REASONS WHY THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE IS HARD TO LEARN

1) The bandage was wound around the wound.
2) The farm was used to produce produce.
3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
4) We must polish the Polish furniture.
5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
10) I did not object to the object.
11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
13) They were too close to the door to close it.
14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
1 After a number of injections my jaw got number.
19) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
20) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
21) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

Let's face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England nor French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat. We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig. And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend, that you comb through annals of history but not a single annal? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it? If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?

If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what other language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell? How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? How can overlook and oversee be opposites, while quite a lot and quite a few are alike? How can the weather be hot as h--- one day and cold as h--- another?
Have you noticed that we talk about certain things only when they are absent?

Have you ever seen a horseful carriage or a strapful gown? Met a sung hero or experienced requited love? Have you ever run into someone who was combobulated, gruntled, ruly or peccable? And where are all those people who ARE spring chickens or who would ACTUALLY hurt a fly? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which an alarm goes off by going on. English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race (which, of course, isn't a race at all). That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible. And why, when I wind up my watch, I start it, but when I wind up this essay, I end it. Hmm...

I love stumbling onto strange stories of the past. I was just looking up molasses and sorghum on wikipedia, and saw a link to the "Boston Molasses Disaster":

"The disaster occurred at the Purity Distilling Company facility on January 15, 1919, one day before the 18th Amendment (which prohibited alcohol production) was ratified. It was an unusually warm day. At the time, molasses was the standard sweetener in the United States. Molasses can also be fermented to produce ethanol, which is used in making liquor and was a key component in the manufacturing of munitions. The stored molasses was awaiting transfer to the Purity plant situated between Willow Street and what is now named Evereteze Way in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

At 529 Commercial Street, a huge molasses tank 50 ft (15 m) tall, 90 ft (27 m) in diameter and containing as much as 2,300,000 US gal (8,700,000 liter) collapsed. Witnesses stated that as it collapsed there was a loud rumbling sound like a machine gun as the rivets shot out of the tank, and that the ground shook as if a train were passing by.

The collapse unleashed an immense wave of molasses between 8 and 15 ft (2.5 to 4.5 m) high, moving at 35 mph (56 km/h) and exerting a pressure of 2 ton/ft² (200 kPa). The molasses wave was of sufficient force to break the girders of the adjacent Boston Elevated Railway's Atlantic Avenue structure and lift a train off the tracks. Nearby, buildings were swept off their foundations and crushed. Several blocks were flooded to a depth of 2 to 3 feet.

"Molasses, waist deep, covered the street and swirled and bubbled about the wreckage. Here and there struggled a form — whether it was animal or human being was impossible to tell. Only an upheaval, a thrashing about in the sticky mass, showed where any life was.... Horses died like so many flies on sticky fly-paper. The more they struggled, the deeper in the mess they were ensnared. Human beings — men and women — suffered likewise."

The Boston Globe reported that people "were picked up by a rush of air and hurled many feet." Others had debris hurled at them from the rush of sweet-smelling air. A truck was picked up and hurled into Boston Harbor. Approximately 150 were injured; 21 people and several horses were killed — some were crushed and asphyxiated by the molasses. The wounded included people, horses, and dogs; coughing became one of the biggest problems after the initial blast.

...Anthony di Stasio, walking homeward with his sisters from the Michelangelo School, was picked up by the wave and carried, tumbling on its crest, almost as though he were surfing. Then he grounded and the molasses rolled him like a pebble as the wave diminished. He heard his mother call his name and couldn't answer, his throat was so clogged with the smothering goo. He passed out, then opened his eyes to find three of his sisters staring at him."

Well, I had to go down to the unemployment agency today, as they said that they had a suitable job opening for me. After that meeting I decided to do some food shopping, I had heard that there were some Asian supermarkets nearby. I got a recipe book for Christmas with all sorts of exotic dishes, often with unknown ingredients, so I wanted to see if I could find some. Boy oh boy, I didn't know where to look first...

After restraining myself considerably, I ended up buying for only 15 euros. Admittedly, not everything was exotic or exclusively to be found there, but still a good shopping spree

- lychee wine
- orange flavoured gelatin dessert (jello I was feeling nostalgic for it, I haven't seen it in ordinary supermarkets here I think)
- sweet chili sauce
- canned banana blossoms
- canned mangosteens
- dried tamarind
- a powder for making green tea ice cream
- a can of lotus seed/red date tea
- fennel seeds
- whole coriander seeds
- cinnamon sticks

And I saw sooooooo many other things I'd like to try, all sorts of things that I'd never even heard of. Experimenting, I love it.

Bf was feeling sick yesterday evening, so I figured I'd put a bucket next to his side of the bed when we went to sleep. And a good thing too, as he needed it. At 11PM. At midnight. At 1.30AM. At 3AM. At 4.30AM. *sigh* Neither of us got much sleep.

He's sleeping right now, as I sit here at my computer, the door to the bedroom closed to prevent kitty from bugging him too much. I feel a bit "iffy" myself, but I think it's more because of hearing him being sick and fearing that he'll contaminate me.

