Still not dead

[jennaria]

Current object of interest: trying to learn French via Duolingo. (ysobel, this is at least half your fault. It's because of you that I even knew Duolingo exists.) I'm not anywhere near anything like fluent - Duolingo clocks me at 23%, my vocabulary is still somewhere down in the kindergarten range, and my conjugations are still firmly present tense. But it's fun in a way I didn't expect.

I am much better at reading than I am in interpreting what I hear, much less speaking. I gather this is normal. Or else it's a relic of having been a Classics major, where you barely did the hearing part beyond, like, reading Latin poetry aloud (I can still recite the first line and a half (?) of the Aeneid in the appropriate scansion), and sure as heck weren't expected to speak it.

(Someday, I want to go read things like L'Fantome de la Opera, or Les Miserables, in the original French. I am absolutely sure I am nowhere near that level, but it gives me a goal that's probably more realistic than my other ambition of someday going to Paris and being able to speak to a native without them laughing at my French.)

ETA: In other news, as of two minutes ago, I have my own business cards for the first second time ever! (First time was the Etsy store I helped my mother run.) I have absolutely no idea what to do with them - putting them in with the Halloween candy we hand out is probably not a good idea, right? ;-) But I have them, and they look so nice and official-like.

Comments

[ysobel]

Mwahaha -- I am totally not sorry :D

[jennaria]

I made the mistake of picking up an extra lesson on Idioms the other day, and made my way through it by the skin of my teeth (and with the help of lots of repetition). I somehow hadn't realized how small my baby steps were until that point! :wince: But as long as I stick to the regular lessons, I feel like I"m actually progressing and learning and figuring stuff out.

[stranger]

As far as I can tell, business cards are for networking. Since I have no idea how to network or even what for, this doesn't get me any forwarder, but you might find it useful.

P.S. Leia didn't use business cards. Leia had a gun.

[jennaria]

To be fair, my bosses have made noises about someday sending me to work-related conferences, where it would make sense to hand out my new business cards. Also, being as Hogwarts is a fairly large university, we do meet with other departments sometimes, and business cards are exchanged. They're usually more interested in other people in my department (as my job description is Wrangler of Paperwork, not Helper of People), but still, in theory.

P.S. I bet if the Star Wars universe did have business contact thingies, they would either magically appear on your whatzit, or they would be these little holograms that might or might not be you, saying your contact info. Either way, Leia is too busy for this nonsense.