When we talk about the weather.

Winter2014-166Winter2014-167Winter2014-188Winter2014-163 Winter2014-164Winter2014-187Winter2014-192Winter2014-168 Winter2014-171 Winter2014-174 Winter2014-185Winter2014-178Winter2014-186Winter2014-190 Winter2014-191Last Friday night James and I went to go see Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest.”  Have you seen it? I read it in high school and watched the movie many times but James had never seen or read it.  In the past year we decided that we really wanted to make an effort to see more plays, ballets, and concerts here in the city. I don’t want to turn to our kids someday and explain to them that all I did in this amazing city was brunch. Although, as they will be related to me and James, they will probably take brunch very seriously. When I see a play by Shakespeare or Wilde, I wonder if we have gotten dumber as a culture, or if we have just gotten so lazy with our language skills that we have lost the ability to create something like Wilde’s fast paced verbal sparring. Despite the difference of over a hundred years, his words have lost none of their humor today. Muffins will always be funny. In the midst of our laughter, one of the characters declared, “Whenever people talk to me about the weather, I always feel quite certain that they mean something else.”

And we do.

This week, we can talk of nothing but the weather around here. Last weekend the sun came out and the temperatures sored. We went out without coats and gloves, we turned off the heat, and we put the extra blanket in the closet. James’ brother and his girlfriend are spending their spring break with us and we strolled leisurely through Eastern Market, enjoying the fresh flowers and sun. I baked my first summer strawberry cake and we ate caprese salad and pretended like it was June. James and I took a long walk Sunday and I enjoyed an iced drink, even though it was still cold enough to freeze my hand off.

And then yesterday, the temperature dropped 40 degrees and the wind picked up and we all got inexplicably angry. Everyone I spoke to on Thursday talked about the weather. But really, I’m pretty certain we are talking about something else.

We are talking about the hope that spring brings and our eagerness to see it wash over the gray. We are talking about how ready we are for flowers to fill in the dirt and for the days to stretch longer and push back the night. We are talking about our need for sun and light and warmth and joy. We are talking about our excitement over new life and fresh starts. We are talking about the changes in light that come with seasons, and how that light illuminates different parts of the world for us. We are talking about one of the last infuriatingly powerful things that we cannot control in this modern world. We are talking about a longing so complex and multifaceted that we can’t fully put words to it.  On the cold days that creep back up, all those hopes are threatened and we feel the wrongness of it all through our souls, but we don’t know how to talk about it.

So instead, we talk about the weather. Because by talking about the weather, we are talking about our world and our own tiny little place in it.

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Hip-Hop and Shake, or, Can you be a twerking feminist?

Last night I had a two and a half hour class on feminist literary criticism. We waxed poetic about if it is possible to have an écriture féminine (feminin writing); we debated the subalternity of the female voice; we bemoaned the state of the women within this phallocentric world; we discussed texts that questioned if we are born woman, or made woman.

And then, at 7:00, I dashed across campus to jump into my weekly “Hip-Hop and Shake” class. Simone de Beauvoir, Hélène Cixous, and Gayatri Spivak were instantly replaced by a slew of rappers reminding me that white girls can still shake it.

I ask you, does the latter undo the former? Maybe… ok, probably.What does the presence of such classes, filled with such songs, and attended excitedly by such women tell us about the modern feminist condition?  Rap is not exactly the bastion of respect and gender equality. But people, this class is so much fun. Remember last year when I had a semester long love/hate affair with spinning? This semester it is Hip-hop and Shake, a class where you dance like an idiot at a a club for an hour and then congratulate yourself for working out. Yes. This is my jam.

Because really, I love dancing. But I hate clubs. Why can’t there be awesome dancing and thumping music in nice well-lit venues with ample seating, clean toilets, respectful dance floor co-horts, and a wide selection of tasty snacks? Oh, and why do those places always have to get exciting so late? At Hip-Hop and Shake I can dance intently and still be in bed by 10. Excellent.

But do not let my epic wedding dancing of 2013 convince you that I am any good at this fitness pursuit. No. Us from the French program cower in the back and try to keep at least part of our body doing what the instructor is. I can get the hips in line, or the hands, but for goodness sake, not both. And can I have it explained in writing, with diagrams and a flip book how to do a “body roll”??? Because I am just not there. Sometimes we have to do these supposedly sexy jump-up fall down and slither up things, and let me tell you: caught a glimpse of myself flopping around in the mirror and it was objectively traumatizing and not sexy. More like a seal flopping on bed of hot coals.

