Responding to Monsoon's comment in the previous post: I suppose preferring one [class of] language over another is a function of what language you're used to / exposed to? Compared to English, Malay and French, German to me sounds to noisy, harsh and guttural. But, if you were born into a Germanic tongue, I can certainly see how the Romance languages, especially French [the language *and* the people!], can seem whiny :-) Despite my not-so-fondness [I wouldn't go so far as to say hate or dislike] of German, if I were to pick it up, it would make accessible a large slice of the language pie: most Scandinavian languages are Germanic-based, and like I've mentioned before, I have this soft spot for Iceland, I'd like to go there someday to explore areas I've only ever imagined while studying Icelandic Literature & Sagas, so ideally, once it's time to get out of limbo/jobless bum mode, I'll be looking at something along these lines.
Books: of the six books that jumped out at me two weeks ago, I've made it through 4, reviews of which are at FWDT.
The 20 Questions Meme: Found this over at Harmonica Man's place last January, but am only now getting my thoughts together enough to put my 2-cents' worth. So, for those who want a bit more of insight into me, perhaps this will help ya:
- When you buy a greetings card are the words or the picture more important to you? Words are definitely important, but never ever for one moment think that I'd look twice at those cards with three pages of sappy words! urgh! To me, what's important is wit and humor [brief but clever], preferably combined with an appropriate humorous image.
- What's your favorite kind of cake? The kind that I can have *and* eat too? LoL! Okay okay... for the longest time in my younger days cheesecake from the Olive Garden was my major sin. Now, the few times I *do* have cake/dessert cravings, I'm torn between apple pie à la mode, or an ooey gooey hot fudge brownie à la mode.
- Do you ever make gifts for people, if so what, or do you buy them? Usually, gifts are bought. But in the past I have made some simple cross-stitch thingys as gifts, and more recently I've created some doodle greeting/thank you cards - does that count?
- What's your favorite holiday - i.e. Christmas? Well, considering I don't work anymore, every day is a "holiday"! Back in Malaysia, I appreciated *any* holiday that resulted in the exodus of people from KL back to their hometowns, leaving townies like me to enjoy the traffic-jam-less city for a few days :-) Here in the U.S. I gotta say I don't really participate in any holiday events [it's all too easy for Kosh and I to just not socialise... we gotta get better at that...], but I suppose if I were to pick one particular event, I'd say The Summer Solstice, not that I've ever participated in marking this event, but the sun is my element, and that's the longest day of the year....
- Are you going on holiday this year? If so, where? See above re every day being a holiday for me;-)
- What was the best party you've ever been to? Heh. I'm sure I've attended a few good ones in my past lives, if only I could remember... LoL! Acheyhol tends to leave holes in my memory *grin!* But the most recent outing I had - my farewell outing to Plant Hollywood with Baby Angel & bf, Krista, & Neome ranks pretty high up there what with the excellent food, great music, and me actually letting loose and dancing [and head-banging too - like I said, great music!].
- If you are married, describe your wedding. If not, what would your ideal wedding be like? Due to time constraints as a result of my visa, we couldn't really organise a big fat wedding event [not that we wanted a huge event anyway!], so ours was a sign-a-piece-of-paper-in-front-of-a-judge deal with only our immediate family members in attendance, followed by dinner at a restaurant that evening. His parents are organizing a larger celebration in May, and this will involve extended family and friends. Then.. whenever Kosh and I get around to traveling a bit, we'll need to have a reception of sorts in Switzerland *and* Malaysia so that people from *that* side of the world can meet him. Multi-country/continental unions can get rather complicated!
- What's the most romantic thing that's ever happened to you? Heh. I'm drawing a blank. But definitely up there would be Kosh traveling more than halfway around the world to meet me in Oz, where his actual time spent in Oz barely matched the total to&fro traveling time!
- What's your favorite romantic song? Heehehee! So many! But the one on my mind right now is Meat Loaf's Because of You from his Couldn't Have Said It Better album: 'tis one of "our" songs.
- Favorite heartbreak song? Again, so many to choose from, but for some reason Toni Braxton's Unbreak My Heart popped into my head - this song is so powerfully sad, it gives me the shivers!
- Which celebrity would you like a dream date with? Tough one! During my teenage years, I'm pretty sure I'd answer Michael J Fox. Now that I'm old[-er] and boring, I certainly don't have any celebrity crushes or anyone I'd want to go out on a date with.
- Which female celebrity do you find beautiful? Eh. Beautiful? Hard to say.. best I can say is that I'm fond of Allyson Hannigan, though it's because of a combination of her looks plus her character and lines in BtVS...
- Which male celebrity do you think is attractive? Hahaha, again, in my teenage years I'd have rattled off a whole list: I crushed on *so* many actors [Michael J Fox definitely up there] and singers [Morten Harket from a-ha was soooooooo drool-worthy!]... but now... the best I can say is James Marsters [Spike in BtVS & Angel]. I go for the anti-hero archetype.
- Describe the kind of underwear you normally wear Boring ones. Black. Cotton. No "sexy lingerie" for me, thank you!
- If you could be in a television sit-com, which would you choose? Heh. F.R.I.E.N.D.S is the only sit-com I've watched/enjoyed in a while, so I suppose I'd choose this kinda by default....
- Which character would you like to be? Phoebe, definitely Phoebe. The Phoebe of the early seasons. The quirky one who dabbled in all those new age aura reading type things. The one who lived life oblivious to the usual rules of social subtleties & etiquette.
- What are your favorite boy and girl names? No fave boy names,,,, but as a result of being a BtVS freak, "Willow" and "Amber" are stuck in my brain...
- What's your supermarket of choice? Convenient / closeby = a JewelOsco. I miss the Meijer we used to go to in Urbana though.
- What is your best character trait? My weird sense of humor, perhaps?
- What is your worst habit? Procrastination, perhaps?
Okay, that's it for today.... will be working on French homework over the next few days: I'm gonna write up an interview with our psycho kitty cat for one class, and produce an essay describing myself for the other. Fun!
Cool! Glad you dug it out of the archives. Somehow it doesn't surprise me you chose a Meatloaf song as your favorite ;-)
ReplyDeleteYou are a reading machine, aren't you? It's an illness, I hear.
ReplyDeleteI took up German in school and did quite well in the exams. However, like all languages, it will rust if you don't use it and it happened to me too. Never had the chance to use it after school (in fact not even in school) and that's it. I learnt that it is quite similar to Dutch and it is spoken in Austria and parts of Switzerland.
ReplyDelete