sun rat's school (not always) hell update

[sun rat]

wtf happened? did i wake up in hell?

was it the fact that the german language program is so fucking inferior that people who can't speak get degrees, and people who WANT to speak better can't figure out how to on our own? maybe it was just having a professor who speaks german with a kansas accent that has pushed me over the edge. i dropped the two german classes i was in this semester. i was too aggravated at the lack of teaching to be tolerant.

maybe it has just been the onslaught of intensive russian that is too much too fast ( the class is down to 10 people now from the original 35). not altogether sure i'm going to make it to may.

add money worries on top of that, and i have found that i am alternately nauseous or numb.

on top of that, i feel like they are coddling me. like the A's i made last semester were worthless and unearned.

but i haven't given up.

[calamari kid]

Keep fighting the good fight. Better times are ahead!

[rc26]

Sounds like you are ready for some down time.

[Zer0]

As a teacher, I say give yourself credit for the A's you've earned.

A long time ago I actually studied German, Russian and French the same semester, but that's all I did--maybe worked 15-20 hrs/week. But no kids or major bills. Russian is fucking brutal. All the cases? Jesus tapdancing Christ that language kick me in the balls over and over. But I had kickass teachers who brutalized us.

Good call droipping the German teacher--I prollly would have too.

Sunny, you're gonna have to go out and get it--teach yourself the more that you need. I strongly urge youi to read. Get old magazines, whatever. Buy short story collections with paralell text--English on one side-German, Russian whatever on the other side. makes it easier to know what you're supposed to be reading.

Yup, you're gonna have to try your German/Russki on people, but at this point, read your ass off--build your vocabulary and internalize the grammatical structures to the point where your understanding is intuitive.

Stick with it.

And ride--your bike needs love too.

[Shhted]

When I did the Norwegian route at the U of M, we had a weekly roundtable at a local bar. It was attended by native speakers and students. It was full immersion practice and it did wonders. Do you have that type of option? Don't neglect Sun Rat, a little "me" time do you wonders.

[Zer0]

That reminds me of a Spanish prof I heard about at UC Santa Barbara. He'd invite his students to his house Fri nights, and he and his wife would cook food from different spanish speaking countries each time, Cuban, Mexican, Spanish, whatever, and serve wine. The wine would, in pedagogical terms, reduce the affective filter of some students, or roughly in our terms, make them less inhibited to make mistakes when they spoke Spanish. It's OK and natural to make mistakes--that's the learning process. make the mistakes, even if they did it over and over, no biggie, the key is to speak as much as possible, and likker is the great lubricator.

Not sure how many Krauts and Russkis there are in neck of TX, Sunny, but you mighr try a likker night with your classmates--at least it's something for now.

[sun rat]

i really appreciate all the encouragement.

i had downloaded quite a few books in russian as well as german, but my problem had been that it's freaking impossible to get anywhere but frustrated when you only know 25% of the vocabulary.

but just today in my searches, i found a site that has a few bilingual books for free. and the languages are side by side columns in the doc format too.

and yes, the cases are kicking me in the gut on a regular basis. with the intensive course, we spend only one lesson on any given major item and move on the next lesson to something else. brutal. i'd gladly put off my graduation for a whole year to just have the opportunity to take these russian classes at a normal pace. but no, they aren't offered like that. my only salvation gradewise is that participation in class is 50% of the grade.

as for meeting up with other speakers, there are lots of native speakers who get together regularly(meetup.com, yo), but they all meet up like 70+ miles from where i live. in fucking PLANO of all places. both germans AND russians in plano. (only thing i can figure is they must all work for Texas Instruments...)

[Ames]

I started out like any kid. I bought children's dvd's in Russian as well as simple books that any kid could win. It gave me a good grounding in syntax and simple-sentence structure. I, too, am regularly frustrated by my ability to read Cyrillic but not understand everything I'm reading.
Hang in there, you're doing a fantastic job.

[sun rat]

thanks ames, but i won't feel like i've accomplished anything until i can hold an UNscripted conversation that goes beyond "hi, how are you? i'm fine. i have red hair."

[Zer0]

Kuda idyosh?

Ya idu na zanyatziye.

[sun rat]

я не понимаю транслитераитед раитинг. ироник, нет?

я учу в университет техасе на арлингтон.

когда ты не занёшься?

[sun rat]

wait, that's not what you were asking...

[Zer0]

OK, in cyrillic now:

Куда идёш?

Я иду на занятсие

[sun rat]

OK, in cyrillic now:

Куда идёш?

Я иду на занятсие

Я иногда иду в парк. Но не часто.

А ты? Куда ты идёшь? А часто?

[Zer0]

Sunny--it was 25 yrs ago when I learned this stuff.

Thanks for making me realize how friggin old I'm getting. I don't know what часто means.

Я глупый

[sun rat]

часто means often. like time is час.

we learned all about который and all it's cases on monday. and i want to pull out my hair because at the same time i am trying to learn all the verbs of motion WITH prefixes for the other russian class.

[sun rat]

even when i try not to be an overachiever i fail.

how to fail at not being an overachiever in 6 easy steps.

1. pick a topic (pushkin's secret journal) with lots of resources in english.(marquis de sade, my secret life, blah blah blah)

2. change topic after finding out 2 other people in class are doing the same topic, and after the "publisher" writes you to say "hi, i want to read it when you're done"(WTF), and you realize he's a fraud.

3. pick a safer topic. censored folktales.

4. find no direct english resources on the author, and scant resources on the topic.

5. panic.

6. praise pan when you finally find biographical source material (in russian of course) on the net in a digitized format. 13 hours before the rough draft is due.

[sun rat]

i just won a thousand dollar scholarship.

that is all.

[DerGolgo]

i just won a thousand dollar scholarship.

that is all.

Yeah, really sucks not being an overachiever, doesn't it?

Anyway, congrats!!

[Zer0]

i just won a thousand dollar scholarship.

that is all.

Oh, is that all?

Congratulations, Sunny.

[sun rat]

thanks, folks.

update:
i have vacation for the next three weeks until summer school starts. grades from this past semester don't post till thursday or so.

i know i passed the lit class, though the grade will be low due to the whole grandmother thing occurring right before finals. the other two i will just have to wait and see.

i also just recently found a temporary part-time job as a cashier at a book store, so money worries are considerably less.

[Zer0]

Good. Bookstore jobs are great for students--sneak studying in during any down times. That's what I did when I worked at a record store whren I was in skoo.

[sun rat]

Good. Bookstore jobs are great for students--sneak studying in during any down times. That's what I did when I worked at a record store when I was in skoo.

it's a Half Price Books store and i am on cash register during peak hours. so no surreptitious studying. but on the other hand the busyness of it has been a clear diversion from everything else going on.

oh, and the guy co-workers are all smart, if not cute and smart. and they are all geeks too. the positive attention they give me is a very nice reprieve from my loneliness.