more mulling from Switzerland

I've begun my translation courses and am continuing my language courses and have never heard the words "One-language Dictionary" so often in my life. When it comes to French, I still very much require a two-language dictionary for French, but neither of the two languages are my native language, so that must be good. One thing that I dislike from my courses at ZHAW, is the term "Neue Deutsch". I don't care how tounge-in-cheek it is, that isn't ANY kind of Deutsch! That's ENGLISH!!

So, I'm here in Switzerland and I'm a foreigner and am unable to vote. Ivo totally empowers my opinions when I have them on all things votable, so I feel represented, but I have no legal vote. Meanwhile in the states (until next year) I have a very limited voice in politics. I have no congress person to whom to write. I imagine that when we are raising young children I will be able to be more civicly involved. I'll be operating as a foreigner, however, even if I should become more enfranchised. I come from a country where my mother's was not the first generation to get the vote. I've had some experience breaking news to kids about the imperfections of the world with which we live, but I don't know how I will feel when it is not immediately my world in which they live.
I have become more acutely aware of this problem very recently. I'm all about being supportive of equal rights in the states. I'm excited about politically active in the states while I'm there. I'd love to be more actively supportive in marriage rights. Here in Switzerland everyone's got the same rights to the same marriage statue. Know what I just discovered? The concession that was made in order to get same-sex marriage was giving up on the right to adopt. This is killing me. I'd never heard about this before and am beside myself. I don't know what to do. How does one get politically active in a country where she has no poliical clout? As I get excited about starting a family in the future with the person that I love, how can I not want to be involved in equal rights?

'ow do you say......nervous?

I'm headed to my first translation class and I'm a bit nervous. Partly because it's a whole new environment, new things to learn, new people. I've never been in a Hochschulekurs in Switzerland before and have nothing to compare it to . Something else that is nervous-making, though is the actual translation. Last night at dinner with my in-laws I was again reminded how individualistic translation actually is.
"I would describe the charachter as dispeptic. How would someone say dispeptic in German?"
There was a back and forth and 'round and 'round that lasted 15 minutes. Everyone had more than two cents to contribute. Instead of listening to the word I wanted to use, Ivo and his dad began throwing in their own adjecties, which they thought better described the Chrachter I would be describing. "Pitbull", "Bitchy"....
One thing that is comforting is that when I heard the word that I will use, it was a gut reaction. That was right. That felt good. "sauerlich" like a sour stomach. Like a dispeptic personality.
Alright, so that felt good. But what about the words like Järzorn? Words where the translation is a few words to describe the one German word. I can't help but feel that that is inadequate. I don't know if my course will teach how not to feel inadequate. I don't even know what I want exactly from this course. I guess that I want it to make me feel confident in my translations.
The innuit don't really have 100 words for "snow" they just have a 100 words for the 100 types of snow that there is: slushy snow, wet snow, dry snow, fluffy snow....... I guess that we need adjectives isn't a bad thing. Just a different thing. I guess the key is knowing which one fits where. Like Konicki's "snizzle", for flurry. I think that I can trust having a good feel for German now and knowing what feeling I want to create with it's English translation. Is that what it is? A feeling? So then what are they going to teach us in translation?
I'm nervous

Autumn

When we arrived in Zürich after leaving the pristine autumn of Finland, our city was warm and muggy and "oh, yeah....I forgot" foggy. Ah, the fog. When I first moved here, Ivo feared that I would hate it because of the fog. It rolled in that first autumn and after day 12 I thought I might lose it. Ivo was apologetic, as if it had been fault personally. It was too sweet. Then he took me up a hill or a mountain something, above the fog and showed me where to find sun and that became one of my new favorite things about Autumn. I love autumn and I love that in autumn in Zürich the sun needs to be found.
When riding my bike I need to dodge the chestnuts and their prickly coverings in the street. Other chestnuts will be being cooked on stands on the street. The farmer's market is full and colorful and fit to burst. The Mövenpick icecream stand in front of the supermarket switches to a Brezelkönig stand. And now, I'm back to school which is also very autumnal.
I even played a game of shadow-tag with my husband and in laws in the too-early-setting sun. Inspired, like many good things, by the wisdom of Kendra.

from the mouths of other babes

On my birthday in Finland, I woke up before everyone and had a shower and washed my hair and started thinking about my half-siblings. I was thinking about them back when there were themed birthday parties (construction and princess, respectively) and the playing of "Good Guys and Naughties" (someone miss-heard the groups in World War 2) and "Mommy Daddy". These same creative minds discovered the most evil of all insults. It came at the end of every major tussle: "You're OLD!" "NO! You're OLD!" Ah, but they were sweet little things. When their nearly constant companion asked me how old I was, I answered "Twenty." He looked startled and said softly and hesitantly "Twenty? That's.......old." My half-siblings jumped to my defense, though it seemed half-hearted. I could see that to them 20 did, indeed, sound old.
Now I'm 28. If 20 was old, what would those children think now? Luckily they're a bit older, so maybe there is a bit of a different perspective. I began wondering what my child self would think about me at 28. What accomplishments I would have achieved. I thought back to games of MASH and plans with my best friend of running a candy/wooden toy shop on Prince Edward Island. I thought of how near I am to 30.
I dried and dressed and emerged from the steamy bathroom and there in front of me stood Ivo's 83 year old grandmother. Had Ivo not been asleep she may very well have sung "Happy Bitrthday to you" with the childish line "Aprikose in de' Hose". The woman hikes with speed, makes silly faces and jokes and sees without glasses. Then I realized that calling myself "OLD" was an insult to her. I accepted my birthday kisses and ate too many sweets and had a fantastic birthday.

