RedemptionZeni

This sparked an interesting discussion. I personally think the two languages that offer native English speakers the best chances of being learned quickly while having the most utility in the world are French (France, Belgium, Canada, many other places) and Dutch (Netherlands, Belgium, Curacao, etc) Danish does not have better utility than Dutch, but I like it much better as a language as Dutch is more like Old English with its rough intonations and inflections whereas Danish has a very smooth and relaxed element to it. Although French is a romance language, I think it should be taught as a second language for all Americans because of the Anglo-Norman connection and its subsequent connection to modern English (see Chaucer and the shift from early Middle English to Shakespearean English). It's no accident that French, although a Romance language, comes more easily to us than Italian, Spanish, Romanian, etc because of the strong French influence in the Middle Ages on English language and culture. I've been trying to be able to speak Old English since college, but it's comparatively much harder to master than French was (in spite of all my formal education in French) because, although Old English was the earliest version of our language, it was the national language of England for a much shorter amount of time in an age with fewer people who didn't interact with foreigners often, if it at all in many cases.

Pimsleur Worth the money, but it might take you some time to learn it. It's coming easily for me! 😄

What an awesome language. I'm picking it up so quickly because it shares so many etymological roots with English, so really it's just a matter of differences in pronunciation and learning vocabulary. My best languages English- Native Language Middle English (even took a class on Chaucer in college because the Medieval English of the Gawain poet, Chaucer, and Gower fascinated me) French- excellent, would like to become a true master and be able to write research papers in French. Old English- Very bad (didn't have time to learn it whilst in college, now have all the time in the world to at least learn it on a reading level) Danish- Elementary (I just started lol) 🤠

Damn you're good. I actually tried pretty hard to fold those properly too lol. The 4x4 gauze dressings. Very soft and comfy, thought I did a way better job than that

I'm proud to share with the UEMB (formerly the ASMB) community that I successfully underwent liver transplant surgery on April 19th, 2021, a month and change shy of my 31st birthday. Thank you for all your support throughout the years. Zenigundam lives on! I can't wait to get back on here more frequently. 🙂 Also, would anyone care to fill me in as to what happened with SSSS: Gridman on Toonami? Did it finish already? I had been following the Toonami broadcast because I am always busy doing other things and I was hospitalized for much of the past seven months, but I missed the last few episodes. I know where to go to to catch the rest of it, but I'm just curious as to whether it was shown completely on TV.

The 80s were the last decade of truly innovative material. I wish I had grown up in them. I had the mischance of growing up in the mid to late 90s and early 2000s, an era which we all remember for having a cultural identity of its own, but nothing beats the 80s. Who knew that synthesizers, drums, and guitars could start a British revolution over here? 🙇

I was at one of the hubs of colonial American history as an undergrad and I never even took the time to visit Monticello. It gnaws at me and shakes my usually dispassionate temperament. What true American am I?

I know. I miss Charlottesville so much. I wish I had double majored in history in college. I love English, but I have seen all there is to see in literature. History has never failed to enthrall me. Can I get a master's in History despite not majoring in it as an undergrad?

A morning view of downtown Newark from my hospital room, obscured by whoever cleaned the windows while I was sleeping.

I'm at University Hospital. I made the liver transplant list because I registered a MELD Score of 43 (they regard all 40+ scores the same), so I'm literally either going to get an offer for a liver or die within a few weeks.

