I've experienced a bit of a change of venue as I prepare, strongly under the influence of Ian Stewart, to see how much algebra I still remember and if I'm really as bad at it as my high school grades (never could get above a B+, dammit. Blew my average!) always suggested.
I'm posting here from the Wyoming Law Enforcement Academy in Douglas, Wyoming instead of my more usual haunts. For the next two weeks (and yes, this includes the starting ten days of NaNoWriMO) I am here to learn "Basic Spanish for Law Enforcement."
Those who know me may be a bit surprised at this; I've always been a language nerd (having studied ten in all) and Spanish is the easiest of the languages I've studied (the others, for the nosy, are Latin, Ancient Greek, Modern Greek, Portuguese, Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Urdu and Arabic). But, partly because Spanish is the least demanding, it is also the least interesting to someone like me. Plus it's becoming more and more common in the US, thus losing its last whiff of exoticism and thus even more of its appeal to Your Humble Blogger.
I read Spanish fairly well, needing a dictionary handy for any heavy duty stuff (of which there is a lot, given my liking for authors like Jorge Luis Borges and Ernesto Sabato) but still able to do pretty well on my own. Speaking it is another story (I'm told I've finally mostly lost the "Nazi Spanish" accent I acquired from hanging about a German guy who grew up in Barcelona. Mostly.); listening comprehension, ow, something just bit me on my Achilles tendon!!!
So here I am, hopeful and, for the moment, alone in the dorms in Douglas of a Sunday night. But hey, I found a computer with internet access, so thought I'd post.
I brought not a page of fiction with me: the little bookshelf in my room contains:
The House of Medici: Its Rise and Fall -- Christopher Hibbert
The Revolution of Peter the Great -- James Cracraft
On the Growth of Form -- D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson
Nature's Numbers -- Ian Stewart
Alegebra the Easy Way -- by some textbook people
Master Math: Pre-calculus and Geometry -- by some other textbook people
Dark Life: Martian Nanobacteria, Rock-Eating Cave Bugs, and Other Extreme Organisms of Inner Earth and Outer Space -- Michael Ray Taylor
I decided to save the Spanish translations of H.P. Lovecraft as a reward for after November ends and I've completed this course.
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