Anyway, I'd better get my ass in gear for my EU exam, I've forgotten sooooo much about the EU's inner workings. And as horrible as it sounds, I checked out what I would be paid IF I got hired, and I want this job even more now. The gross monthly salary would be 3900 euros (5615 US dollars). After taxes probably still 3000 euros (4320 US dollars) net per month. I could buy myself a Sony Alpha 700 each month

I can't forget

what once was
is now again

trembling in my eyes

let me be
the soul searcher
the crazy wanderer
the one carrying water to
the sea

A cold hand on my forehead
pulls me back to reality

far away my eyes walked
wandered to the sun licked valleys
and blue stone heights
that only I know

flaxen hair hazel eyes
reminiscent of clouds with
golden linings

there’s a world of darkness
kneeling behind them
shivering with memory and premonition

but nevertheless with intangible light
worn, faded into
xxxxxxxxxxx

Well, Alpina, you must have magical powers... I usually don't remember my dreams, but last night I had a really weird one. Even Freud would have a tough case with this


I was in an underground parking lot with my parents. In my hand I had a postcard, and on the back it had a blotched out map of the parking lot, with a new map drawn below it. We follow the path on the map, and we come to a crossroads. We go past the crossraods, and arrive at a fork in the road, two white paths. We take the left white path, and suddenly the ceiling is really high, so high that you can barely see it, it's only noticeable by a weird color in the light... Alongside the path are houses. Wooden houses like I saw in Norway, but they seem so transparent...

We arrive at the house we're expected in, we're going to spend the night there. We're in a bedroom in some sort of outhouse, and there's an old fashioned dollhouse, with some stuffed animals in from my realy childhood, which "they" put there especially for me. I tell myself that I should take a picture of the dollhouse later.

I go to the main house, over a small lawn. There are holes everywhere. And ants crawling everywhere. I run into the kitchen, but the floor is crawling with ants, not just small ones, but also ants as big as my hand, and they are carrying larvae. It seems that the owners of the house had wanted to exterminate the ants in the garden, and now they were running wild, trying to save themselves and their offspring. I'm running around, trying to keep the ants from crawling on me. I even grab on to a doorpost and lift myself off the ground, in order to escape them. We run into another room. It has some windows, covered in huge ants. Suddenly we see an air shaft, with a boy in it. I recognise him as being related to me, but only in the dream.

All of a sudden we are outside, we have escaped. We are running through some woods, towards a dock, behind us, chasing us, are no longer ants, but human looking cats. We run onto the boat, someone turns on the engine and we quickly leave the dock. The boat is made of metal, and painted white, but really rusty and old. I ask whether there aren't any leaks. "we'll see" is the answer. Soon the boat starts to sink, the water comes over the sides of the boat, but we are still going forward, as if nothing is wrong. The boat is the solution to us being chased, my mind tells me.

We go down below, and dive into the water. I remember seeing myself, and I look like Kathryn Janeway from Star Trek Voyager. There are rows and rows of skulls, their mouths covered in moss. It feels mysterious and haunted. Suddenly I'm grabbed, I struggle to get loose, I need to go up for air. I finally manage to get myself free and manage to gasp for air just in time. I'm convinced that it was a ghost that grabbed me. I dive back down, and see that it is not a ghost, it's a man and a woman, with a mischievous plan. Something to do with a coin, and some sort of strobe/flash light that they show me, but I squint my eyes, and whatever they had hoped that would happen didn't occur. The person I'm with, a man, helps to grab the two culprits.

But as he holds the assailants, I see something transparent slide through the water, to the surface of the water. Two shapes, four-legged creatures with abstract lines. I grab one of them, around the neck, but it is too strong and escapes. We go back to the dock, thinking that whatever the problem was, it was olved now. By the dock we then see two grey dogs, and we think we're in trouble again. But the dogs welcome us, they're friendly. But they don't have any front legs, only hind legs, and we caress them.

Well, recipes seem to be popular, so let me tell you what I cooked tonight I cooked some pasta, cavatelli to be precise... "little ears" that means, and it's a specialty from the Puglia region in Italy. Okay, I admit it, I just read this on the bag, I didn't know this myself Anyway, while the pasta was cooking (200 grams, 20 minutes) I also chopped 4 bell peppers into little squares, heated some olive oil in a pot, and threw the squares in the pot. I generously added coconut powder and stirred. When the bell peppers were nearly done, I added prawns (400 grams) to the pot, and seasoned with a bit of paprika, some nutmeg, salt, sweet chili sauce and (last but not least) quite a bit of lemon juice (be generous, it may take quite a bit of it to start tasting it). By now, the pasta was ready... I poured off the water, and added the pasta to the bell pepper and prawn mix, and stirred for a few minutes. After tasting I added some more seasoning, and then it was ready to be served
For quantities of seasoning and cooking times, use your own cooking talent and taste And these were quantities for two people by the way

Arms stretched out, I grasp the air, hold it, embrace it, till it becomes the company I have been looking for... Can I really touch it? It's fluid, cold yet alive. In turn soft velvet and steely ice. Instinctively I feel that it is somehow a part of me, not linked to me by something as palpable as human flesh, but by tender tendrils of mist, invisible strings. It is a part of my head, a part of my heart. In the darkness I can see a shimmer of light spark within it, flickering almost imperceptibly with an anxious unsteady rhythm. Small and fragile, it is the light that I need, and need to strengthen, in the harsh world of the working (wo)man... It is my self confidence.

Stumbling in the dark, some cold air blows past me... Is it the darkness of solitude? Or the blackness of a crowd of countless? Whichever way the wind blows, it sounds like solitude, the solitude of many and the solitude of none. Arms stretched out, I grasp the air, hold it, embrace it, till it becomes the company I have been looking for...