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Tití me preguntó si tengo mucha’ novia’
“Tití me preguntó si tengo mucha’ novia'” (Auntie asked me if I have many girlfriends) was how this year’s epic Bad Bunny Superbowl halftime performance started and this was by far the lingual highlight of my week! This year’s halftime show was the first one performed almost entirely in Spanish, and with references to Puerto Rican history and culture all over it. It starts with a historical walk-through from the beginning scene with sugar cane workers in pava hats, representing the slave-like conditions Puerto Ricans endured under U.S. corporate rule, to cultural nods like a game of dominoes and a piragua stand, to exploding power poles, indicative of Puerto Rico’s…
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‘Pacific Pier Ferris Wheel in Winter 3′ Oil Pastel
Experimenting with this theme
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The Vietnamese Alphabet
Did you know that the modern Vietnamese alphabet, chữ Quốc ngữ, was developed as recently as the 17th century and is based on a Latinized script of Vietnamese created by a Portuguese Jesuit priest named Francisco de Pina and other Jesuit missionaries? It was later refined by the French during the French colonial period in Vietnam, resulting in the alphabet we have today, which has Portuguese, French, and Italian influences. In 1867, Vietnamese scholar Trương Vĩnh Ký dubbed this Latinized Vietnamese script “chữ Quốc ngữ” in one of his grammar books, Mẹo luật dạy học tiếng pha-lang-sa (Tips to teach and learn French). Before the Vietnamese language was Latinized, it was based on Chinese characters…
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‘Pacific Pier Ferris Wheel in Winter 2′ Oil Pastel
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Japanese Language Learning: Ittekimasu and Itterasshai
My favorite phrases that I’ve recently learned are the Japanese expressions ittekimasu (いってきます) and itterasshai (いってらっしゃい). You use itterasshai when someone else is going away and it’s like saying “go and come back,” or “go and have a good time and come back” or “go and return safely!” This week I even saw it translated from Japanese television as “see you later,” (and yes, at this point I’m thrilled when I can recognize any Japanese words in a show or movie!) On the other side of that we have ittekimasu, which means “I’ll go and come back.” To break it down, the phrase ittekimasu is a combination of the verbs iku…
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Photos: Manchester, England, December 2011
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‘Pacific Pier Ferris Wheel in Winter’ Oil Pastel
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Autumn in Arkansas
Here are some pics from last fall when I drove a visiting friend around Arkansas to see Fayetteville and Crystal Bridges in Bentonville. Fayetteville is a cute, hill-y college town with a big cross at the overlook and Bentonville has an excellent museum, Crystal Bridges, featuring artists Jean-Michel Basquiat, Paul Cézanne, Dale Chihuly, Willem de Kooning, Keith Haring, Winslow Homer, Georgia O’Keeffe, Norman Rockwell, Mark Rothko, Andy Warhol, and many more. Entrance to Crystal Bridges is free and you can also walk on trails and tour a Frank Lloyd Wright house on the museum grounds.
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Media Immersion
English language media is fading out of my life as I’m replacing English language entertainment television with movies and even some TV shows in my three focus languages, and switching up my music with some fire playlists from Spotify: This week I also hit my one-year streak on Duolingo – hooray! #things to do during snow days
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Pastel Inspiration: ‘Dancers Resting’ by Edgar Degas
Outside it’s 15° F, and just as I have tucked away the last of my Christmas decorations, winter has finally arrived. This morning I’m grateful to be warm inside with coffee, and feeling inspired as I look through different artworks done in pastels. Today I’m particularly inspired by the impressionist artist Edgar Degas, born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas in Paris, France on July 19, 1834. Degas was not just a painter and sculptor, but also skilled with pastels. In this work, Dancers Resting, I’m drawn to the soft illumination, the airy puffiness of the underlayers of the skirt, the blue shadows on skin, and the underlying sketch marks that add a…
