Where’s my time machine?
Just now I watched a movie we recorded some time in the late 90’s. Johnny Mnemonic, but that doesn’t have much to do with this. First I saw a short sequence from a talk show – one of our Swedish ones – And this – come on – I hate talk shows – but this one actually seemed ok. I never even watched those when they were on. The theme song is so good. Of course I thought so even at the time. But again, it’s got nothing to do with any of this.
Before my movie started, there was a commercial and – this is completely insane – it was better too, compared to what we get now. Not that it’s anywhere as good as the commercials I’ve seen on British tv.
Then finally the good old 90’s movie began, with its fin de siècle ambiance. Back in those days when we thought everything was pretty much ok and would continue to be that way, so we dared to watch dystopic depictions of the future.
That’s when I realized it. I want to go back. Help, I want out. The future isn’t what it used to. Where’s my time machine?
I want to return to the days when I, despite everything, still had a little hope left. When there was still a little bit of good future left to look forward to. At least I thought so. But here it is. The bad new world, with carbon footprints and mass extinctions and more incurable plagues than ever before. Where the abyss is gaping wide open only half a step from my narrowing path.
If you find my time machine, or maybe the wormhole I can catch a ride with back home, get in touch. I can pack really quickly and I don’t sleep so well either. Here I am, just waiting.
French Books
I want to practice my French. Anyone who’s read my blog for a while, already knows that. One of my methods is to read books, in French, preferably originally written in French.
That’s the problem. I’m having trouble finding any books I like, in French. I can find some of my favorites translated from English, but that’s not really what I want. Translations aren’t quite the same.
When I go to the website of Amazon.fr, I have to dig around for ages, until I find some original French mysteries. Unfortunately, they all seem to be historic mysteries. Yes, I do love historic stories, but I’ve already found my favorite series of historic mysteries in French. What I’m looking for now is something set in the present. Something that isn’t sexist.
So, where does that leave me? Do I need to resort to translations? I’d be really disappointed if I have to. Where are the original, modern French mysteries? Where the fantasy stories are? Nowhere?
Maybe I can find some children’s books I might like. Maybe my wish to become fluent in French is doomed anyway. Only time will tell.
Adventures in 3D land
Ok. I’ll admit it. That title – I just made it up because it looks cool. So far I haven’t had any adventures of any kind in 3D land. Not that I want to. That kind of adventure.
Let’s start at the beginning. Last summer I let myself be talked into joining Second Life. My sister was already hooked and she thought I’d like it too. In a way, I did. It’s a fantastic 3D environment. Better than any other attempt I’ve seen in the nine years I’ve been online. What’s missing is some content.
I’m not Bob the Builder. I’m not there to look for sexual contacts either. What else is there? Well, according to my sister, who is the only one I know in there, you can chat. Socialize. Like in any other social networking community. There are even groups, for people with all kinds of interests.
So I joined them. There were actually groups for most of the things I’m interested in. Unfortunately, that didn’t help at all. They seem too haphazard and vague for me. Or maybe it’s just that it’s hard to fit in. The people in those groups are presumably already friends. Maybe it’s my shy Scandinavian temperament. Who knows? In any case it didn’t help.
Supposedly, there are also all kinds of ‘real life’ events too. Concerts. Pub performances. Even online courses or lectures arranged by respectable universities. Lately, Sweden, yeah, that’s right, my country, has started a cultural embassy inside the virtual community.
So far though, I haven’t found my place in there.
What I have done, which I’ve enjoyed enormously, is create my avatar. It’s more fun than you might think. Certainly more fun than I expected. In real life I’m nobody’s fashion freak. In Second Life makeovers are a breeze. You just go shopping for new hair, new clothes, even new skins and shapes.
Shopping… Well, as you know there are women who love shopping then there are others who don’t. I belong in the latter category. Unless you let me loose in a bookstore with lots of spending money, shopping simply doesn’t appeal to me. I guess I’m too much of a tomboy at heart. Tech stuff is nice too, if even more expensive. Other than that, I just can’t stand shopping sprees.
In Second Life it’s just so much easier and practical. Unfortunately, it’s just as expensive and being the cheap weirdo that I am, I absolutely refuse to ‘buy’ Lindens – the currency, not the founders… Not sure if those are for sale… LOL.
That brings me to the most typical aspect of Second Life. Money. Business. People actually run businessed in there. Make believe businesses, selling make believe stuff. Believe it or not, someone’s actually become a real life millionaire selling (or rather speculating in) land.
I’ve been forced to learn new ways of making money. Being who I am, I absolutely refuse to join the sex industry. When it comes to sex, I’d rather buy than sell. Just kidding. About the buying part, not about the selling part. That’s my final word. Fortunately, there are a few more ways of making money.
So now I’ve become a professional dancer. LOL. No, not quite, but I do ‘camp’ for Lindens. Most addicts (did I say addicts? Slip of the tongue). Most residents frown on that, but camping is available and so I camp to make money. I sit in a chair or I dance. As simple as that. Of course you don’t make much and there are many pitfalls and hangups. You can get logged out. Some camping providers (is that the word, SL:ers?) kick you out on purpose so you have to pay a little fee to start over again. If you’re not careful you end up losing money instead of making it.
Anyway, let’s say I have a little hard earned cash. I head for the luxurious stores. In Second Life shopping really is a pleasure. You can walk around those endless halls, gazing at the merchandise hanging on the walls. Once you’ve found what you’re looking for (and being me, I’m extremely picky) you click on the item you’ve chosen and voilà ! You’ve bought it.
One of the worst aspects of Second Life is that it can be extremely sexist. I’m not going to get into the more ‘adult’ examples of this. Suffice it to say that the female apparel is slutty. There’s no other word for it. You’re expected parade your poor avatar around half-naked. Not me. Not this girl.
