was taking an unwanted but necessary break to go on my walk (got to get those hundred miles in somehow). And so, I’m looking in the mirror, French and Frenchmen and France and chocolatines in my head. And I somehow answer this unsaid question aloud, in French.

I say first, before seeing myself in the mirror, “Bah ouais. Je ne parle pas le français comme langue maternelle. Ce n’est pas ma langue maternelle. Mais j’adore le parler….”

Pourquoi ? someone asks in my head.

“Parce que quand je parle le français…, je me sens…,” and I now look directly at myself in this Masaie mirror on the wall, halted just before the first step downward. “Je me sens… un peu sexy…,” and I smile as I admit it, adding raised eyebrow as and a head tilt at the second feeling, “tellement à l’aise… et,” and this last is he hardest to admit, “comme quelqu’un qui en vaut l’envie. Je veut dire, quelqu’un qui mérite être envié…,” and I look at myself with these words having been said aloud, experiencing the fullness of their truth, and somewhat being that person envying his girl in the mirror – woman in the mirror – and I smile, fully content in that moment, give one final glance to the freckles around my nose, and head down the stairs and out the front door for a hearty walk in the chilly late afternoon air, under the overcast, Fall sky.

As I began my walk, I realized that my unsaid question – it felt a bit like playing Jeopardy, I suppose 😛 – was, “Why learn a foreign language?”

I contemplated this on my walk, and even recorded myself for a bit, just to see what it was like as a means of keeping track of my thoughts. (It was cool, but I’m not sure it is my style for sharing those thoughts with others.) I repeated my earlier statements on speaking French, but added the question to the beginning, and continued my statements with a further idea: When I speak English, these are not the ways that I feel. By speaking French, I have discovered and continue to discover things within myself that I previously had not known. By speaking a language different from my native language, I get to experience myself and life in a new way. And that is possibly the best and most valuable part of speaking a different language.

And, to be clear, this is not due simply to saying words in a foreign tongue. It is by having learned the language, which means experiencing its people and culture, as well as its use, that I have gained access to these formerly-foreign parts of myself. It is the Frenchness within me that I have learned and found throughout the process of learning to speak French, the language. I always support immersion as a necessary part of learning a language, because the language and culture not only go hand in hand, but cannot be separated from one another and still remain true to who and what they are.

So, why learn a foreign language? To discover how life and you are better than you ever imagined. 😉

Yeah 🙂

P.S. For those who do not know French and have not already stuck that paragraph into Google Translate, what I had said roughly translates in English to, “Well, yeah. I don’t speak French like a native speaker. I’m not a native speaker of French. But I love speaking it. Why? Because, when I speak French, I feel… I feel… a bit sexy…, entirely at ease…, and that I am someone worth envying.”

Post-a-day 2020

Homophones ;)

I never quite understood what was going on in the song, though I listened to it multiple times… I attributed this to my lack of knowledge on the history being referenced within it…

Even when I watched it happen on the stage, and I listened carefully and understood almost every single word in it, I was still slightly lost… as I considered it afterward, I saw that it just still didn’t quite make sense to me – why such a title and then have the song be talking so much about what it was discussing?

I was guessing that it was showing how problems in the government’s leaders’ lives always had a risk of being life-threatening, and so there were two sides to being in politics at the time (and a third during the war itself, but from an enemy, not an ally)… thus the “dual” of it… the duality, would it be?

Anyway…

It suddenly clicked for me tonight, though, as I prepared myself for sleep, and contemplated Lafayette’s 19 words in under three seconds –

And I’m never gonna stop until I make ‘em
Drop and burn ‘em up and scatter their remains, I’m

…

Is it “duel” instead of “dual”?! I asked myself in sudden doofus–feeling inspiration.

I quickly checked, and, of course, it is, indeed, the “Ten Duel Commandments”.

Still a play on history and phrasing, but not in the way I was interpreting it… similar, but not really at all the same idea. 😂

Oh, the fun of spelling. 😛

P.S. Extreme gratitude yet again for the beautiful gifts that Lin-Manuel Miranda shares with the world at large… Thank you, good sir… 🙂

P.P.S. Daveed Diggs,…. dude… I kind of love you for your space of fun and for your spectacular precision. 😀

Post-a-day 2020

Yesss…

I have started something.

I told my brother about how I create my own translations of Japanese signs that have odd photos.

For example:

After sharing such an idea with my brother, I thought his interest in it would be at an end within minutes.

This afternoon, however, as he sat at the airport, waiting to go home, I received a group message from him with the following:

Apparently, my delightful pastime was not lost on him.

😀

I actually was brimming tears as I laughed at this very unexpected set of messages earlier.

Whew!

Post-a-day 2019

I’ve never landed on snow…*

Well, here we go!

Ich freue mich so sehr.

Ich habe aber doch ein bisschen Angst.

Ich gehe trotzdem, und vielleicht weil ich diesen Angst habe.

I guess I’m still reasonably tired right now – German was all I had to express myself right there…

It has been fun visiting Montréal these past hours.

It seems like a lovely place – not by the sights so much as by the lifestyle and the people I have crossed and noticed.

