Quotation of the Week (37/09)

Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

(1804-1864, American novelist and short story writer)

 Aglais Urticae - Small Tortoiseshell Butterfly

On a walk through a park this past weekend, I came upon not only one but a whole lot of these butterflies. With my camera,  it is hard to get a good shot of more than one at a time. But if you look closely, there are three in the photo below. (The first photo is mine, too, taken on the same occasion in macro close-up mode.)

(Click on photos to enlarge.)

About Me and Languages (2)

Before I go on with the British influence – a musical interlude…

In 7th grade (~ 1st year of 'junior high') a second foreign language was introduced, either French or German. I chose French, probably strongly influenced by my parents, who were not too fond of German. In 9th grade, all former school classes were broken up and we were divided into new ones according to what kind of school we intended to go on to after that. My aim was to continue to focus on languages.

9th grade for me included several new friends and new discoveries. With my two best friends during that year, I shared a deep passion for Simon and Garfunkel. Not only did we listen endlessly to Bridge Over Troubled Water, Sounds of Silence, Parsley Sage Rosemary and Thyme, Wednesday Morning 3 a.m. and Bookends; we also analysed the lyrics. Wrote them down from listening, looked up the words, pondered over the meaning. Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Joan Baez were other favourites.

We also worked together on a school project about the Vietnam war. It was a year of increased awareness of the world, and deep thoughts about the meaning of life. Gospel music also came into my life during that year – one of my new friends was a member of a gospel choir, and I went to some church concerts to listen. Also, the Rock Opera Jesus Christ Superstar was released, and contributed to thoughts and discussion. It should perhaps be mentioned that my family weren't churchgoers. I was baptised as a baby in the Church of Sweden (Lutheran state church - nowadays separated from the state but that did not happen until the year 2000) and "confirmed" at the age of 14, because in those days nearly everbody was. But aside from that, we never went to church. During 9th grade and the following summer, however, I went from sort of agnostic to atheist back to agnostic to believer. I'm getting a little ahead of myself here, but not really off topic. Music and the church were, and always remained, important for my continued interest in and use of the English language.

To illustrate, here is Mary Hopkin with the song International from another of my favourite albums from the early 70s – Earth Song/ Ocean Song. (YouTube)

Nightmare and Dayscare

I woke up this morning from a rather confused and bizarre dream. Since I had just recently been discussing such things with blogfriend GB, I decided to try and catch this one before it withered away. I might have done it anyway, dreams interest me and over the years I think I have become rather good at analyzing my own. (With those of others, one can only sometimes make a suggestion. But I believe each person holds the keys to his or her own dreamworld. It just may take some work to "learn the language", so to say.)

Here's mine:

First I was at some kind of school with a lot of different buildnings. I was searching the school library at night for an audio tape. I also started listening to it, but when the tape ran out, I could not find the next one. At some point, I was also having a discussion with some teacher or professor, or maybe more than one.

Then, suddenly, I was in a hospital instead, going around the corridors in a hospital bed on wheels, with raised back support. Somehow, I was supposed to manoeuvre this bed like a wheelchair on my own, without help. I tell you, getting in and out of lifts/elevators was not easy! People kept sending me round from one ward to another, and I had no idea what treatment I was there for.

Finally I arrived at a desk where they told me that I was 20 minutes late, but they would try to fit me in. Fit me in for what? I wondered, and found them very hesitant to answer. They seemed to be avoiding telling me.

I saw a sign with a strange word that I could read, but not understand, and I saw that they were giving people injections. I demanded to know what it was all about. So they told me. It was an injection that might relieve pain, although it had not been properly tested yet, so they really could not say what effect it might have. I was very sceptical, but I was in pain, so I decided I'd try it. While I waited though, I felt I really needed to find a toilet. I was directed down some stairs into the basement. Fortunately, I could now walk. I went down, found the ladies room - and woke up.

The last part of it was the easy one. I very often find myself in search of a bathroom at the end of my dreams. Thankfully, I still always wake up in time to go find my own...

So what's behind the rest?
Yesterday, I was thinking back on my days at school, long ago. This will show up in blogpost(s) to come.
Shortly before I went to bed, I was thinking about one of my English professors at university. Libraries and old audio tapes had also been on my mind - and as usual, I had been listening to an audio book just before I went to sleep. I think that pretty much covers the school part of the dream.

