Untranslatable

Finally have circled around to another day off. Still haven't decided how to use it, but the rain is (again) sending out "nap!" signals I'm going to have to continually resist. There goes my intention for a run, I suppose. I believe I'm experiencing what is in Estonian "viistima: the feeling of slightly laziness, can't be bother by anything. Don't want to work nor going anywhere. (sic)"

Identified this useful emotional descriptor after reading a Salon article on a cross-lingual map of human emotions put together by Pei-Ying Lin that includes labels for some of those titchy, unidentifiable or in-between feelings for which we don't always have words in English. It's part of his Unspeakableness project, "An intervention of language evolution and human communication." It's a delightful find really-- a kind of moulding/picking throuhg of launguages to more accurately depict human...ness. Particularly like Part 4 of the project, "Personalised Language." He's filmed multilinguals doing monologues in kind of an extreme cross-lingual idiolect, where they translate a piece (dealing with a particular emotion) using all of their available languages, jumping around word by word. I'm kind of in love with/identify strongly with the Icelandic girl (Robyn Peters, though her real name sounds unspellable for me) who does the first monologue, on love...the sound of it all is unspeakably (ha) gorgeous, and her explanation for why she translated the way she did resonates with my own translation organ and makes me want to give her a big ol' hug.

Maybe then I'll do some translation work as my next project. Huh, it's very strange though. After having no ideas for anything to do, I suddenly just had a lot--to the point of a mental log jam. Words are hard to sort and select right now, and I have the beginnings of a headache. Unfortunate.

Maybe I'll go snack on some of the fancy cheese on which I spent an obscene amount of money yesterday. What's the emotional offshoot of decadence? Something related to gluttony, evelry, and pleasure I'm sure. With a twinge of incompleteness to make sure the spires keep climbing.

I CAN HAZ THESIS STATEMENT?

Since I am now officially done beating my brain into a pulpy mush to extract papers, etc. (at least for this semester) and griping about it, I can now get back on an ivory-soap box and talk about why it is important to be able to construct coherent sentences from your brain-mush.

Even if you are not a giant geek like I am, flying into giddy fits over discovering the shared etymological root of punch (the drink) and punch (the flying fist)*, it is pretty obvious that yes, words are important. You use them every day to convey important (or trivial) ideas, and you need to organize them properly in order to convince your professor (and friends, and later on your boss, coworkers, lover, parole officer, etc) that you are not a flaming numbskull. You take advantage of this skill (or lack thereof) every time you open your mouth. Fortunately or unfortunately, we cannot aways rely on the Gift of Gab (and all the relevant "like"s and "y'know"s that tend to fill conversational/logistic gaps) to help us out. Your words at some point have to take the form of squiggly little letter on a page (or screen). They are there for longer than are soundwaves in the air, and give your audience time to reread, process and criticize what you have put forth. Opportunities for judgment are increased exponentially. So please at least attempt to make yourself sound like a functioning human being (but don't try too hard--overwriting is pretty damn agonizing to read as well).

This article on Salon by Kim Brooks does a pretty good job of expressing the frustration I often feel when I encounter the writing of my peers. And, as I will almost inevitably be teaching a chunk of composition classes at some point in my life, the same article is incredibly depressing to me. I have over the course of my education been blessed with some fantastic English teachers, both in high school and in college. And, were I ever (*shudder*) to end up in the same position, I can only hope I live up to the standards they set. More likely, I think, I would be driven to drink. Because I have also had my share of shoddy English teachers, But, looking around at my classmates, I couldn't always blame them for their apathy or their rote, heads-down approach to the curriculum. Teaching is hella hard. But even so, I'm going to hope that some attempt is being made to wedge Critical Thinking and the Production of Ideas and Discourse into this/my generations head. Because even the small slice I've personally witnessed is...well, unacceptable.

Okay, I'm stepping down of my "elitist" soapbox. But goddammit, I'm not asking everyone to go out there and write the Great American Novel, or even develop an appreciation for the Mediocre American Novel(s). JUST MAKE YOUR WORDS WORK.

*[In case you're interested, by the way, the etymology is from the Indo-European root penk(w)e-, which is where we get the word "five" (cf. Greek pent-)-- punch traditionally had five ingredients, a punch is made from the five fingers of a fist. Ta Da!]

My philosophy of writing: The pleasure, the feeling, all through the words.

Frequently the only things in life worth hanging on to are those moments with good friends, good food/drink, and good talk, those moments that burn warmly in the bottom of your soul and make you cozy in your own skin. Language, for all its richness, is a poor medium to capture that feeling, those times made simultaneously of contentment and potential, but goddammit, it's all we have so we have to try our damnedest. Layer your words like flavors, slosh them around in your mouth like a good wine. Make them count; enjoy them. No plot, no thread of thought is going to capture on its own the tingling under your fingernails, the chemistry of interaction boiling over that is true life.

Let your tongue run free, revel in the pleasure. And no, it doesn't have to make sense:

A typhoon of octopus. A glacier of days. Aerodynamic aeolian aesthetic. Drowning challenge. A paragraph of stairways. Glockenspiel (in any context). Simpering sundials, a ton of crocodiles. Sticky checkbooks. Aphids for sale, in-laws for rent. Lapping at sounds like you're drowning in deafness. Fuzzy navy beans.

