Greek and Spanish Studies, and Sunlight

Sunlight and rain have mixed again today, as well as humid heat that discouraged me from going out much in the late afternoon.

My only commitment today, as a seminar on-campus was cancelled for this week, was a video lecture on modern Greek history, at 4:15 p.m.

I was originally supposed to pick up a prescription at the doctor's office, but it was closed for the afternoon due to quarterly bookkeeping, so instead I went grocery shopping.

For dinner I made a tabbouleh variant from chopped tomato, parsley, dill, and Persian cucumber, with pistachios as a garnish; fried halloumi-like cheese and falafel balls from the deep freezer; roasted cauliflower, new potatoes, carrots, and eggplant; arranged hummus from the local Turkish supermarket's deli section on a plate; and made tzatziki. For dessert, we had dates and date-stuffed pastries, as well as pistachios and blueberries.

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Late last evening I researched back-up plans in case the Free University doesn't accept me this winter semester.

One finding: it would make sense to refresh my Spanish grammar.

For example, I had forgotten how to construct the preterite and the imperfect verb tenses, which is a problem even for the A1 level. Another complication: in high school we were taught Latin American grammar. Not Castilian.

It's true I've kept up with Spanish since high school and expanded my vocabulary enough to be able to read books without a dictionary, and understand some speakers at the United Nations almost 100%. But it hasn't been enough to be able to understand idiomatic spoken Spanish, for example, or to speak fluently at all.

So I set up a language learning checklist that I intend to work through every day except Sundays and maybe Saturdays: "Easy Spanish" videos on YouTube, exercises from the old textbooks in the home library, 10 pages per day of a Spanish novel (Fortunata y Jacinta), at least 10 minutes per day of a Netflix film that was originally in Spanish (Adú, which admittedly also has a lot of French and English), and writing out whole conjugation tables for verbs with help from Wiktionary.

It's a little intense; I'm not certain I can keep it up.

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My classmates and I were given reading for the Greek history course, too, so I also read a little bit for that and started typing up a timeline so I can keep dates, places, events, and actors straight.

But unless I decide to study Greek grammar over the weekend (it's not just in Spanish that I need to learn verb tables!) that's the end of my commitments until Monday.

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Healthwise, I don't feel 100% back to normal. My Eeyore side has been moping wistfully at a few metaphorical fences, and I feel very angsty if I don't get enough sleep and risk suddenly running out of energy later in the day. But it is a relief that, aside from persistent iron deficiency in the blood test, my medical check-up from Thursday resulted in values that were – in the words of a lady at the doctor's office – "super."