No, I'm not dead.

Ok, every now and then I take this incredibly long hiatus from blogging. It's not that I don't have anything interesting to blog about, a ton has happened since my last post, it's just that I've been INSANELY busy with school this quarter. I really don't even have time to post right now, but I've started feeling guilty. You know, like when you haven't used your favorite mug in a while, and you think it's starting to get lonely? That's how I feel about my blog sometimes.

So, here's the update on the Joshua.

I'm trying to learn three languages at once.
Part of me wants to stop the post right there because I think it would be funny. And it would also almost be accurate. Trying to get the finer nuances of Hebrew vowel changes, while also learning Akkadian, and trying to self-teach German well enough to pass two translation exams... yeah. I'm pretty much up to here with the accusitive case. This whole learning lots of languages thing, and learning the rules behind languages reminds me of just how artificially we learn new languages here in the states. So many times when I'm reading something in Hebrew, I'll think to myself, "Wait! That's breaking the rules!" I forget that people who actually speak these languages fluently, are largely ignorant of the rules. For example: Let's say someone calls you on the phone and says, "Is Joshua there?" (Assume your name is Joshua) Do you think to yourself, "Ok, I need to construct a sentence consisting of the first person singular nominative independent pronoun used predicatively to the third person nominative neuter singular independent pronoun" before you say "It's me." And when you say, "It's me." Does anyone say, "Wait a minute! You just used the first person singular OBLIQUE independent pronoun! You can't do that! You're supposed to say 'It is I!'" No. No one says that, because when you know a language fluently, you don't care about the rules anymore. You just talk. I'll never be at that point with any of the languages I'm studying, (because they are all dead languages, and no one speaks them any more) but every now and then, I have to remind myself that these things are organic, and though we use rules to understand them, that doesn't mean the texts have to obey the rules all the time. And when they don't obey the rules, we get really cool passages.

Anyway, that's a very, very involved discussion regarding the fact that I'm trying to learn three languages right now. (Which no one, and I mean no one, should ever do.)

Now that I didn't just stop at "I'm trying to learn three languages at once." I realize that I don't really have anything else to talk about. Because that's pretty much the only thing I've been doing since the last time I posted. Which means that for over a month now, this blog has discussed nothing other than the fact that I'm learning different languages.

Which means if you're still reading, you must really like me. Thanks.

P.S. Rach and Norah are great. We're going to Madison this weekend for Halloween where we'll hang out with Tim, Marisa, Jim, Charlotte, Jeremy and Truman! (Oh, did I mention my big brother had a baby? Geez... I'm the most self-centered jerk sometimes.)

More on all that later, as I'm almost certain no one is reading anything this far down.

Okay. Bye.

Seriously. You can go now.