Maybe because it was hammered into me as a HS Junior, but I'm rereading it at 30 for a few nights and it's so riddled with cliches and pseudo-impressionism. All of those upper class tropes and stereotypes you see in the world come from Gatsby, and I think anyone can write about how the blinds on the window are talking to him/her and provide vivid imagery and personification of inanimate objects. Not to mention F. Scott Fitzgerald's obsession with clothing and the fashionable styles of his day Sorry, I think F. Scott Fitzgerald gets way too much credit and only because he was one of the first American authors to develop that redundant writing style. Ever since his magnum opus became "The Great American Novel", there have been a bunch of little F. Scott Fitzgerald wannabes running around the film, literature, and cultural scenes. My brain is not fried from having this novel and its dated, pretentious vocabulary hammered into it as a HS student. He is extremely overrated and I don't think anyone ever wants to state the obvious. Just because he captures how you feel during certain moments like when you're pretending to look at an advertisement in a subway car when your seat is front-facing an attractive person's seat, doesn't make him some kind of literary wizard. The Great Gatsby in HS= 7/10, what is this drivel? The Great Gatsby at 30= 6/10, anyone can do it if they're bored enough to write about materialism and capitalism through social climbing, cliched party banter, overly descriptive scenes of New York, and static characters. I know for sure F. Scott Fitzgerald just threw everything he ever witnessed together and strung it together with all these devices and his flowery language in mind. He tried to achieve perfection by using every literary device he could think of and trying to create a transcendental work that would be true of America or any civilization in any age of bustling overindulgence and excess.

😐

Typo haha This is the worst. I was doing so well, feeling perfectly healthy and ready for that transplant in April or May, and then the fall happened and now I'm couch ridden in a world of pain, all because of one dumb mistake. Ugh... Why?

Had x-rays of my chests and shoulders taken today, but the hospital didn't call me back so I guess I'm all right, but I'm still in extreme pain.

Now I'm feeling pain in that area to the left of my stomach. Damnit... I'll have to go to the hospital.

Ugh this is not good. I feel a little better about moving, but the pain is still there and now I feel it when I cough. I think I'm in serious trouble, but I don't want to go through another hospital stay. I've been hooked up to enough IVs over the past five months, I can't take another stay. I'm so mad at myself for falling like that. Damnit...

I fell down the stairs and landed squarely on my chest (sternum). I immediately felt a sharp pain throughout my body and honestly felt my heart absorb some of the impact for a brief second. Since then, I've taken it easy and have been lying flat on my back on the couch occasionally applying a bag of ice to that area, but when I do get up I feel pressure, not pain, but chest pressure and my right arm kind of stings, so I've tried not to pick anything up with it. Does this sound bad or do you think I avoided any major damage? I'm already dealing with trying to get on the transplant list for my failing liver, and the last thing I need is for a hospital stay to push that back even further. I think I can handle this until it heals up, but I'm worried about internal bleeding or something I can't tell just from physical signs.

I had to read it for one of my classes at UVA. I had only read a little bit of Faulkner before then, but it got me to order all of his novels via Amazon Prime with my student discount.

It's definitely one of the most misplaced works on The Great American Novel list (The Top 5 of which should be Huck Finn, Gatsby, Absalom, Moby Dick, and Lolita) and I agree completely. His short stories are more representative of him as a writer. Way more genuine

That's exactly one of the major problems with the book. Does he really need ALL of those pages to get a razor-thin plot across? Hawthorne focuses way too much on trying to flesh out the interior turmoil and psychoses of his characters, but how can anyone even care all that much about Hester when you can barely piece together what she even looks like in your head. Pseudo-Kantian

Lol Hawthorne's favorite word, just like James Fenimore Cooper's favorite word is plaintive. Not that those guys weren't superior writers, but you can tell that they spent weeks or even months on end writing out elaborate backdrops and overly dramatized scenes of everyday interactions. They definitely didn't talk like that in person and a lot of those passages didn't come to them ummm perfunctorily I guess would be an ok word to use here.

Nope, I hear it referenced on YouTube all the time though. Don't have Netflix

Do you like apples?

I gave it a quick read for the first time since HS, and other than the rich language, religious symbolism, and imagery, it's so damn redundant. It's like reading The Bible or Homer's Iliad. It's appreciated in same way that like an Atari 2600 is appreciated compared to an Xbox Series X.

I'm not sure why I did tbh. I thought it was because I enjoyed getting a rise out of people. Isn't it enough that I'm resolved to never act like that again?