Chirpy Update on "Uni," Etc.

On June 2nd I sent the electronic application to the Freie Universität and on the 4th I sent the corroborating documents (or, rather, my mother kindly dropped the envelope into the box for me on her way out), and now I am waiting. Since July 15th is the deadline for applications and responses come in September, I am not worried about being too much on tenterhooks, and instead am focusing — at least these days — on researching the news and revisiting Mozart sonatas on our piano and tending the bookshop.

After much dithering I decided to apply for Modern Greek, as promised, Near Eastern Studies (culture and languages), and Classical Studies: Latin. Russian wasn't an option in combination with other courses, as I found after studying the charts lengthwise and crosswise several times, though eventually I want to take a language course in it outside of studies. Realistically I don't think my chances of getting in are terribly good; however with Modern Greek I do happen to have an extra "in" if I've learned another modern language; since English is evidently one, and French in university and Spanish in high school are there, I hope that will help, and fortunately I did rather well in my Ancient Greek course.

In the meantime I've tried to acquire a little modern Greek; fortunately a vague recollection led me to the BBC website, which has a modest collection of resources including MP3 files to supplement the pronunciation guide I found in the dictionary in our bookshelves. I've done other things too but won't go into too much detail. Fortunately the pronunciation doesn't appear too abstruse, though it has certainly changed in 2000 years and it's a minor disappointment to pronounce "ph" as such and not as a strong "p," the loss of "eta" as a long e as opposed to ee is also sad, and so on and so forth. These changes do align the sound of Greek words more closely with the pronunciation of similar words in different languages, however, just taking "philosophy" as an example, and I admit I'm hardly distraught that the accents now indicate simple emphasis and not convoluted changes in pitch.

So . . . otherwise I'm reading through UNAIDS's report on AIDS after 30 years, though I am too ignorant about the issue to be properly informed even after the perusal, and at some point I may wrap up a blog post about the incoming executive editor of the New York Times. For the latter I've gone through our physical archive of New York Review of Bookses, and since Jill Abramson did important political reporting the contributions where she shows up have been a bundle of nostalgia. Her television appearances on Charlie Rose are also preserved, so I watched those. When was the last time I'd heard about Zell Miller, Jesse Helms, etc.? But I don't feel nostalgic about Whitewater, etc., and while the confirmation hearings of Clarence Thomas must have taken place while I was already reading the newspaper I don't remember anything about them. The combination of scandalmongering and of libelling victims of harassment makes it seem like it would have been a lacklustre use of time and attention anyway. Speaking of Rose, I found his show tremendously boring the last time I tried to watch it, but it has apparently really grown on me.

Less importantly, it has been a very warm day, not miserable precisely and my brain is reasonably active because of the aforementioned mental exercises, but my physical reflexes are presumably terribly slow and let's say I feel a little sticky. Garbage Day (Friday? — I've forgotten.) was the pits, and still a balmy air is very pleasant when it emanates from the flowers and particularly roses which are blossoming in panoply. Yesterday morning I realized that dehydration might be a minor issue, so I am taking "doses" of water with a couple drops of lime juice, teaspoon of sugar, and pinch of salt. It feels pleasingly unspartan particularly when I reach the bottom, i.e. the delicious deposit of saccharine grains.