Rotary Application Part one

well, I just got done filling out the first part of an application to go with Rotary youth exchange. It's a neat program for those of you who don't know. They send you abroad for a year and you go to school and learn about the culture and language. I'm hoping they accept me. If they do I'm planning on going to Russia or Belarus. I'm going to turn it in tomorrow. Let's all hope I get an interview call...

J'étais Malade

That was my problem for the last week. (I was sick for those of you who don't know french) Anywho I'm back on my feet or at least more on them than I was all of last week. I still feel pretty crummy at points. Though I did lose ten pounds. Isn't the stomach flu diet amazing?

We're going to be watching La Belle et la Bête (Disney) in French class. We're going to start reading a version of it tomorrow. I'm excited though at the moment I'm just tired.

If you haven't noticed, I rearranged the layout of the links and whatnot. I decided that no one was able to see the cool links and stuff I had posted so I just tweaked the sidebar, moved the archives and stuff nobody wants to see to the bottom of the page.

Okay. That's all I've got for now, I'll try to keep you all updated but right now I have to shop for my textbook for Russian class and go appease my angry mother.

L'homme qui te ressemble English Translation

The Man Who Resembles You
By: René Philombe
Translated by: Abigail Faust

I knocked at your door
I knocked at your heart
So that I may have a good bed,
So that I may have a warm fire
Why do you refuse me?
Let me in brother!

Why do you ask
If I am African
If I am American
If I am Asian
If I am European?
Let me in brother!

Why do you ask
The length of my nose
The thickness of my mouth
The color of my skin
And the name of my gods?
Let me in brother!

I am not black
I am not red
I am not white
But I am only a man
Let me in brother!

Let me in your door
Let me into your heart
Because I am a man
The man of all times
the man of all the heavens
the man who resembles you!

Translation Decision

okay, so a while back I installed this nifty counter onto this blog. No, it's not the sign language counter at the bottem of the page, this one is invisible. I got it from Stat Counter. It's a pretty cool thing. Anyway one thing I've noticed is that lots of people search this blog for L'homme qui te ressemble by Rene Philombe. I've also noticed that a lot of people are looking for an english translation of this poem. Some people have used google translator to do the job but to be perfectly honest it does a horrible job. So, I have made a decision. I have decided, for good practice, to translate the poem. It will be up ASAP because I have some time to myself tonight so I will sit down and do it. Hopefully it'll be a better job than google though by no means am I a professional tranlator. Anyway, look for it.

As an aside, I found out about this great thing called Tocyrillic. Anyone who has firefox should go and download this great extension for the browser. It makes me want to post more stuff in Russian because it makes transliterating it easier than taking six hours to plunk it out on my keyboard.

Get ToCyrillic from Mozilla

Epiphany

(sarcasm) Alright so I just spent the last hour redoing Monday's Russian homework. Marina gave us the option of not turning it in until tomorrow if we had things to fix and since the first time I did it it was pretty pathetic I decided to redo it. What was the homework? Why write twenty sentences. Ten about the birthdays of your family and ten about holidays both American and Russian. During the past hour I had a sort of Epiphany and realized that I had missed the whole point of the homework in the first place. Not only was the point to practice talking about people's made up birthdays. Oh no! during the past hour my notebook and I got to be very close and I realized hidden in the depths of this assignment were a review of the genative case, a review of numbers, and a culture lesson wrapped into one, and so I came to discover yet again that(/sarcasm) I know absolutly nothing about Russia, its history, and its culture.

Actually in all seriousness I learned about several holidays. Women's day, Old New year, Defenders of the Motherland Day, and although I can't tell you anything about these holidays, I can tell you when they are. But I'm to lazy too right now because I just spent the last hour doing it.

On my quest to help myself complete this task I did find some really cool websites which I will be posting in a post and then on a side bar in the next couple of days (hopefully).

I just want you all to know that I love french class! I've gotten to be partners with the exchange student several times and It's both scary and exciting. Scary because I know I mess up. I hate messing up around native speakers or people who speak really well but I've decided I need to get over it because if I don't, I'll miss some cool opportunities. So I'm practicing not being self concious in French class.

I asked Madame for more books. She gave me several thing ones. One is about a man who planted trees, one is a really little version of Madame Bovary, one is called the hard winter and I don't remember what the last one is called. Hopefully they will provide some mild amusement in the otherwise dull world of the high school classroom (French and Spanish are pretty much boring.) I guess I could talk about English and how we're reading selections from Beowolf. Don't get me wrong, that's not the problem. I've kind of got this thing for epic poems. It's just...this year's teacher...*Sigh* oh well.

Alrighty, now that I've yakked a bunch I've got to get off and get to bed so I can get up and go to Russian tomorrow and...CRUD! I just realized that I didn't do any of my other Russian homework. Guess I'd better get up early tomorrow...

Ready for it?

Okay, It's late and my Russian homework isn't done yet, but I just have to post this. Are you ready for it? it's about the coolest thing ever! I can update more on my other languages later and in more detail but for now I'm gonna give you this. We have a french exchange student in our french class!!!!