Perhaps there is more than meets the eye with this class. Phrases yelled by the instructor like “If you can’t shake what I’m shaking, shake whatever you’ve got!” (affirmation of the beauty of all body types?) and, during the twerking tutorial session, “Twerking is hard, I know. It’s because our foremothers didn’t have to twerk to lure in their prey but now we do!” (recognition of evolving standards and difficulties for women?)  give me reason to pause and wonder what are the societal implications of a room full of women makin’ it rain like their life depended on it.

Furthermore, it must be mentioned that this is a class attended almost exclusively by under-gradaute perky women who are most definitely honing their in-class skills on the weekend. There is a serious age gap upon which I like to blame all of my hip-hop inadequacies. Tonight the instructor announced that we would be playing an “old-classic,” at which I was obviously expecting Will Smith from you know, before he was a TV sensation. No. What came blaring out was “Soldier Boy.” Don’t get me wrong, I learned the whole dance in my dorm room during a particularly nasty college winter. But how did all of them know it? I did the math, and it came out when most students in that room were in middle school. Go ahead, feel old with me here.

Let it not be said that my hour of intense hip-hop does not have real life applications. For instance, in the semiannual event that I find myself in a place of crowded and dark dancing after midnight, I shall have a number of routines at my disposal. But importantly, half way through the class, we split down the middle and have a DANCE BATTLE. For those of you who have not seen all of the Step Up/ Bring It/ Dance It? Save those dances/ Center Stage is Where it’s At films (all of which, conveniently, have the exact same plot), you know the type I’m talking about. Ones like this:

Back and forth we go, one side dancing as hard as possible against the other, even though in the end — we are all winners on the dance floor. Might I take this moment to recommend to the many politicians and world leaders that I’m sure read this blog, that we adopt the dance battle method for current and future political disagreements? (Pause to imagine Harry Reid and John Boehner dancing to “Billy Jean” to resolve the next debt crisis. Obviously Paul Ryan and Nancy Pelosi are backup dancers.)

In the end, I take my sweaty body home each week, wondering why I haven’t received more calls to take my talent global. Nevertheless, I shall continue to dance. And perhaps in the end, Hip-Hop and Shake is the embodiment of feminism at it’s finest: we are all equals on the dance floor. And we have scared away all the men.

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Where there’s smoke, there’s bacon.

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My big brother and his girlfriend were in town this weekend and on Saturday morning I managed to make waffles and bacon without setting off our hyper-sensitive smoke detector. This success, while seemingly small, is in fact so colossal that I am giving it its own blog post.

Because sometimes life is made of little victories and ordinary triumphs.brunchPS: Usually we use the waffle recipe mentioned here, but this weekend we tried this one and I will probably never go back. Perfectly crispy and light! Because before you slather something in Nutella, whipped cream, and strawberries, you want it as light as possible.

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The cold never bothered me anyway.

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It is the strange nature of blogs that you both know so much about someone from reading them, and so little. You often think that you have an accurate view of the person blogging, but in reality you only receive an aspect of the person, a curated and corrected aspect. Still them, but a limited them.

And sometimes I wonder that there is a very key aspect of my personality that this blog cannot convey: I am loud. I don’t just mean that I can be loud, I mean that I am loud, as an integral part of my personality. I can project to the very back row of an auditorium, I can out-yell a pack of cheerleaders, and my inside voice only counts if we are inside a stadium. Anyone who had to describe me would most likely include loud in the first three adjectives.

In fact, I am the textbook extrovert, which is to say that I am energized by people. I LOVE PEOPLE. Being with them, talking with them, working with them — put me in a room of people and I will organize a party or a musical or both. After graduating college I completed a curatorial internship at an art museum, eager to throw myself into my chosen career. By the end of the summer I had realized that I love everything about museums and art history… except working in them. One day I only spoke six words all day, and I know because I counted every precious word. While I love paintings, this was not the job for me. Instead, I turned to teaching, where my extroverted soul gets to feed off of a captive audience all day long.

