C'est la vie - So ist das Leben

"So is the life", says the title - first in French, then in German. Wow!! I am a linguist :)

I find myself to be a good host. Gives warm welcome, cold drinks and tasty food and good entertainment. Today I had guests. It's getting confirmed over and over that I am a good cook. When people appreciate my food every time, it's not just fluke.

It should be the first time, I cut myself. I was hurrying to cut tomato and sliced my finger. After a long time, I tasted blood. I am no vampire, but I like the taste of my blood. The strong thick taste of blood. I have told this to a couple of my friends and they are like "yuck!". Still facts are facts, the taste of blood is good. (I've had only mine.... also it doesn't mean that I like to have it or anything. Just when I get a cut in my hand, I just keep the body part in my mouth.. why do they do it in movies? No clue..!!) It's a small wound and would not leave any scars [hint hint*]

Just when my guests came in and we were about to dine, the person whom I wanted not to come... he too came! I was not sure how to respond. I had deliberately avoided him for the dinner. In the past 2.5 years we've had many dinners together.. but there wasn't even a single one from his side. He never bothered to ask me to join him for dinner or anything. Is this a good enough reason to avoid him? There are a couple more reasons. Not worth explaining.. here...

Anyway he came to my room, I am the host, I have to behave like one. I asked him too to join for dinner. My mind was a little agitated at that time. Now it's cooled down. So ist das Leben.

I want to write more about some of my thoughts. May be they aren't enough ripe. Shall wait till thoughts are ready.

Am I being a too frequent blogger? May be I should reduce a little.

That's it. Have to do some German HW.

Signing off, Sands.

PS: There is no PS.

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Slightly Tough

The syllabus is becoming more and more heavy. German is getting more complicated as I learn more and more. The first two courses were really cake walk for me. Now with all the nominativ, akkusativ and dativ cases and their all combinations with der, die and das - that itself accounts for 9 different cases. The plural gives another 3 cases. Then each of these things with definite article, indefinite article and no-article gives altogether 36 cases. These 36 cases are without adding the 12 cases coming with genitiv.

And each and every adjective - what to add at the end of them. Knowing the meaning of each of them. At least 30 new words here.

New nouns - knowing their gender. Another crazy thing.

New verbs - all the 6 conjugations associated with each verb.

Altogether it's too complicated.

I always believed and still believe that I have pretty good a brain. All these 100+ cases coming together is slightly driving me crazy.

I still don't really have a clear idea about where to use dativ/akku/nominativ. That is the most difficult thing. All the above things I mentioned have very clear rules and has to get practiced. But this decision making depends on the way I think.

The way Germans think about a verb is not the same as a south Indian like me thinks. I am confident about the rules and 100+ cases I mentioned above. But this decision making about which case to use when... is going to be slightly difficult.

The major problem is that it's more based on rules than on logic/intuition.

No big deal, I'll do it well. Just a matter of time and practice.

This thing is anyway giving enough exercise to my brain muscles. :)

Tail Piece: If you ask some one why is something this way, most probably the explanation would be based on some rules. Here rules rule and intuition has a lesser role. What a pity!!

Signing off, Sands

PS: Finally, I've to agree that I started reading my German work books at home. :(

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Visthaarabhayam alias Explaino-phobia

The title has a Malayalam* word. I am unable to find a single word in English which has the same meaning. The following paragraph explains the meaning of the title.

I have lot of things to tell. I am a bit concerned about the space/time it's going to take if I write everything in detail. This concern keeps me away from explaining everything in full detail. This concern/fear is called visthaarabhayam - literally "the fear to explain". The only word I can think of is "explaino-phobia". :)

I had made a small trip to a village near Munich. It was awesome. I had a great time with my mallu friends. Let me get over my phobia and write down my experience.

Walking in the moonlight, I am thinking of you - song for you... just for you ;)

Taking 3 long hours to travel 60 kms, that's how it started. Now I realise, it was stupid of me to assume that all of Germany is well connected - that too on a weekend. When Jimmy informed me that he and team are going to visit the malayali priest in the suburbs of munich, it took me no time to ask him "would it be okay if I too come?".

There was no surprise factor to see two malayali priests in the two neighboring villages of Bavaria. Malayali - it's a global phenomenon(problem?). They are there in every nook and corner of the planet.