It's not just me.

I think that I may like commuting.

Yesterday I was at ZHAW, where I will attend classes starting September, in Winterthur. On the train trip home I instinctively grabbed the Blick Am Abend laying on the nearby seat and read the front page story. (Blick am Abend is one of the trashier of the free newspapers offered to commuters.) The story was about Caster Semenya and wether or not she is male or female. The choice of words in the headline turned my stomach. As one of the teenaged girls picked up the paper Ivo and my repetitive conversation about misinformation with the illusion of information due to these free newspapers. The girl who'd begun reading the paper guffawed at the "manly woman: when is a man a man?" headline and then started talking to her friend about women who walk around with short hair "-shorthair is cute what's your point?" her friend interrupted. The friend tried to explain that she meant those women who walk around in sports clothes. Before I could internaly groan her friend said "I have trouble understanding other people's styles too. Like, wearing tons of make up and tripping around on high heels, that's not for me." I was so relieved. I was preparing myself internally for hatefull ideas sprung up from the trashy newspaper but instead found myself being excited about all of the usefull things that I can learn eavesdropping on my daily commute. That, or I could just read my purchased newspaper, I suppose.

Those were the days

"This diner was built over FIFTY years ago!!" joked Eddie Izzard about the lack of history in America. I get it and it's funny, but I don't believe that it's simply that people in the US don't revere historical buildings or history in general. The US is a young nation, we couldn't possibly have buildings as old as Europe's, because we've not been around as long. When I met my mother-in-law, she seemed to share Eddie Izzard's views, when it came to American cities. To be fair, she'd mostly spent her time in LA and NY. When my husband graduated from college, he and his folks came down to see me in Philadelphia. There, my mother-in-law was able to see some of the oldest buildings in the states and was reminded that, in Boston, she had seen evidence of historical buildings. I enjoyed Philadelphia and it's history. Though I felt sad and embarrassed for the portly fellows who had to stroll through humid summers in Ben Franklin costumes, I liked seeing the birthplace of my nation every day.To get to my favorite sushi place, I passed by the Liberty bell and Independence Hall.

Now I'm in Europe, "where the history comes from" (or so said Eddie Izzard) and I appreciate the historical preservation of buildings. More important than my location, my age has changed my appreciation of history. This year is the 20th anniversary of the Berlin wall and the 15th anniversary of Tianman Square. I have lived through both of those occasions. I remember them, on some level. Three years ago was the 20th anniversary of the Challenger falling from the sky and I remembered being a four year when it happened. I experience a different feeling on these anniversaries, compared to those that I did not live through. On the anniversaries of Hiroshima, I was able to call to mind the melted statue at the UN in New York, but it was still something distant for me. On anniversaries like D-day or JFK's assassination, I like to hear the stories, but have absolutely no personal connection. If anything, I feel quite critical, considering what I know what came next, instead of what it meant for the people living through it.

I am almost 28 and it seems that I am now better able to understand the historical marking of time through events, because I've begun to personally mark time through events. I am now old enough to look back and see that it is 13 years since I had my lower-intestine removed, I will celebrate my second wedding anniversary, it is 10 years since I moved out of my mother's house. I understand the difference of a 5 year anniversary, compared to a 10 year anniversary, when remembering something painful. When California postponed the announcement of the decision of whether or not to overturn proposition 8 (banning gay marriage), it was in recognition of the power that a day can have for the collective conscience. Who knows how such an announcement would have been received on the anniversary of the White Night riots. (The riots in 1979 in response to the sentenceing of the man who killed an important gay activist.) Sitting in a cinema in Switzerland over two years ago, watching a preview for the World Trade Center, I whispered "It's too soon". Words that I never quite understood before.


I wonder what our generation's impact will have on the commemoration of significant days. I, myself, have been known to celebrate silly anniversaries. Trying to find a fun way to celebrate my husband's 26th birthday, I arranged it as an anniversary of his 6th birthday. We went to a dinosaur museum, as he had done 20 years before, and had pizza with his friends. As gifts, he received Lego's and an RC airplane (he'd wanted to be a pilot when he was 6). Others in my age group are wearing The Berlin Wall fashion line, celebrating the anniversary of the Berlin wall in spray-painted 80's style T-shirts. That makes me nervous. I understand that the fall of the wall was a positive thing and that a certain amount of levity is appropriate, but I wonder how my peers will affect the tradition of paying tribute in the future. We who cover songs and adapt classic literature, we who think that Regan coined the phrase "city on a hill", we who buy new models of electronics as often as possible, we will dictate the method of remembering for the next generation. "Where were you?" is a phrase often used when looking back to a historic event, but it is typically only part of it. I fear that my young adults, who remember where they were on September 11th 2001 and on the day a black man became president of the US, will focus on that aspect and not the change in the world that each global event has had.