Lineanongrata

Peter enjoys teaching Little League Darts so much!

 

For fear of being stupid - Or: You can't write Devanagari with a lot of bangles on your wrist

Among many other fears (cooked carrots, hair in the sink, giant spiders that somehow have eloped from their natural amazonian habitat and now live in my closet...) I am afraid I might end up dumb.

Seriously. I spend all my days alone, sometimes only talking to the lady at the checkout counter in my grocery store. And, yes, my mother. Thrice a day. But still, that's a lot of time alone, and although I usually enjoy working on my own and not having to talk to anybody I am also afraid I might end up communicating like the Yeti. You know how it goes. You're standing right there, ready to pay for apples, bananas milk and some bread, the checkout lady asks you something and you answer somewhere along the lines of

'Huh? Huhhhuuuuuou!'

Because you're kind of out of practice?

That's why I'm learning Hindi and Devanagari (that's the written form). At least I'll be able to communicate with the checkout lady in some language. It's most reassuring, believe me.

Ah, but seriously. I really am afraid of not knowing, of being not educated. It haunts me that I didn't understand anything about India. At all. One day I think I might go back and be better prepared.

And so you can find me in the evenings, reading with great application and the utmost concentration every a, aaah, e, i, o and au in every text I can find in Devanagari script.

Have you tried to learn how to write again recently? It's an interesting experience.

 

 

 

Greece - The morning after

For those of you who are not European and maybe don't follow the political and financial drama that unfolds around us as closely as we do: Greece, broke if it were not for money coming from the European Union, voted last weekend. Understandably people are unhappy with their economic situation and the heavy budget cuts imposed by the rest of Europe. Both the extreme left- and the extreme right-wing parties profited from the situation, the ultra-right 'Golden Dawn' party gaining 6,97 % of votes.

If it weren't so sad I'd find the name pretty for a political party.

The way things stand I'm curious to see where things are headed, both for Greece and the rest of Europe.