But remember, energy is not the same as peace, as calm, as rest. For those things, I desperately crave silence and stillness. We ignore this, in those endless Internet articles about things the world doesn’t understand about introverts or whatever. Humans are more complex than those lists. We can be loud, love people, and still need silence to not get overwhelmed by ourselves.

Last week James was out of town, and on Saturday the only time I spoke all day was to order at Starbucks. It. Was. Glorious. Being productive aside, sometimes you just need to be silent for a little while. I usually try to write on here a couple times a week, but in the past week, I just needed a little break. Sometimes you just need to stop speaking for a little while. Sometimes silence can be comforting.

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I think that is one of the things I love about winter. Tomorrow March is here, and with I hope to find warmer days and nature’s reawakening.  But life will also start getting busier, a process that continues until winter, when silence and stillness settle around us whether we like it or not. Life will start getting louder, as the muted world of cold will slip into the sounds of rebirth and activity.

We had our last (maybe? hopefully?) snow this week, one that fell fast and heavy around us before melting by evening. I love the sound of snow, the sound of absence that comes with the muffled world outside. There are days when I stare longingly at my sundresses and bemoan another day in boots, but I will miss this later. I will miss the slowness, the stillness, the silence of winter. I honestly think I would hate a year without winter. So winter, it’s time to bow out gracefully, but thanks for a little silence in the middle of our noisy years, a little calm in the middle of our busy lives.Winter2014-149

Oh and in the middle of my quiet week, I also fell deeply in love with the Frozen soundtrack. Come on friends with kids, who is going to let us babysit when it comes out on DVD so I can justify watching it? I am not even going to tell you how many times I listened to this version over the past week. 

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One time I went to Venice.

One time I had a vacation while I was living in Paris…

And I went to Venice, because I will always choose Italy.

And I met up with one of my dear friends there, even though our plans for connecting were so disjointed that it’s a miracle we found each other.

And I survived a Ryan Air flight to get there, which meant that I had one very small bag and a whole lot of gratitude.

And our hostel was perfect, nestled into a maze of narrow streets and twisted canals.

And we got lost all the time, never able to find a bridge when we needed one.

And we had no money, so all the fancy restaurants were out of grasp.

And it rained almost the entire time, soaking us from head to toe and reminding us that Venice is actively sinking into the sea.

But the rain was not stronger than the color.

And Venice will always remain etched in my memory in vibrant colors and perfect beauty.

And we are entering that gray time of year in DC, where rains beat away at the snow, turning the city to mud and mush, and the grass stubbornly refuses to take on any tint but brown.

And so I dug through my old files to find some of the pictures that I took from that trip because I wanted to remember it.

And I wanted to remember that the color will triumph over the dark and the dull and that beauty will eventually reclaim the world.

Venice-94 Venice-95 Venice-96 Venice-99Venice-97Venice-100 Venice-101 Venice2Venice-102 Venice-104 VeniceVenice-106

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Game Night.

gamenightWe have a lot of game nights around here. James likes to pretend that he hates games, and perhaps at one point he really did, but his objection has been ignored so many times that we have all forgotten about it. Maybe it is marriage or maybe it is just that I have always been lame, but I love that our parties with friends involve comfy clothes and games instead of fancy clothes and dignified pursuits more often than not these days. Some of our best friends live just a couple of blocks away and we just keep a running tally of who has won the most games, adding to it every weekend. We have other friends who live out in Fairfax and throw epic game nights every so often, the kind where there is a lot of yelling, calling foul, and [good natured?] bickering. Here are some of our favorites to have on hand for game nights. (Obviously, you can fudge the numbers a little, as we usually have a group of four that plays all but Rollick. For that one numbers are essential.)