We went to one of the churches where Fr. James is the priest. The church is 1200 years old. Yes, you read it right - 1200 years. It's a small church compared to the ones we see. But when I think about the age of it, I feel it'd have been one of the largest churches of that time. I was on my kneels for the 25 minutes of the service. Oh boy! in the first 5 minutes I felt my back is breaking.. then it was cool. I slightly slept while the service was going and forgot about the back pain. :)

The best part was just coming. There was a typical Bavarian musical event. We, Indians always think that westerners don't have any culture. It's just because we don't have any clue about the culture present here. As a matter of fact, we are losing our traditional cultural stuff and at the same time, these people are preserving their culture.

The dirndl (the typical costume of a Bavarian female) and lederhose (male dress) - they still wear it. They have their art forms, dance, music and what not. I am not sure, but the priest told me that even arranged marriages too happen here.

Back to the music. It was simply superb. The hall was filled with 150 people and we 4 were the only non-Bavarians and hence the "aliens". We got a very warm welcome too. Listening to the music, watching the beautiful girls and small comments we made about everything - the evening was fun. After a long time, I tasted beer. Is it okay to use the word "tasted" when I had 1 litre of beer in a single sitting? ;)

I shall write something which surprised me. The hygiene shown by Germans have surprised me most of the times. I could never have imagined that some German would eat something half eaten by someone. While we were at the table, there was a person sitting beside us who ordered food for him and after having a little of the food from his plate, he passed it over to his son. The son had the food with the same fork and knife his father used. I couldn't have imagined this from a German. The son is not a kid - he must be 25+. I could see the family values very visibly. If I am to say the truth, I was surprised and happy for the same.

I liked the way they take care of the language, customs, culture and values - we need to learn from them.

The other church was just 350 years old. And our accommodation was in the building which was a seminary in the past. Here there was one more surprise for me - the care taker of the building. She is an old lady - 78 years old. She's around the church for the past 60 years. She's the one in charge of the things for 60 long years.

She is a lady with such graceful looks and talks. She made our breakfast and we were chatting with her during breakfast. (Of course, I could only understand the conversation. My German is not yet good in shape to talk to people). While sitting in her presence and talking with her, my mind was full of admiration and respect. I cannot express it with words.

Last but not the least, my friends. Both the priests were very good. I didn't have to meet them to know they are good. All the priests I've ever met in my life were good and especially knowledgeable. These two were no exception - very friendly and youthful people. Fr. James is from Thrissur and Fr. Sunil from Palai. Fr. James has his masters in psychoanalysis - I have to clear a couple of my doubts during my next visit to him.

Jenny - the silent mode girl, I don't think I've met girls who could remain silent for such long times. A very nice girl with amazing memory power.

Jimmy - her brother, the leader of the team, looks (just looks) a little matured, he's too nice a person. If you know the old raghu of my btech class, you know jimmy. Every parent/grown-up would love him for his soft behavior.

The third is Arun, the cousin of the the above two - just like my normal friends or me - not too innocent nor nice nor matured - but a very good mixture of all craziness needed for the age. :)

The final one - myself. The over excited one who turned to be the cook. I'm sure now that I cook very well. People have started agreeing with that. :)

Back to the business. Life is going through a very critical time. I have to pull the horizons of my activities towards me - basically I've to reduce the number and variety of things I do. I'm going to be very busy for another 30 days, I guess. My correspondence and blogging might suffer from that. This is just an anticipatory bail.

That's all for now.

Signing off, Sands.

* - it really is not a Malayalam word. It should be Sanskrit.

Love is .... how should I say it?

It is utter stupidity to commit to someone if you are not sure when will you be ready to get married. It will be more stupid if you think you'll get married only after 5 years. And this promise of "I will be sincere" is almost impossible if the lover is going to be at a far distant place.. (different timezone)
- unless you live with a closed heart.

This is something which I witnessed today morning.

This guy came to me last night, with a thought that the girl was playing around with his feelings. I told him to stop giving too much importance to it. If at all she is playing, it is because he let's her to play with it.

I asked him to stop that...

Then at midnight, she starts talking with him. Slowly slowly this guy changes his attitude... finally he thinks, "after all she is promising me that she'll be sincere to me, then shouldn't I be giving that promise back?"

He promises... not because he wants to... because he's too nice a guy! He's not able to make choices here. He's not able to decide, he's not able to see what he wants.

Let him learn from his experiences!!

I cant write more.. I am tied!

Signing off, Sands.

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