I’ve used almost no English while here, had not even considered that it was French-speaking Canada – mostly because my friend who lives here is from Houston and is not someone I would consider “French-speaking”, so it didn’t even occur to me that it would be in this part of Canada, wherever he happened to live – and have loved every bit.

I always wonder when I go to the Mexican parts of our Houston culture – the tamale places, the panaderías, Fiesta – how the workers know which language to use, Spanish or English.

Do they judge people by their covers, as we were always told not to do?

And yet, I think they must.

And I think that is exactly what is great about a successful business like that (cross-cultural business, I mean): their being able to identify appropriately the customers’ culture, and then interact accordingly with the customers.

When I entered the plane yesterday, to go from Houston to Montréal on Air Canada, I knew they would be operating in bother French and in English.

I also considered briefly how any American airline likely would not do such a thing, and would use exclusively English, just about always, no matter the destination…

(When I interviewed with an airline once as a multilingual flight attendant, they made it sound terrible: the multilingual flight attendants are only ever one individual on any given plane, used to act as translator, and only when needed… it wasn’t about greeting people’s home cultures at all, or serving… it was just about putting out fires, essentially…)

And I wondered how the airline workers would judge.

At baggage check-in, the man greeted me easily and mid-conversation style in English, and I thought nothing of it.

But, at boarding time, as I was surrounded by passengers speaking a mix of French and English, I wondered how the flight attendants would handle it.

Sure enough, as we were stepping into the plane, the greeting post was using one language or the other, depending on how she judged each individual.

And she always had a happy passenger, so she was judging correctly.

My mother and I have discussed how I am rather European, at least for an American – I have many contrasting aspects of the two cultures that kind of go back and forth for me (I’ll give an example in a moment.).

As I took my own steps onto the plane, the greeter gave me the direct-look evaluation, considered, and then said, “Bonjour.”

I automatically respond in kind.

And I was elated.

I was taken for a French speaker, likely due to the European style of my outfit for the day – fitted half-collar long-sleeved black shirt, scarf, snug – but not tight – jeans, and fashionable winter boots.

People from Texas just don’t dress like that. 😛

Today, in contrast, I am very American in my dress: oversized purple long-sleeved t-shirt, same boots and jeans and scarf, and a beret… an odd combination of the two cultures.

But I don’t have to worry about what language people will use with me today – everyone uses both automatically at the airport.

‘Bonjour, Hello,’ they always say.

And the response determines the language used.

But they always say the French first…, and so I automatically am responding before they are finished with the English greeting…, and so they end up using French with me…, which I like very much.

I don’t often have such an opportunity, and I am grateful that I am embracing it.

Anywho… Montréal is nice, is really, really cold, and is beautiful with the snow everywhere (and gives a new experience for me with everyone acting like the snow is normal and nothing big deal [because it is normal here]).

Snow:

*This first was the airport last night, when we had landed on a boatload of snow… snow was everywhere, including where the planes were driving…(!!!)

Including when I picked up my bags at baggage claim:

Now I am off to Japan.

See you on the other side (literally)!

P.S. This flight is to Japan, now, so they will be using all three languages, and I am delighted. 🙂

Post-a-day 2019

Si tu savais…

Si tu savais… comment je doute… parfois

Si tu savais….. ce que je ne dis à personne d’autre….

Si tu savais…..

There’s this song by the francophone (I think he’s actually French, but I’m not sure) singer who goes by the mononame Corneille, called “Si tu savais”.

The title means, “If you (only) knew” (the only being a matter of what the phrase is intended to mean by its use).

Those lines were repeating in my head tonight, and had me wondering about the song and about my life.

I don’t know the rest of the words to the song – I first heard it when I knew very little French, so not much stuck, and I still get lost in the rhythms nowadays, because I’d grown so accustomed to doing it when I was back in high school – and so I can’t even guess knowledgeably as to the purpose or meaning of the song as a whole.

I only know my own initial interpretation based on those few lines and the desperate, melodious, melancholy that is the tone of the song, the feel of the music.

To me, he is singing, as I mentioned, in a sort of desperation and pain… either he wants to tell her everything, but he is afraid she won’t want him anymore, or he fears telling her everything, because she thinks he is the best thing ever, but he is telling her in the song how he has faults… or, even, she thinks he is full of himself, and he is telling her how he is not… or perhaps he is telling her how he only shares openly with her, but she doesn’t realize it, nor that it means he loves her… whatever the case, if only she knew… how imperfect and insecure he really is… how much he loves her… if only she knew…

Whatever the case, these lines hit me in a new way tonight – considering the song as though it were based on someone’s real life, I asked myself how it could apply directly to my real life.

When would I say the words, “If only you knew,” in such a manner as Corneille in this song?

What do I not say to anyone else?

What would I want to say to the love of my life and not to anyone else?

What do I wish I could say to others, and not have to worry about being discarded, neglected, expelled, despised, etc. from whatever facet of life those listening occupy?

And it is this last one that really got me the most, I think.