There. Enough for now. This is the end of my (possibly first) report from 3D land.
Studying Languages
I love to learn new languages or work on the ones I already know a little. Unfortunately, apart from Swedish (naturally) and English, it’s quite hard to get practice. You really should go to the country where the language is spoken, and preferably for a long time – six months, a year, or more. If you can’t do that – and I can’t and I don’t know when I’ll ever be able to – there are some other things you can do.
Almost every day I read the news online. Not just ordinary daily news, but about all the other things I’m interested in. When it’s possible, I try to read the news in as many languages as possible. For instance, I get my daily news stories from a site called EuroNews. There I can read the same news story in French, Spanish, Italian and German. That helps a lot and if I need more help, I use an online service, like Altavista Babelfish.
Technology news and ecology news are trickier. Those are just two of the things I’m interested. Usually, I can only get those news stories in my two first languages. When I can, I try to get those stories in French and possibly Spanish – my two “second best” languages. That doesn’t mean I like some languages more than others. It’s just that these are the ones I’m a little better at, than German and Italian.
Another thing I do, is read books. So far, that’s only in French. I try to get a good book I’d like to read and then I buy it in French. In fact, I don’t think the series of mysteries I’m into now have even been translated into Swedish, and most likely not into English either.
Last year or the year before, I found out that a Chinese book I wanted to read was only available in one Western language. Fortunately for me, that language was French. That gave me the opportunity to read the book and practice one of my languages at the same time.
One of the best things you can do – other than staying in the country where the language is spoken or talking to a native speaker – is chatting or emailing with a native speaker, or posting at some online message board or forum or in an internet group. For a while, I had the opportunity to chat with a Frenchman. That was really useful. I could use expressions that were a little more difficult than I usually dared to, because I got instant feedback. If I was searching for a word, I could ask him. Of course, emailing is good too. You’ll need to use a dictionary, but it’s probably best if you can express yourself at least on a basic level without help. It’s more difficult if you need to use the dictionary all the time.
Of course, you might ask yourself what possible use I could have for my studies. In strictly utilitarian/economical terms probably not. I’m not planning on moving to another country, though I used to think about that a lot, some years ago. It’s possible that I might get a job here in Sweden, where I’d get to use some of my languages. Of course, I’d need to be completely fluent. I’m only fluent in English (and Swedish), not any of the other languages. Not yet anyway.
What I’d really like is to become a translator, but that’s not going to happen. I write books in Swedish and English, but I doubt if I’ll ever be able to write that well in any of the other languages.
Despite that, I think my language studies are ‘useful’. At least it keeps my brain active. Besides, it’s a lot of fun. Nowadays, there isn’t much I find ‘fun’, but reading, writing and using languages in some way, really are.
Reading about history is another thing I enjoy. Reading – not studying. Music is another of my interests, but the only reason I mention that here, is that listening to music can actually help you with your language studies.
When you listen to a song, you can try to translate the lyrics inside your head. Music is an aspect of a country’s culture, so by listening, you might learn something about the country where the language is spoken.
These are just a few things you can do to practice your languages. None of this is very expensive. If you can’t afford to or don’t have the time to travel, you can try doing what I do. Of course, that only works when you’re not a complete beginner. On the other hand, there are supposed to be excellent online courses or courses on CD:s and DVD:s, but that will be a lot more expensive.
When I began to write stories
I don’t even remember exactly how old I was, but it was pretty soon after learning to read – at the age of three. I had these little note pads, where I was constantly writing little stories, based on the kind of books I liked to read, or had read to me. They’re all gone now, and that’s just as well. From what little I remember, those stories were really simple.
After that, I kept writing, but I don’t think there’s anything left from the time before I was ten or so. I wrote essays in school, but that’s hardly the same thing. One of them made my teacher ask my mom to come in and talk to her. Apparently I’d written something about how school was like a prison…
Several years later, I wrote another story about how I felt about school. It was about a little ant who was kept prisoner by her enemies…
Did I have any role models? Some, at least. Not counting the writers I read as a child (some of which I still return to) I didn’t have that many role models, but I did have my parents.
Mom used to tell me really great stories. I wish she’d written them down. In the past couple of years, mom has begun to write really cool children’s stories – many of them are about respecting animals, as well as people.
My dad used to write when he was a kid, mainly stuff for his school paper, but also some poetry. He once won a contest on his school for that poetry. I’ve been told that he also wrote some adventure stories, probably about space travel. His older sister was called in to help him with illustrations. She was a very kind sister. Even if she’d been out until late the night before, she’d always help her little brother out.
Celebrities I’d like to kiss
I recently saw a list of the ten celebrities the Swedish people would like to kiss. It was in one of the tabloids. (No, wait. Did I read something in a tabloid? That has to be a mistake. This is what really happened. I was searching for something else and accidentally ended up on that page. Right. That’s it.)
In any case, I didn’t agree with most of the choices on that list, so I had the idea of making up my own. I couldn’t come up with ten, so there’s only six on my list. They’re not in any particular order, except maybe nr one and two.
1. Eagle Eye Cherry
2. Ola Rapace
3. Danny
4. Darin
5. Niclas Wahlgren
6. Niklas Strömstedt
What meandering roads your mind can take you on, when you’re a little tired. 🙂 Since I’m rarely completely alert, I naturally thought of some international (or rather American) celebrities I’d like to kiss. Here too, there’s no particular order except when it comes to the first two.
1. Jonathan Bennet
2. Johnny Depp
3. Enrique Murciano
4. Danny Pino
5. Jason Dohring
6. Jared Leto