The previous night, my friend G's wheelchair had been parked in my hall. (For real. She and husband B were staying the night.) G has been in and out of hospitals all her life; she's a 'fighter' but becoming more and more dependent on her wheelchair(s) lately. I also have some experiences of hospital myself. And I have pain problems. Right now, every day the newspapers have big black headlines like "We will not have time to vaccinate everybody" (against swine flu). Last time I had flu was a very bad experience; since then I've had vaccinations every autumn, and I really don't want to catch swine flu if I can avoid it. On top of that, the last thing I watched on TV before I went to bed was the first part of a mini crime series, in which two little boys were kidnapped and kept sedated by injections in hospitallike environment. The only clue the police had, was that on the pictures that were sent to them of the sleeping boys, there was a mysterious word printed on the sheets...

That's it.
No more nighttime scary crime series on TV for me!!!
And certainly no TV news...

Raven's Wordzzle Challenge #79

The Slumber Party Mystery

Chapter 27 – Letters

Raven's Wordzzle Challenge # 79:
Spam, perpetual motion, sprinkle, telephone pole, stains, alphabetical, surgery, flattery, liberty, preservation
shadows, singularity, Florida, caterpillars, copy

Back down in the hall, Skittles had intended to leave the house through the front door and go home, but suddenly changed his mind. Instead, he went back into the library, which now lay mostly in shadows. The doors to the terrace were still open, letting an evening breeze in. Outside, he could hear the faint swooshing of the watering device in perpetual motion, still distributing an even sprinkle of water over the lawn. He closed the door to the hall behind him, then also the doors to the terrace before he switched on the light. He went behind the General's desk to have a glance at the books. He was soon able to establish that if they were arranged in any kind of order, at least it was not alphabetical. "Preservation of liberty" he read on the back of one. "Caterpillars in World War I" it said on another. Skittles decided not to waste any more time on the books; it was something else that had made him go back in here. He went over to the ginger jar with the sunflower pattern, lifted the lid and peered down into it. Yes. The letter was still there. He had completely forgotten to ask Diana why she had put it there, he had only remembered it as he came downstairs again. He took the letter out and looked at it. It was addressed to Diana c/o the General's address, and it was postmarked in Miami. He turned it over. Nothing on the back, except for a few ink stains. What was it she had said about the plot in her book… something involving a blackmail letter and postage… and he was sure Florida had been mentioned, too. Skittles weighed the letter in his hand and in his mind for a while. Then he sighed and put it back into the jar. Being intrigued by a young lady's singularity was hardly reason enough for him to open a letter that she claimed to have written to herself. Flattery might be a better way to get her to explain. But not tonight. Skittles put the letter back in the jar, turned off the light, opened the glass doors to the terrace and went out into the night.

Upstairs, Diana had turned her computer on again to print out a copy of her next translation assignment, and was annoyed to find her email inbox full of spam. What she had hoped to be serious job offers turned out to be an offer of cheap plastic surgery, and instructions how to climb a telephone pole. Diana did not consider herself in need of either.

Autumn Is Here

My kitchen table

Summer is over, autumn/fall is here, and it's been "one of those days"... I had to shop some groceries in the morning. Outside the rain was pouring down. I put on rubber boots, an extra sweater, a jacket, and on top of it all a plastic rain poncho. And I took the bus. I still got soaking wet before I was home again. Moreover, in the shop the scanner system was not working. I hardly remembered how to shop without it but somehow I succeeded. Except that I forgot one of the things on my list. Had to come up with something else for lunch, and will have to be inventive again for supper with friends this evening.

The first thing I did when I got back home was get into a hot shower. (Warm wet instead of cold wet.) Before I even unpacked the groceries!

Then I had a phone call from one of the nice home carers looking after my dad. She informed me about some things I need to buy for him. I can do that, but I don't know when or how I'll be able to get them out to him. She also said he said he has a dentist appointment next week and did I know anything about that? I did not. Arrangements have to be made to get him there. She said call X. I called X. X said call Y. I called Y. Y said call Z. I called Z. Someone informed me Z will be back on Monday. (Sorry, I don't have the time right now to come up with suggestions for titles för X,Y,Z or explain the exact complications involved...) I also called the dentist to explain without really being able to explain.