gamenightpicks

  1. For groups of four: Monopoly Deal Millionaire. What is the worst part of actual monopoly? The part where it NEVER ENDS and you are just stuck there limping around the board, praying for some community chest love that will never come. Here is the card game version. All the fun, none of the tedium.
  2. For groups of five: Ticket to Ride. Do not even try telling me this game is like Settlers of Catan or we might have to stop being friends. There are several irrationally strong dislikes that bond James and I together including Tapas restaurants and Settlers of Catan. Instead, Ticket to Ride just lets you build massive rail empires and viciously block your fellow man. None of this trading for sheep business — just sheer capitalistic expansion.
  3. For groups of six: Bohnanza. We call this the Bean Game, and if I explained it, I promise it won’t sound as much fun as it is. You plant beans, trade beans, and then exchange for coins. See? Sounds totally lame. But I promise it is fantastic and you find yourself yelling things like “I WILL GIVE YOU TWO GREEN BEANS, A STINK BEAN, TWO ROUNDS OF GOODWILL AND DO THE DISHES FOR A WEEK IF YOU WILL JUST GIVE ME THAT GARDEN BEAN!” Don’t you just want to play it now to find out why that sentence makes sense?
  4. For groups of seven: Bang. This is like Mafia, that beloved game youth group retreats everywhere, but with more confusing rules and none of that voting nonsense. (Because who actually listened to people’s defenses anyways? I always voted to kill the person, guilty or not. I just felt that it helped move the game along.) Bang is like spaghetti western meets Mafia meets card game meets TOTAL INSANITY. When James and I went home from our first Bang game night — at which I had won all but one round — he informed me that he had never been more angry at me than during that game. Which I took to meant the game was a success, and it was.
  5. For groups of eight or more: Rollick. In this game, everyone wins, because everyone looks like a total idiot and entertains everyone else. This is reverse charades, where one person guesses and everyone else acts it out — without being able to communicate. Thus, you just jump around like an idiot, amusing everyone and acting very little. We played a modified version at our Christmas Eve party, and I just want you to sit there and imagine a group of people trying to act out “virgin birth.”

Any game night fans out there? What are your favorites? But please don’t say Risk, because even thinking about it makes my feet hurt from the thought of stepping on those pieces in the middle of the night after everyone gets bored and leaves it all over the floor half-way to global domination.

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From the weekend

Processed with VSCOcam with c1 presetProcessed with VSCOcam with c1 preset//I always loved Valentine’s Day, even long before I had an “official” valentine. But I sure do love Valentine’s Day  even more with that cutie. We started dating right before Valentine’s day 6 years ago and every February I think back to those early days, days of Taco Bell picnics in freezing cars, pbj sandwiches made in the dining hall and eaten together in our noon class, all the shy firsts of love. This year, we had a nice dinner out at a new restaurant that just opened on the hill, but made sure to end our date with milkshakes at Good Stuff, because it’s tradition.// Processed with VSCOcam with c1 presetProcessed with VSCOcam with c1 preset//In between dinner and shakes, we hit the skating rink at the National Sculpture Garden. Whereas James is actually a great skater, I just skate with great enthusiasm. And in case you were considering skating in DC, I recommend the NSG over the one at Georgetown hands-down. Cheaper, they don’t allow cell phone photos while on the ice, and no kids with those penguin things to help them skate, so you can actually move continuously around the rink. I also felt sorry for the people there on those all important early dates, those poor girls skating and shivering in short dresses and tights. One poor girl spent the whole night skating trying to hang on to a giant bouquet. //Processed with VSCOcam with x1 presetProcessed with VSCOcam with c1 presetProcessed with VSCOcam with c1 preset//Sunday morning pre-church pumpkin muffins… that I started making less than half an hour before we were supposed to leave. Why do I think time moves differently for baked goods?//Processed with VSCOcam with f2 preset//That man. This weekend, made longer by our snow days, reminded me the many things I love about him. We spent all Saturday morning running errands — at the mall, James’ very least favorite place — and all afternoon babysitting. That combination reveals all you need to know about a husband’s character. Yesterday I put him on a flight for a week-long work trip and I miss him so much every time he’s gone. Obviously, Valentine’s Day dates and roses are fun. But I also miss him for babysitting and errands and running late for church and changing lightbulbs.//Alfred de Musset

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Today I am thankful for

picstitchToday I am thankful for snow days that come right when they are needed most, like miracles, or those rains that sweep across dry summer fields and leave the grass ready to lean towards the sun with renewed strength.  Everyone in my office is sick, the result of (in my non-scientific opinion) massive consumption of chocolate covered popcorn from a  communal tin. We sat around the seminar table last night, sneezing in rounds through a lecture on Sartre’s Huis Clos and existentialism. No Sartre, you’re wrong: Hell isn’t other people. It’s winter without snow days, it’s colds without tissues, it’s looking at the calendar and realizing that Spring Break is very, very far off. But then, a snow day comes like a gift. I am thankful for this chance to make tea and translate German in my jammies, to read literary theory from the comfort of my couch, and plan lessons in slippers.

