My Handwriting and Linguishtics

My handwriting used to look like Spencerian Script. It has gone to hell in a hand basket. I am learning Russian. I think that I am learning nothing and envision my mind to be like a glass that is full to the top and the more my professor puts into my head, it just overflows. This is not the case because in reality, the Russian letters have hijacked my hands. What was once lovely script has been replaced with me making three humped letters that look like cursive /m/'s for English /t/ sounds. English /m/'s are now pointed and could look like /w/'s, but they are not. I just wrote a thank you note to my former art professor and realized that I couldn't read anything but "thank you," "wine" and "enjoy." As I had done Japanese brush art on the envelope and and card itself, my husband told me to send it, "It's been a week since we ate with her, your note is late, and it's beautiful. She'll know what you mean." My Russian handwriting is very pretty, but my English handwriting which I have never had to think about-- is very, very bad. I have to remind myself to print or just write very, very slowly.

I think the Russian is getting to me because of the letters coming out in my handwriting. Sometimes I see license plates and if they don't really spell anything, my brain switches to Russian and I start trying to pronounce it and figure it out. This means that it is working itself into my brain.

The other night I drank TWO beers. For me, this is a lot of beer. Actually-- I was starting my second beer. I sat down to type and my 17 year old leaned over my shoulder. "Mom, I think you'd better stop drinking. You're slurring your words."

I laughed, "I'm working on a paper and not talking to you!"

She laughed and told me to take a second look at my last paragraph. "Super" was /shuper/, "miss" had become /mish/. These were not mere typos. I was writing as I would have spoken. I wasn't drooling or tripping over myself when I walked-- I was just buzzed. ("To be! To be is to buzz!") I was writing as I'd have spoken. I had sat down at the computer knowing what I needed to write, and I articulated my answers very well. There was just the spelling issue. I wrote as I always do, writing a paragraph and checking it then correcting the red underlines in Word without thinking, then going on to the next paragraph. I got up and got a couple glasses of water to rehydrate my body which needed it, and gave my husband the rest of my beer.

We know there are areas of the brain that control speech and different aspects of it-- I wonder if there is something in us that controls how we speak and hit keys and do all that. Very interesting.

I can't believe what I just did.

I wrote an e-mail to my Russian prof and asked her for some poetry of the Russian masters. I asked for something simple so that I can learn to speak it better. I did not tell her this, but the dialogs that we recite in class mean nothing to me. She gives us poetry that children recite which is just little rhymes. They mean nothing to me. Chances are, I will not go to Russia in this lifetime. I am a mother with nine children and it's just amazing that I am even competing my degree. I used to want to travel, but now it seems as likely as me traveling to Mars. I don't give a rat's ass about the dialogs. I care about the poetry.

When I was younger, I had a bad stutter. I joined the debate team in high school because I wanted to get over it. My coach, for whom I named my first child, would later tell me that she went home and cried. I was so excited to be on the team, but my stutter was a huge hump in public speaking. It was painful to listen to me, but I so badly wanted to join the team. Debate teams over here do more than debate. They have drama events and she got me into mime so I could compete while she gave me poetry to practice for dramatic and humorous interpretation events. I read Shakespeare and Wordsworth and modern humorists and everything that she gave me. I overcame my stutter by learning the rhythm. I would stand in the hall after school and practice my works while kids ran indoors for the running team. I know I seemed weird but the same athletes who I was in class with noticed that when I read even when they good naturedly teased me and ran circles around me or tried to mess me up, I wasn't stuttering!

Once in a class another teacher called on me and asked me a question and I tried several times to answer him, but my stutter was bad that day and I stopped and asked to go see the school nurse because I had started to cry. One of the runners said, "Tea, you don't stutter when you read. Pretend you are reciting Shakespeare in the hall after school!" After that, I started getting better. Three years later, I was impossible to beat when I did my speaking events-- and I lost my stutter.

I hope the professor doesn't tell me that I have to memorize only the children's rhymes and dialogs and then get the poetry later.

In my German classes in high school, we only learned dialogs and I think that if she had taught us some poetry from the great German writers, I'd still speak it. Poetry is Art. Dialogs are lame and only useful if you get to travel and if the speaker deviates, you get confused. I read poetry for fun in English. I think that I would still speak German had I been introduced to it. Poetry has rhythm and there is a cadence to it. Poetry can be historical. You don't do poetry for a grade-- you do it for the sake of doing it.

Poetry teaches the structure of the language; it is like practicing katas in martial arts or doing compulsory figures in ice skating. Children's rhymes don't do it for me and dialogs depress me as I will most likely not travel to Russia.

I am not making any sense. She is going to laugh at me for even asking for something simple from the great writers, but that is what is relevant to me.

I love my Russian professor

My Russian professor is the most stylin' lady that I've ever seen. She is sleek, always dresses to the nines and we have to call her doctor. It took me a while to get used to because I know her out of class from years ago. She taught my daughters Russian.

The other day we were talking and I told her how beautiful she always looks and how I love to see what she will wear next. She has inspired me to shed my jeans and t-shirts for dresses and make-up again. (She said that she has that effect of people.) I told her how I enjoyed the formality, that I like the European feel of her classes and she knows that I want to teach to adults and said, "I do not have you call me doctor because I am European or even because I like myself. Americans do not understand. In Europe, teaching will not make you rich, but you are teaching the next generation of doctors, philosophers, thinkers and writers and dads and moms like yourself. European teachers dress like they do out of respect for their profession. This is the highest calling. There are doctors out there and there are fine people, but if they don't have a good teacher, they won't get any place. My students are all over the world doing everything. my classes are hard, but I know how important my job is and you will be better in your life and in everything because I respect my purpose and throw logs on your fire to learn!"

I had tears in my eyes.

I want to be just like her. I kicked butt on my translation assignment after that. I dress up to study now. It made me feel good to be in college and even just be alive.

What I admire more about her is that she is professional without loosing her touch with us and she makes us laugh. On Tuesday, someone complained about conjugating and asked why (she was teasing) that Russians just can't get it right and be like the English with easier conjugations.

She replied, "You want to know about difficult? Why do the English have to have seven tenses of the word /be/? Every time I turn around I have to ask myself, 'I need to put /be/ here?' You have seven tenses of it and then ugh-- you have definite articles and they haunt my sleep!" She was pretending to put her hand on her head like she wanted to pass out from the effort!

She asked me to come up and demonstrate the tenses of be and I imitated her walk and her voice (I am a failed actress!) and the whole class was laughing.

I hope that I can be like her whether I teach or be a doctor. I love her personality!