Now I'm hoping the evening will be better. My friend G (the one who still writes letters by hand) with husband B will arrive in the evening and stay the night before they go on to catch a ferry to Denmark tomorrow morning. They have about 3½ or 4 hours drive here and it's still raining hard. I know they are even more exhausted than I am to begin with, and have to get up early tomorrow morning, so we'll have to make it an early night too. We'll probably end up trying to talk twice as fast as normal...

I'll also probably be late with my Wordzzle story this weekend, if I manage to get it together at all. 

It has been an Orange Week at Soaring Through the World. If you're not already following, click the link to see lots of colourful pictures! The one above, of my kitchen table, I decided to put here instead. The table cloth in this photo has a pattern of oranges and lemons designed by Swedish artist Lena Linderholm. If you write her name into Google picture search, a lot of colourful paintings by her will show up!

Now I'm going to have a rest before my friends arrive...

PS. I'm really fascinated by the LinkWithin gadget I put in a couple of weeks back. The one that suggests "You might also like..." When I published this post, one of the links suggested was my earlier post  Too Many Things...

About Me And Languages (1)

One or two Followers have wondered about me and languages. So I thought maybe I should fill in a few more details about that. I will do this by installments, so as not to tire either myself or my readers out…

Born to be a student!
(Me 9 months old, wearing student's cap.
It's my grandmother who's holding me.)

I am Swedish, at least four generations back on each side of the family, which is as far as I have any facts. Three out of my four grandparents had their roots in South West Sweden. The fourth moved down here from far up in the North.

My first contact with the English/American language was when I was six. (We also didn't have television until about then.) Then we had relatives from Illinois USA coming to visit - a cousin of my grandmother, and her husband and daughter. The daughter, second cousin of my mother, was only a few years older than I. There are pictures of us together drawing pictures and hugging teddy bears, and I remember her giving me American chewing gum. How else we communicated, I cannot really recall.

(Me on the left, my American relative on the right.)

I started school at the age of 7 but could read (Swedish) before that. English lessons began in 4th grade. My mother was good at English, she used to read novels in English herself and started early to encourage me to do the same. I was probably around 13 when I started reading Agatha Christie mysteries in English; we had a few of those at home. I also had penfriends in other countries. (In those days, contacts were made through ads in magazines and comic papers.)

When I was 14 (and my brother 7), our family went to London for a week in July, and saw all the sights: The Thames, Buckingham Palace, The Tower with the crown jewels, The Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, 10 Downing Street, Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum, The Planetarium, The Zoo,The British Museum, Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus, Westminster Abbey, St Paul's Cathedral, Royal Albert Hall, Regent Park, Hyde Park… Also the Sherlock Holmes museum, the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, Hampton Court with its maze, Windsor Castle, Stratford-upon-Avon with Anne Hathaway's (Shakespeare's wife) cottage, and Agatha Christie's play The Mousetrap (which had been running for 17 years by then – and is still running, I think!)

In the Hampton Court Maze

Wow. Did we really do all that (and some shopping) in a week? According to my photo album, we did. I don't suppose I personally had a lot of conversation opportunies during that week; but it did lay a firm foundation for my continued fascination with all things British…

Book Review: Magic Hour by Kristin Hannah

Again, a book I read - or rather, listened to, as audio book - in Swedish translation; which makes it hard for me to give direct quotes from it. But it's worthy of a short review anyway.

One day, a girl of about five or six years of age appears from "nowhere" in Rain Valley at the edge of a deep forest, together with a wolf cub. She can't speak and so can give no clue as to her identity or her past. She also seems terrified of human contact and lets no one close. Ellie, chief of police in the small town, asks her sister Dr. Julia Cates for help. Julia is a well-known child psychiatrist, but a scandal has recently ruined her career and made her a media target. She agrees to take on the case. However, when word spreads of Julia working with the “wild child”, the interest of the media is once again aroused. The authorities want to lock the girl away in an institution. But Julia is not only making progress with the child, whom she now calls Alice (after Alice in Wonderland). She is also developing a strong personal bond with the girl.

It is a fascinating story. How true, or believable, I cannot say. But symbolically, I believe it touches the inner child in every person who has suffered trauma and loss. It is a book about new beginnings: about slowly finding an identity and learning to trust and communicate with others again after being deeply hurt. It is of course most obvious in the little girl; but sort of parallell processes are also going on within Julia and the other grown-ups in the story.

Swedish book title: En flicka som kallas Alice.