Today I am thankful for that man I married. He indulged my snow day excitement last night and trudged through the snow with me for milkshakes at Ted’s. He’s the very best snow day buddy ever. Life has been a little hectic lately and this day is a unexpected break in the busy where I get to sit on the couch with him and eat breakfast sandwiches and pretend like we have nowhere else to go.

Today I am thankful for the snow, because it is beautiful. I know it will get ugly, messy, and gross, but isn’t that true of every beautiful thing? How can you look at a single snowflake and not get just a little weepy about this beautiful universe?

Today I am thankful for mugs of hot tea, chili on the stove for tonight, cozy slippers, flannel pants, and snug homes. We live amazing lives of luxury and I need to be reminded of that sometimes. Like when I come home to find that the plumber paid us a visit and cut two large holes in the kitchen wall and then left without fixing them. And that was two weeks ago. And the toilet still randomly stopes flushing. And I found my nice pots in the bathtub for some inexplicable reason. But still, these are first world problems that I should feel fortunate to have the privilege of having.

Today I am thankful that tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, because I like being reminded to love. Don’t give me any Valentine’s day hate — the day that we have reduced all love to romantic love is a sad day indeed. I am thankful for this yearly reminder to love just a little more, a little better, and a little broader.

Today I am also thankful that this snow isn’t so bad I can’t go out and run some errands. I am  thankful for generous return policies, because I ordered replacement boots last week that were supposed to be “wine leather” and they are straight up PURPLE. Unacceptable. I will be hitting up some stores while everyone else stays inside. Thank you, years at Hillsdale, for making me a stronger person when it comes to winter.

What are you thankful for today?

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The weekend where we ate too much pizza and don’t even regret it.

winter2014-94 winter2014-95 winter2014-97 winter2014-98 winter2014-99 winter2014-100 winter2014-101 winter2014-102 winter2014-103 showercollagewinter2014-105 winter2014-111 winter2014-122 winter2014-135 winter2014-137 winter2014-138 winter2014-139 winter2014-142 winter2014-144winter2014-146Should I be ashamed that this past weekend began and end with us eschewing vegetables and ordering pizza? Obviously the answer is yes, I should be ashamed. But oh man, I love take-out pizza. And sometimes there are weekends that just need pizza to happen… sometimes they even need it twice. Sometimes you just want to eat dinner out of a greasy box and throw away paper plates. Sometimes you want dinner to come to you, the final element of the full circle began by those long ago hunter-gatherers ancestors. Fellow pizza-ordering lovers, let us have no shame. Some days are for kale salad and organic free-range roasted chicken, and some are for Hawaiian hand-tossed with that awesome butter garlic dipping sauce for the crust.

I helped throw a baby shower for a friend on Saturday, which meant that Friday night was a marathon of studying, game planning, and miniature fruit tart making. My mother in law is a fantastic cook and for Christmas she gave me a set of miniature tart pans and her renowned sweet tart dough recipe. It was therapeutic really, pressing that yummy dough into so many little shells and then sliding them out in all their buttery glory. My new passport came last week, meaning that my name is officially changed on all major documents, but strangely, making the family recipes that James’ mom has perfected over the years makes me feel more a part of their clan than an updated passport and awful picture.

The majority of Saturday was spent celebrating Christine and the fast-approaching birth of her little babe. When I see my friend about to become a mother, I am shocked to realize that we have grown up. All of us. Many of my friends are on their second or third child, buying houses, making professional names for themselves, building beautiful and full lives. How did it happen? How did we go from college kids who ordered pizza at midnight and made no concrete plans to grown-ups [who, admittedly, still ordered pizza twice in one weekend]?

