Life has the most terrifying way of accelerating just when you start to settle in. I've been having a blast this summer in both expected and unexpected ways. And now it's less than two weeks till I hug necks in Ukraine and just one month till I'll start out the school semester in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. I recognize the onset of this piranhas-in-my-gut feeling as the usual case of emotional motion sickness, and I'm holding on for the ride. Excited.
My Russian study has ebbed (the sight of flashcards is sickening) and Kyrgyz has been at a trickle. I attribute to this to little infidelities with German and French that started last year. I've indulged them shamelessly over the summer with very little to show for it. Trying to read the French section of the Lonely Planet European phrasebook to myself, only to have the epiphany in the lamplight of my cozy room, struggling with elusive pronunciations, that Lonely Planet is owned by BBC and...probably based on British pronunciation. Which is great. For the Brits.
I, on the other hand, with my Modified Texan Accent, need some other guidance. Next on the queue is to watch Fantastic Mr. Fox in French. Haven't done it yet. Cleaned my grandmother's kitchen cabinets instead. And I went to see my friend Chelsea in Dallas, where we visited a Half Price Books. Which inevitably led to the inordinate purchase of two boxes of old school Russian verb/grammar flashcards, (If they are vintage I will want to use them, right?), a set of note cards featuring İznik tile patterns (one of my favorites from Islamic art) and two (small!) German language books (one grammar and one dictionary). I blame the last one on my friend DJ who gave me a digital tour of his home town, Vienna, and showed me how to make the @ symbol on a German keyboard. That's all it takes.
Well, all I can say is that, as bad as my Russian study habits have been, I really am using the Russian cards, and the German stuff, well, it provides a little breather (I'm not getting a grade for it any time soon) and the aesthetic goes well with my shelf of occasionally-used language books ranging from Old English to Hebrew to Cantonese.
I will write more later about tinkering with languages and why it matters that I have a shelf full of books that I keep more or less like a shrine...
