I just finished reading 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea for probably the third or fourth time, not including the many times I read the children's illustrated version. It's still surprising to me how easily and quickly it transports me to a world of submarine adventures. I wonder though how Capt. Nemo is read in school these days, if its a read at all. Although he is an extremist anarchist, a thief, and very likely a major funder of conflict, I do not think you can correctly label him as a terrorist. There are no demands, no publicly stated positions, no brand or identity. Even to the closest passenger aboard the Nautalis, Nemo's agenda and motivations remain unclear. Is Captain Nemo a terrorist? 1000 words for next friday's class. Scifi Lit 101.
Actually I've been on a bit of a fiction bender lately, probably to escape the stresses of apartment hunting and the acclimatization to Stuttgart. I re-read Dan Simmon's Hyperion, but in a strange way: Simmon's tends to get too carried away in the genre characterizations, and I feel like I've read the book too many times, so I skipped all the individual stories and just read the frame text. I finished the book in about a day in this way. And then I found myself going back and re-reading all the individual stories anyway.
Saori bought us a softcover copy of Pamuk's My Name is Red which won a nobel prize for literature. It's an intriguing book so far, about religious art, the conflict between east and west, the nature of duty. It's probably the only murder mystery where you find out who committed the murder in the first twenty pages and then the rest (so far) seems to be about the why.
One of the principal difficulties of Stuttgart is the language barrier. Everything that needs to get done for living requires this difficult enterprise of understanding and being understood. Yes, many Germans speak English, but it gets really wearing when every time you get past the first sentence, you have to trot out "sprechen sie Englisch?" I should not compare Mexico with Germany, but in Mexico, if you are a spanish-speaking gringo, you are kind of a rock star. If you look anglo-europeanish in Germany and you can stammer out a few German phrases, you are kind of an idiot.
So learn the language. I know. We are trying.
Saori and I went to IFA, the "best" langauge school. But classes don't start until october and it's over 200 euro a month. I'd be willing to pay, but I just want to get started sooner.
So we went to the cut rate school, Hanke-Schulungen, and they have classes which start at the beginning of september I am thinking of joining. One hot weekday afternoon, Saori and I sacraficed our lunch hour to sit in a stuffy hot room and take a German grammar test for placement purposes. After the class in Ahwatukee, the months of study on my own, four months of living in Germany, they advised me to start at the very beginning of their beginner course. It wasn't discouraging in the least.
Actually I've been on a bit of a fiction bender lately, probably to escape the stresses of apartment hunting and the acclimatization to Stuttgart. I re-read Dan Simmon's Hyperion, but in a strange way: Simmon's tends to get too carried away in the genre characterizations, and I feel like I've read the book too many times, so I skipped all the individual stories and just read the frame text. I finished the book in about a day in this way. And then I found myself going back and re-reading all the individual stories anyway.
Saori bought us a softcover copy of Pamuk's My Name is Red which won a nobel prize for literature. It's an intriguing book so far, about religious art, the conflict between east and west, the nature of duty. It's probably the only murder mystery where you find out who committed the murder in the first twenty pages and then the rest (so far) seems to be about the why.
One of the principal difficulties of Stuttgart is the language barrier. Everything that needs to get done for living requires this difficult enterprise of understanding and being understood. Yes, many Germans speak English, but it gets really wearing when every time you get past the first sentence, you have to trot out "sprechen sie Englisch?" I should not compare Mexico with Germany, but in Mexico, if you are a spanish-speaking gringo, you are kind of a rock star. If you look anglo-europeanish in Germany and you can stammer out a few German phrases, you are kind of an idiot.
So learn the language. I know. We are trying.
Saori and I went to IFA, the "best" langauge school. But classes don't start until october and it's over 200 euro a month. I'd be willing to pay, but I just want to get started sooner.
So we went to the cut rate school, Hanke-Schulungen, and they have classes which start at the beginning of september I am thinking of joining. One hot weekday afternoon, Saori and I sacraficed our lunch hour to sit in a stuffy hot room and take a German grammar test for placement purposes. After the class in Ahwatukee, the months of study on my own, four months of living in Germany, they advised me to start at the very beginning of their beginner course. It wasn't discouraging in the least.
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