After more marathon studying Saturday afternoon, James and I went to go see the sole DC performance of “Three Acts, Two Dancers, One Radio Host” starring Ira Glass from This American Life.* James grew up listening to TAL, but I didn’t discover it till the year I lived in Paris. Without Internet in my tiny apartment, I would load a couple episodes in the cold second floor exterior stairwell and then carry my laptop back up to my room. Ira Glass became my friend that year, as I blazed through the archives sitting in my little studio high above Paris. When he came on stage I wanted to stand up and yell “THANK YOU FOR KEEPING ME COMPANY EVERY EVENING IN PARIS AND CAN WE BE FRIENDS IN REAL LIFE?!?!?!?!?” but it would be pointless. Everyone who listens to TAL routinely feels that way about Ira. When we bought tickets to the show we knew nothing about it beyond his presence, but it was perfect. I went from snort belly laughing to actual, full-fledged sobbing several times. Yes, for me perfection means a total emotional purge that covers a wide spectrum. We ended our evening with milkshakes and fries at Burger Tap and Shake, because once you have started your weekend with pizza, you might as well plunge full steam ahead.

Unsolicited marriage advice from an unqualified person: go on real dates with your spouse. The type where you plan in advance, experience something new, change out of your couch clothes, and ride the metro all giggly around the city.

My mom passed through town on Sunday night and we piled on the couch to watch figure skating because I think it is the most beautiful display of athleticism and grace ever. She painted my nails dark purple and I proudly showed off our living room remodel. We ended the weekend the way we end many weekends, with friends at the table playing viciously competitive games. Oh, and ordering pizza, of course.

I hope your weekend was full of the very best things, like deep belly laughs, family recipes, babies, board games, and greasy pizza boxes .

*If you don’t listen to TAL podcasts, you really should. I usually end up laughing and crying in almost every episode. Plus, it gives you fantastically random facts to insert into conversation and if you happen to meet another TAL listener, the connection is instant. If you need a place to start, some of my favorites are Act V, Notes on Camp, Americans in Paris, and Prayer.

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Learning Deutsch.

wangen-germany_9185_600x450It is a truth universally acknowledged that a person in possession of more than one language will always want another one. Which is to say that this semester I am taking German. The choice was not wholly prompted by love of languages. As part of my PhD requirements I have to pass a translation test in another language other than French or English. The obvious choice would be Spanish, as it looks very similar to French, but I was determined to do German.

When I was very little, my family moved to Germany for a couple months. My memories are a slush of Kinder eggs and giant pretzels, with the occasional castle thrown in for good measure. I remember two words from those months, neither of which will help me in the majority of either daily conversation or academic translation. I think I really picked German because of images like these: colorful houses, emerald fields, smiling people in lederhosen, and aged castles rising into the sky. It’s equal part fairy tales, October Fest, and The Sound of Music, the last of which I realize is in Austria.

11db4c4f7182bb82bf3b0d8a25307351Instead, I am spitting. A lot. I am hacking my way through sentences like “The book to father give” and “My mother went to Vienna see Opera good – you?” and lots of words that seem to continue FOREVER.  My class is focused on translation, which means I am not learning to pronounce anything, something that kills my language loving heart, but is unfortunately necessary for the moment. Were I to show up in Germany and needed anything beyond the phrases “thank you,” “ice-water,” and “How did you sleep last night?” I would be up a creek. But if someone were to approach me and ask me to translate a paragraph on the German University system, how the calendar is structured, German Nobel Prize winners, or the invention of the engine and its effect on the German economy, I am a pro. Ready for any situation I am not, but ready for a hyper-specialized and improbable moment I am. That last phrase could actually just be applied to all of academia.

It’s humbling, really, being so awful at a language. And don’t misunderstand me — I am awful. Sometimes I try to read sentences out-loud to my German speaking colleagues and they confirm my suspicions, I am terrible. But I am learning, and it makes me understand my students better and well up in empathy for what they experience in class. It is so daunting to start a language, so overwhelming to begin at zero and hope to one day be able to partake in the miracle of speech, comprehension, and expression in another language. It is unfathomable to imagine learning a portal to another way of seeing the world.

James and I like to dream about our someday trip to Germany, the trip that I see no practical way of accomplishing anytime soon. But it’s good to have dreams to chew on for those moments when life seems stagnant. And when (if) that day comes, I will be ready. At least, I will be ready if our interaction is limited to written discourse on universities, engines, and Great Germans of History.  For anything else, I will be left doing what my students do daily, struggling towards the tantalizing illusive thing that is expression.
9609ba276153e8e9d5527eb8a4955d2aAny German speakers, readers, lovers out there?

Image sources: 1 / 2 / 3

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