I wish I could share my greatest faults and fears, the way the werewolves do in the Twilight books – just get over it, please… it’s a girly story, sure, but the creativity is definitely there, and you comedy bits are all over the place, making it a true delight even for me, not just an okay story, as so many declare it (mostly after only seeing the movies) – where they can’t hide their thoughts, feelings, emotions from one another, and the whole pack accepts the rest of the pack willingly… they all know the minds of the rest, and they all still respect, love, and care for all the rest (even if some do get on others’ nerves from time to time).

In that kind of world, we wouldn’t have to worry about our secrets – everyone would know everyone’s mess-ups, and so we’d kind of have to get over it pretty darn quickly, if we wanted to function in life.

I enjoy that people no longer are allowed or able to judge me by my age (because I don’t give it to them anymore), but I would be willing to give that up, in exchange for all my sins, so to speak, to be washed away from concern of being (1) found out and (2) held against me.

Could you imagine?

I almost can, but not very well… I think I’m mostly just afraid of the idea, because I don’t trust people enough…

J’ai pas trop confiance en eux, en fait…

Post-a-day 2019

Photo Lingo

I helped out on a little photo shoot today.

I always learn something new at these, which is great, but I always enjoy them just for the fun of their being an event: a photo shoot.

Photo shoots aren’t just an everyday nothing, really… usually, they are, to some degree, a little or big to do, an event that requires at least one someone’s best up-do, and then some.

Today’s, though a small shoot, was no different.

Those being photographed were clearly in their best getup for the occasion, make-up done to a T, and several costume changes at the ready.

It was, as I mentioned, an event.

Now, this was fun, of course…, especially some of the silly things that happened throughout the photo shoot.

However, the little nugget of surprise delight and God-granted satisfaction popped up when we had a few quick comments from the photographer to one of the models, who was the husband of someone there.

The photographer was giving a few specifics about how to do something, if that model was doing it, and then somewhat simultaneously asking the model to come throw something in the background of the photo.

Now, the husband of this model, in a moderate accent, said to the model, “Entiendes?”, which is Spanish for, ‘Do you understand?’

The husband then gave an iffy explanation, still in English, of what the photographer had been saying.

I could tell that neither one of them was getting what the photographer had said, not even the English-speaking husband…, and so I went ahead and, in a quick aside, verified with the photographer for myself when he had wanted communicated.

I then, while still standing atop a large ladder, broke into the conversation between the husbands, addressing the Spanish-speaking one pointedly.

I asked him a few questions in Spanish, told him the first the the photographer had said, and then communicated the answers to the photographer in English.

I then explained to the model, again in Spanish, the second topic the photographer had mentioned (i.e. throwing those objects), and asked if he could do it.

He asked for some clarity on specifics, and then readily agreed.

Problem was solved, and amazing photos ensued.

When that model was then in photos, I let him know to tell me if ever and whenever he did not understand… he agreed, and proceeded to check with me on just about everything that was said to him.

At the end of it all, it had become very clear that he was relieved to have had me there, and everyone was grateful for my surprise super-helpfulness in the form of Spanish, whipped out of my back pocket.

Might I point out that I am dirty blonde, pale, and blue-eyed, – obvious German heritage of which, one could imagine, Adolf would have been proud – an outer shell that does not boast a likelihood of speaking Spanish?

But it is situations just like these that send a delighted tickle to my core when they arise, because everyone is simultaneously flabbergasted and relieved that I have this oh-so-unexpected skill.

I love having my languages be of use.

When I went for that “Super” trip the other day, it felt like a relief and a blessing that the person selling turned out to be a German guy, with whom I was able to interact in German… it made things feel ever so slightly more ‘right’, like I was on the right path.

It really felt today that this same sort of thing was happening – the World, God, was making a sign to me that I was (and am) in the right place.

I want photography to be the right place, and it increasingly feels more and more like it is the right place for me to be and to be putting my efforts and my love and my passion right now…, so this whole Spanish thing today was like a super-blessing from God and the World.

So, yay!

Thank you, God.

Thank you, World.

Thank you, Universe.

Help me to continue on this beautiful path that is meant for me to create and travel, that I might share the beauty and the love I have to offer the World. 🙂

……..

In a separate note, I found myself wondering this evening: How can a couple be married, and not really be able to communicate in the same language?

From what I saw today, the one guy’s Spanish is super limited, and the other’s English is very questionable… so, how do they communicate?

Is it really more like the idea of mail-order brides that caught on back when I was little, than a naturally-occurring relationship?

But then, perhaps their language is presence, and words are in the works…

I know fully well that speaking the same language fully isn’t exactly a requirement for wanting to be with someone.

I even had a time (with one of the acrobats) in which I declared this guy and I could not date until we both spoke the same language fluently (though, I didn’t care what language that ended up being), and I, eventually, followed my declaration (after, of course, passively ignoring it, and, essentially, being in an informal but distinct relationship with him for about six weeks)…. (We had a great time, but too many problems began to arise due, mostly, to language issues, but also to cultural differences.)

So, they very well could be that way, where words are not the language of the now relationship, because they just absolutely hit it off without the words, but the words are in the plans for the future of the relationship.

I dunno… anything is possible, but I know that I, personally, need to speak the same language fluently as my partner in life, whatever language that may be.

Post-a-day 2019