gwerd:

For Reals!

Can’t study. Can’t focus. Can’t think about anything else. It’s amazing how life works—how it never ceases to amaze me. 2011 has been, by far, the best year of my life. I have experienced things that some people may never get to experience ever in their life, and met people who have changed my life profoundly. I feel like I’ve grown so much as a person. Although graduation looms nearer with each passing day, I eagerly count down the days. Perhaps I should be more concerned about what the hell I’m gonna be doing with my life… but no. I’ve got plenty of time to worry about that. I still am not quite sure what I want to be when I grow up, but I’ve somewhat of an idea. S’all good. For now, I will do my best to at least PASS my classes… and try my best to cope with the difficulties of a long-distance relationship. I miss him. 

There are times when I’ll be biking down the lake path in Chicago, or Clark Street, and upon seeing tall buildings all around me (especially as I near downtown), I am immediately in awe. It happens, still, almost every time. It is amazing to think of all the hard work and effort put forth by ordinary people like you and me to create these monstrous, incredible structures. 

It makes one wonder if there ever will be a point where mankind will hit a sort of plateau; if we will ever get to a point where we have reached the limit of our understanding and physical, intellectual capabilities. Or will we continue to know more and create even more technologically complex things…it makes me apprehensive for the future and what may come next, if anything. 

Regardless of these crazy thoughts I have and tangents I go off on, one thing remains constant: I love this city. No matter where I may end up living for an extended period of time, I always know that Chicago is my home. I have cultivated wonderful friendships here and have had life-changing experiences. I wouldn’t ever change a thing. 

Today I went to visit my mom at work. One of her co-workers is Italian, and she excitedly introduced me to him, telling him about how I used to live in Italy. He then says to me, “parli italiano?” And of course I respond “Si!” We then have a bit of a conversation. I know that doesn’t sound like a big deal, but I am always so excited when I realize that I’m actually capable of understanding another language. I’m just slow at responding! 

A friend of mine that I met in Oslo, Norway once told me “You are never too old to learn another language.” That’s probably one of the most wonderful things I’ve ever heard! Next up, I want to learn Portuguese, French, Norwegian, maybe even Arabic or Greek. Something that uses a different kind of alphabet than what I’m used to. 

I love how Italian can be much less ambiguous than English, in the sense that all the nouns and adjectives (depending on the noun they describe) have a gender. For example, it always sounds kind of weird (in English) to say, “Tonight I’m going to go out with my girlfriends” (meaning friends that are girls). Italian is so much more concise. The word meaning ‘friends that are female’ would be amiche. So; stasera usciró con le mie amiche. 

I also love how how diminutive and augmentative suffixes exist in Italian. All you do is add the suffix -ino to the end of a noun (being sure it agrees with the noun in gender and number) to make it translate as ‘little ___’. An Italian once called me ‘Mariellina’—little Mariella. Quite endearing! The suffix -one does the opposite: nasone from naso would translate to ‘big nose’. God, I feel like I’m writing a freakin Wikipedia article! Heh. 

Fun fact: Apparently some Italians think it’s funny to hear people say they are from Chicago (as I had done so many times). This is because Chicago sounds like the words Qui cago in Italian, which translates to “I poop here”. hihihihi che divertenteeeee!

Although my Italian is still on the edge of intermediate, I can’t help but be frustrated by the lack of an equivalent tense to the past progressive or pluperfect in Italian. If I want to express an action that began in the past and is still continuing in the present, there is no way to say that unless I specify a certain amount of time (i.e., ho studiato italiano da 3 anni — I have studied Italian for 3 years).

However, if literally translated, it would translate as I studied Italian for 3 years. Which sounds a bit meh in English. So it can go either way, which is confusing. Like sometimes I wanna say, ‘what have you been doing?’ but.. oh well. There is only the passato prossimo, trapassato prossimo, passato remoto, and imperfetto to express past actions. Let me know if I forgot one, it’s 10:08 and I didn’t get a lot of sleep. Ugh.

Another thing I wonder is how the verb mancare would be translated in English. Yes, I know that in order to learn a language, one should not think so much about the literal translation because that doesn’t help. I’m just curious. To the best of my knowledge (although I could be wrong), mancare is used with an indirect object.

An example would be the common expression (which I use all the time) mi manchi, meaning I miss you. However, the pronoun mi is an indirect object in Italian, meaning the best literal translation would be ‘you are missed by me’, because manchi is in the 2nd person singular. However, this is incorrect because manchi is being used in the active voice, not passive. I’ll wonder about this more later… I’ve got to go to work.  I love thunderstorms.