An excellent sammich

I had an excellent, excellent sammich the other day. Had tickets to a taping of The Colbert Report, so we went to New York for a couple of days. Wandered around Midtown and Central Park. Found this little soup and sandwich place on either 54th or 53rd just at the right time -- we were starving after wandering around all day. The Biochemist had a bowl of the Thai coconut curry, which was good, and a half a smoked Irish salmon sammich. Sounds like a gross combo, but it was consumed with great relish. I had chicken and rice curry, which was good enough, and an amazing sammich -- avocado, cheddar, whole grain bread and some kind of herbed mayo. Yum.

Nothing to report on the Arabic front, because I missed class. And I'm kind of feeling lazy and not doing my homework.

Brain freeze

I suffered a moment of brain freeze the other night in class. While reading a dialogue, I hit a word that I couldn't get past. Which would've been normal if it had been a new word, but no, it was a word that I know in masculine, feminine, singular, dual and plural forms. What stopped me? The diacritical marks were missing. Which is the thing (a thing) about Arabic that is giving me trouble. I'm used to Spanish, where accents and tildas are always included, otherwise the meanings can change. Si and sí are not the same thing.

The other thing I'm having a hard time with is the relaxed use of cases. In Russian, if genetive or accusative is appropriate grammatically, you always use it; there was no relaxation of that rule. But in Arabic, you scatter the use. Parts of speech may properly be in the accusative case, but once you've established that you understand the grammar rule, you don't actually use it uniformly. Which is killing me. Once I learn the rule, I want to apply it uniformly.

Weather note: it's raining. Flood warning. Drove around the harbor this morning -- I've never seen it so high. The northeast corner of Fleet Street as it turns on the President Street is awash. Only the far left lane isn't covered by standing water.

Other note: the Broadway Diner on Eastern Avenue, my habitual Sunday morning breakfast place, has recently installed a flat screen TV. Which is always tuned to Fox & Friends, blech. After watching once or twice while eating, I've learned to sit with my back to it. Otherwise it causes me to have indigestion.

Today's language tidbit

This week's unit was on food. And the language factoid: the Arabic translation or root of Bethlehem is "house of meat". According to my instructor because seasonally herds would end up there for butchering and sale. I haven't been able to find anything to corroborate that specifically, other than Wikipedia's and Britannica's intro notes. Interestingly, most American dictionaries that I can find online refer only to the Hebrew translation, house of bread. I wonder if there the Hebrew translation/version is a more accepted one? Or if the selection of one and ignoring of the other are examples of publisher/cultural bias?

After class, I went to Al-Hikma. It's a good think Claire told me it was in a building with dentists' and doctors' offices, otherwise, I'd've driven past and gotten lost in the wilds of Falls Church. I was tempted by a condensed translation of Jane Eyre with English on one page and Arabic on the opposite page, but managed to put it down -- to advanced for me right now. If there'd been a copy of Persuasion or Anne of Green Gables, I wouldn't have been able to resist. The owner was very helpful and gave me a mini lesson, based on his name, Dhiya, which means light. I thought noor meant light, and it does, but they have different connotations. Who knew?

Al-Hikma

One of my classmates told me that there's an excellent Arabic bookstore, Al-Hikma, in Falls Church on Columbia Pike. She found several helpful workbooks and some childrens books written with the English and Arabic on opposite pages. Will have to check it out on my next day off.

Happy news -- a second section of the third level has been opened, with the same instructor that I have now. The school only scheduled one, even though there were three full sections of level two. Were they expecting a huge attrition rate? In any case, I've registered. Level two ends on Saturday and level three starts on Thursday. I much prefer this to the long holiday between levels one and two. I'd forgotten pretty much everything in the two months off.