My week got better

[liv]

I was really quite stressed on Monday. A major project I lead on at work is in crisis, with the other two key people abruptly about to retire. We had a discussion in which everybody carefully didn't blame me for the project not going well, but between the lines it's clear that my inexperience at leading projects of this scale meant that I didn't bail sooner and I probably should have. Instead I've been trying to throw a lot of effort into avoiding a crisis which in fact wasn't really avoidable because of external circumstances. On top of that I have two fairly big deadlines this week, and I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed in general. Hence my excessively grumpy post about Purim; I basically love working with the community, but I was just right in the middle of feeling like everybody wants stuff from me that I can't provide.

I had lots of good chats with friends, rysmiel and angelofthenorth and hatam_soferet and my ever wonderful husband. I drank tea and caught up on sleep a bit (well, maybe not as much as I would have liked, but I stayed up late because I was enjoying talking to people who make me happier). I wrote a grumpy post here on DW and everybody made helpful and sympathetic comments, you are all wonderful, thank you so much. Contact with my friends goes a long way to making me feel better when I'm stressed.

And being the kind of procrastinator / last minute producer that I am, having the hard deadlines actually made me settle down and do some of the stuff I've been dithering about for a while. Of course actually getting creative jobs done makes me feel a whole lot better, particularly in the direction of being more confident that I can in fact get organized enough to do all the rather large heap of work, community and personal tasks on my to-do list.

I had a really great meeting with a student whom I'm supervising for his first year mini-dissertation. He has some really cool ideas for what he wants to write about, I'm actually genuinely interested in his project, which is going to make working with him a lot of fun.

Yesterday I had a really great day: I got useful things done, then I went to the first of my Arabic conversation taster course. I am not at all surprised to be reminded that learning new languages is really fun! I mean, it was really basic, tourist stuff like hi how-are-you I'm-fine-thanks-and-you, but still pleasing, just the little quirks that even basic bits of languages have. If you translate the Arabic phrases literally you get things like: I'm fine => I'm with goodness, and how are you => how's the condition? And we got to one of those minimal pairs of totally different words that are only distinguished by diacritics; in Swedish it's duck versus spirit, in Arabic house and girl. Actually my secret goal from this class is to learn to pronounce the difference between ح and خ

Also my little sister texted me saying she wanted to send me and jack an anniversary present. I said it's not our anniversary until 2016, but she said "it's still an anniversary when the year turns" and she is going to send us a present anyway. And it is true that it has been 365 days since jack and I got married, which is a pleasing thought.

And today I realized that one of my deadlines isn't actually today, it's 28^th March. And I thought I'd lost something irreplaceable I'd borrowed from a friend but it turns out I in fact returned it and had forgotten doing so, so that also made me feel a whole lot better.

Comments

Arabic geekery

[lethargic_man]

If you translate the Arabic phrases literally you get things like: I'm fine => I'm with goodness, and how are you => how's the condition?

The latter is the same as Hebrew "?מה המצב".

And we got to one of those minimal pairs of totally different words that are only distinguished by diacritics; in Swedish it's duck versus spirit, in Arabic house and girl.

I know the latter, as "bint" has entered English colloquially (and it's a classic case of a נ dropping before a consonant in Hebrew), but I'd not have expected a ن in the former, and Google Translate doesn't show one either. What words are you dealing with here?

Actually my secret goal from this class is to learn to pronounce the difference between ح and خ

AIUI, خ is the same as ח in Hebrew as you pronounce it; my teach-yourself-to-read-Arabic book tells me ح is the noise you make when you breathe steam onto a window. (This is not the same as the impression I had got for Sephardi ח, but maybe my impression's wrong, or maybe there's variation within the Arabic world.)

Re: Arabic geekery

[liv]

Yeah, there's huge variation in Arabic, not at all surprisingly given the large number of speakers spread over a big geographic area. I'd like to be able to pronounce any kind of difference between ح and خ at all, and thus between chet and chaf as a bonus, even if it's not the same way that Sephardim do it. I went ahead and pronounced خ as ח, which is fact identical to how I pronounce כ, and the teacher congratulated me on getting the difficult sound correct, which perhaps was slightly undeserved praise, considering. But I couldn't get ح right at all, will keep practising. At least I can hear the difference when the teacher deliberately exaggerates for the new learners.

The Arabic for house is, unsurprisingly enough, bayt. But what is surprising now I'm following up is that the teacher drew ي as the same shape as ba, ta and nun, only with two underdots, which isn't what Wikipedia says at all. Curious!

Re: Arabic geekery

[lethargic_man]

But what is surprising now I'm following up is that the teacher drew ي as the same shape as ba, ta and nun, only with two underdots, which isn't what Wikipedia says at all. Curious!

Each letter in Arabic has up to five forms: initial, medial, terminal, general and isolate. (For most, most of them are the same.) They're all listed on the Wikipedia page for the alphabet; also have a play with the Arabic entry form I wrote: try typing in Y three times for ي, or E three times (for ه) and see how the shape changes.

Re: Arabic geekery

[liv]

Ah, so the medial forms are the same (apart from diacritics) even though the isolate forms are different, that makes sense. And I didn't know you'd made a text entry thingy for Arabic as well as Hebrew, that's really useful and cool, thank you.

[kaberett]

I am so glad to hear about the good - it is always such a relief to find I've forgotten things in the helpful direction rather than the disastrous one!

[liv]

Thank you. I try not to put too much complaining on DW but sometimes it really helps to vent a bit. And much as I'd rather not go about forgetting things, you're right that it's a lot better when it's in the helpful direction.

[randomling]

Happy not-your-anniversary!

I too am really glad to hear about the good things. Learning languages is awesome - I read this and immediately wanted to try picking up French again (it's been a long time).

[liv]

Thank you! And yes, I may be strange, but the strategy of "I feel down: I'll go learn some Arabic" works surprisingly well, so I'm not going to complain. My French is incredibly rusty, but I was near fluent by the time I left school, so I got it to a level where it doesn't disappear completely if I don't practise for a while. But I have to admit that I've basically forgotten several other languages I only studied to beginner level.

[randomling]

I don't think that's strange at all. :D I too turn to "learn new things!" as one of my pick-me-up activities when I'm not feeling too good. Though at the moment it's more likely to be maths or programming stuff rather than languages.

(I miss the languages, actually. I have forgotten nearly all my French, maybe I should pick it up again.)

[rysmiel]

Very glad I was able to help, love. *hug* It's been very mutual.

[liv]

It is always lovely to talk to you, and by no means only because you are extremely good at cheering me up when I'm in a bad mood. I also love talking to you when I'm happy and bouncy.