Jarring carousels, haranguing hula-hoops, a melange of melons. Overtones of overcoats, slithering staircases, offended petticoats. The unceasing demand for doldrums.

Live it!

Um, I like words?

Oh, hi there personal writing. I forgot you existed outside the graded, deadlined sphere that has devoured my life.

Speaking of which, it's National Novel Writing Month. That is but a wistful glimmer in my writer's eye this year due to crazy busy schedule and other writing obligations, but perhaps a miracle...

Current high point of my life: giant bags of Halloween candy sitting in my pantry, bought at discount the day after Halloween

Low point: the mucus-y demon living in my throat and lungs. Oh, and the complete lack of anything other than Halloween candy in my pantry.

Seriously contemplating going to grad school for linguistics rather than an MFA or something of that nature. Career options would be a little better, perhaps (though still hella gloomy probably). Of course, my linguistics professor hasn't actually shown up for class in about a week, so maybe that's God trying to send me a message. Or just get me home an hour earlier. If it is the latter, I sure do appreciate it.

I think that my social-interaction synapses have been misfiring more frequently than usual lately (something about that string of words seems odd, but oh well), and I may have crossed the line from "slightly awkward" into "eccentric". Example: A girl sitting next to me in my short story writing class complimented my story, which we had workshopped a few days earlier.

Girl: I really liked your story; I thought it was really well written.

Me. Oh. Me?

Girl: Um, yes.

Me: Oh. I didn't want to take a compliment not assigned to me, you see.

[awkward pause. blank stare on both sides.]

Me: Um. Yeah. I like words?

The stilted delivery of this, coupled with (that's not precisely the right word, either, but the sentence sounds the best) my glazed stare and the uncomfortable closeness of the desks in the classroom probably contributed to the awkwardness, along with my failure to follow this up with the usual context/explanation surrounding the phrase (i.e., My real interest is in words, what they mean and how they fit together to create different layers of meaning and experience in people's minds, rather than in a narrative or story-arc. That is why I tend towards poetry and linguistics rather than traditional fiction.). No major harm done though, I think. It is, after all, a class for aspiring writers.

Planning on taking 18 hours next semester, which in the fall would be suicidal for me but in the spring is merely ambitious. I guess I don't really need all of the classes right this second (or in some cases maybe not at all), but I'm afraid to not take them lest the chance slip through my fingers. I figured out that I can pull off my pie-in-the-sky triple minor and still graduate a semester early, but it would be by the skin of my teeth. Seriously considering abandoning Philosophy, but I'm going to try to talk to an advisor first. It would make my life a bit easier though, and I would only have to take 12 hours my graduating semester (knock on wood). For next semester, I'm looking at

Pidgins and Creoles, Brit Lit I, Chaucer, Symbolic Logic, Intermediate Poetry Writing. Oh, and Old Irish.

So much reading, but my days would be much less grueling than the 930-430 schedule I'm pulling this semester. We'll see.

Now, to write and revise poetry. I'll be reading tomorrow in front of actual people again, and I don't want to look like a total fool.

Written to distraction

I've said it before and I will say it again (many, many times): Language is a beautiful medium. A stained glass window, if you will, transfiguring what passes through into a dazzling display of aesthetics. But because it is so damn prevalent, its appeal inevitably varies depending on what's being presented and how. Often language (usually speech) is for me a swamp rather than stained glass--boggy, cloying, and agitating. It seems to be omnipresent, and under many circumstances just plain distracting.

I don't care what the woman three places behind me thinks of her husband's cousin's dog. But no matter how desperately I try to immerse myself in the tabloid covers, my brain (conspiring with my usually lackluster sense of hearing) struggles to sift this woman's speech out of the ambient noise to present to me. If I am trying to work with words myself (especially written), speech interference will drive me not just to distraction, but sometimes irritation or anger. Many people I know listen to music while they write or do homework, but this boggles my mind. Any kind of lyric will drive my own word right out of my head, the same if one were to try and compose an original piece of music while listening to something else. If I am reading and someone nearby strikes up a conversation even in a discreet volume, I must move or abandon my book. If I continue to try to absorb the information/story, it will only make me irritable. (There seems to be a loophole in this: If they are speaking in a foreign language, it can be ignored/tolerated. This may be connected to the "foreign toddlers are adorable, American toddlers are annoying" phenomenon I have also experienced.) I just find it immensely difficult to maintain two different streams of language in my mind. Most do, as when you find yourself typing something someone is saying, but I seem to have taken it to the point of mutual exclusivity.

It's odd. I'm a perfectly competent multi-tasker--I wait tables now (moving on up!) and have little trouble accommodating the dozen little things that need to be done at once. But I can't form my own words with the words of others in my head. Perhaps that explains my awkward conversational skills. Maybe I embrace language too wholeheartedly, and it will be my downfall. All of this was circling around to a point, I believe, but I seem to have lost it. Language displacing thoughts again, I suppose.

Bah, I'm tired of my own words; I'll entertain Clive Barker's for a while.