Updates (from sometime in April)

Tomorrow, tomorrow and tomorrow.

Actually, one week from today, not tomorrow, but I'm about ready for it to be tomorrow.

I'm talking, of course, about placement. Chişinău. This blog is fixing to change.

It's ironic, of course, that as I finally get access... real access... to the internet and thus, the ability to post on this blog...

(I am, assuming, of course, that I actually do understand the definition of ironic).

I feel like I'm going to have to severely curtail what I say.

Or go deep undercover. Strip this blog of any indication of my identity or hints as to where I might be working or live.

I think this might have had to have happened no matter where I would have gone, but the need to do so is greatly amplified in the capitol where everyone has access to the internet.

I kind of like this whole idea of going undercover. Maybe I could come up with some code name for myself.




In other news. Language development? Meet mighty brick wall. Things are coming out of my mouth, and I don't know what I'm saying. I don't know whether that's good or bad, and I'm very unsure as to what's right or wrong anymore. Everything is becoming this mumble and and jumble of things, and I don't even know if I'm talking in the past, present or future, and they keep throwing new possibility of tenses at us. There's 8 possibility of conjugations for the present tense, not including the many, many, many irregular verbs, and just when I think that I've gotten the future tense down, they up and tell me that there's a more, more commonly used form that we haven't learned yet. and maybe one more form on past tense, and oh yay, don't forget the tense that seems especially to be used in children's stories. There's a reason I haven't been able to read my Hans Christian Anderson Fairy Tales in Romanian. Thumbelina, by the way, is called Digitela.

I recognize that English isn't all shiitake mushrooms and giggles. After all, I just wrote a sentence that consisted of "I think this might have had to have happened no matter where I would have gone." I mean christ, how many tenses in that? That's one highly complex sentence, neh? I have no idea where I would even BEGIN that sentence in Romanian.

My "mai mare probleme" or "very big problem" is that I think in pretty complex sentences. I'm a shades of grey thinker, ya feel me? And thus far, all I can speak is the most simple of sentences, the blackest of black and the whitest of white.

Agreements, conjunctive cases, subjunctive cases... not only do I hate them, I don't understand what they mean.

The way we're tested on our language development is we're sat in a room with someone and we have to have a conversation - about of families, friends, free time, work, past, present and future... we're asked questions, have to ask questions....

sounds simple enough, right?

Unless, like me, you kind of flip out at the insincerity of the situation, get all nervous, misunderstand half of the questions and start mixing tenses.

I never did well with this type of tests. I need to be able to write things out beforehand, memorize a speech, etc., etc., etc.....

Practice, after all, makes perfect in test situations. Or in front of people giving you grades. Unless you're not allowed to do either.

Good thing I've decided that I don't care how the test goes.




In other news one of the staff people here told us a story of her involvement in the creation of modern day Moldova, and I have to say that it was pretty thrilling to me.

Moldova is an interesting country in many many ways... trod upon by far too many people, most recently, obviously, by the USSR, who forced the Moldovans to change their language in such a bizarre way - they allowed them to keep speaking romanian, but they forced them to change from the latin to the Cyrillic alphabet, and the schools began to teach Russian. Then, in 1989, that year of change that even I remember, the rumblings of change reached into the hearts and minds of the people here and they decided to regain a bit of their souls and organized around around a single purpose....

to get their language back. Women and men from all over the country formed a movement, an illegal movement that cost people their jobs, their homes... and in some cases their lives. The Peace Corps staff person that spoke to our class was at University when she helped organize the movement, and she lost her position at her school when they discovered her involvement.

The movement called for the reinstitution of the romanian language in the schools, and the switch back to the latin alphabet from the Cyrillic. After months of actions across the country, on August 31st people from all across the country gathered in Chişinău, across from Parliament, and protested until the legislators had no other choice but to enact the called for legislation.

Cool huh? I so am in love with history and social movements.