Zee animal ah hear?

This morning I woke up in a cabin on a lake to the sound not of wind through chimes or of loons hallowing the first morning rays, but to what sounded like stones being thrown at my window. It wasn't my aunt being cheeky, but a Robin that was taking out its morning irritation on its reflection in my window. A bird feeder hung just outside my window (which I later learned had been put up as a deterrent) but instead of doing something reasonable like, you know, eating, it did the backstroke mid-air and then banged its head on the glass. It did this several times before flying away. I thought about the absurdity of its actions, and the futility. It looked painful, and it was interfering with my sleep. Yes, I had done the same thing last week at 7:30 in the morning at the mirror while studying for Shakespeare - but was this poor bird going to fail its exam? In my half-awoken state I pulled up the blinds and it vanished like a streak of light: its reflection just got scarier.

As gorgeous as the cabin is - perched right over the lake, counter to recent environmental standards - it is owned by animals who feel a sense of ownership that would make a communist bang her head. The dock now belongs to two geese who have in their monogamous courtship agreed to nest on one of the planters on the dock. As much as I was tempted to try eating a goose egg - literally, not a figurative 'goose egg' since I've already tried that - I wouldn't want to disturb their little domestic arrangement. The male would occasionally reach out backwards with one leg - ballerina style - and hold it out in a position I've seen held by many gymnasts as they check themselves out in the full-length mirror - in this case the lake. It would say in a baritone Austrian voice, "Ja, check out my burly quad." The goose leg was as thin as a marshmallow roaster, and so I think it was a case of delusion.

The patch of grass at the end of the dock belongs to a different family of geese which is actually two families combined. Again, I wouldn't want to prove my suspicion that goslings are soft since it would include a mauling by papa goose. Another thing not on my life to-do list.

The mountains around the lake still have snow on them. A man living across the lake has two boxcars next to his house - delightful, and probably full of mice. As close to civilization as this is (there is no break between town and here), the animals here are not effete.

Beowulf: the first record of foreign aid?

Laura's sparksnotes version of Beowulf:

-Beowulf lands in the Danish territory where a terrible monster has been terrorizing the Scyldings in the king's mead hall for 12 years.
-Beowulf and his loyal band of followers are welcomed by the king and sleep that night in the mead-hall waiting for the ugly beast.
-He arrives. His name is Grendel. After fierce hand-to-hand combat, Beowulf tears off his arm, and the monster limps back to the fens where he dies.
-They celebrate, Beowulf gets lots of precious gifts and the king's accolades.
-But their celebration comes too soon. Grendel's mother then terrorizes the hall, killing one of the king's best comrades. Beowulf follows her to the ocean where sea monsters writhe and the dead man's head is found. Beowulf dives into the ocean with his armor and kills the evil sea witch with a sword. He brings back Grendel's head.
-The King honours him with unbelievable riches, and he returns home (and it continues).

Beowulf is what the UN aspires to be, but what it fails at. The UN will never be as effective a foreign aid agency as Beowulf: it doesn't have a loyal band of followers, and it certainly does not have a fearless leader. Furthermore, few people in it are willing to literally or figuratively sacrifice their "lifdaegs" to slaughter the hideous hag and her terrible son who terrorize the land. "Honour" is an obsolete word, and no one cares about gold hoards these days (although I beg to differ)

What Beowulf and present aid/development agencies have in common is this:
-They both seek out adventure and praise from tackling problems of foreign lands.
-They have come to settle old debts and gain the trust and praise of the inhabitants.
- They believe their biggest resources are bravery, strength, and good-faith.

I say, some progress is better than none. The UN should not aspire to be like Beowulf; and besides, Beowulf probably never existed.

While a catchy new slogan for the UN might be, "UN - ripping the arms off giants descended from Cain," it would be hard to take literally. Especially since the UN's approach to Grendel would be interviewing hundreds of witnesses, bringing in scientists and other specialists, spending at least a year displacing the community to another land, filing hundreds of reports, hiring short-term project managers, discussing and persuading China to get on board, looking at gruesome photos and reports, going to the mead-hall and talking some more about it, looking at the fen-lands where the monster lives and taking measurements, throwing sand over their shoulders for good luck, ringing bells, writing lots of rune-stones as warnings, shooting off their mouths again, and finally, when everyone in that region is either gone or dead, building a memorial.

Beowulf would be drastically different if it has been called UN-wulf. Instead of talking about what makes a good king (protecting the people), we would talk about what makes a good President or dictator. A good President would richly reward aid agencies that help his/her citizens. A good President would offer plenty of mail-coats and beer and gold rings. The President as ring-giver would offer treasure for truly brave warriors.

I'll fax this to the UN right away.

Will there ever be a better satire?

Wots thet e sez?

Aw did wot Aw said Aw'd do. Aw spit in is eye. E looks ap at the skoy and sez, 'Ow that Aw should be fahnd worthy to be spit upon for the gospel's sike!' e sez; an Mog sez 'Glaory Alleloolier!'
-George Bernard Shaw, Major Barbara

This is one of the best Cockney passages from Major Barbara. George Bernard Shaw was so skilled at writing different accents phonetically that with a bit of practice it's easy for anyone to read the passage convincingly: so do your own for-against poll. Diatribes such as this can be borrowed and re-used during almost any situation. The ubiquitously useful 'Not lawkly. Aw'd give her anather as soon as look at er' is always a good start. "er" can be anything under the sun. As for 'Aw did wot Aw said Aw'd do. Aw spit in is eye' what a better way to meld humour into your stiff job interview when your interviewer asks you to describe a past situation of conflict?

The charm of the Cockney passages is that they're only passages. I would read a book written in Cockney only if it helped me to dream in in that accent; I assume this would happen since most people eventually dream in languages they're immersed in. I've dreamt in French and German, but even there it's rare. I hear it helps to think to yourself in your second language, or in this case, second accent, but I can't imagine going up to my fridge and thinking to mawself, wot willit be two-die? The ayples o the rom?

No. I cannot imagine that anymore than thinking in Old English. Every time I try, it sounds like modern English but spoken by an Afrikaaner through a computer: thet waes god! todaeg waes domsdaeg!

I also talk about doomsday a lot. In all languages, I tend to favour certain words, mainly the ones that I know - like domsdaeg, wine, and sweord in OE. It's problematic in German when my vocabulary is limited to about 400 words and 100 of those words can only be used in relation to the destruction of Dresden (thanks German culture class) or else in highly poetic speech such as, I have rubble in my wagons! meaning there are rocks in my rollerskates.

My persona in French, on the other hand, has a lot to do with Catholic holy items and lots of talk about eerie landscapes - falaises, tenebres, les nuages qui degagent. But French is my least problematic language.

In Spanish, all I can say is watermelon.

In Ukrainian, all I can say is church.

Note to you, ambitious reader that you are: I appreciate all varieties of home-made learning cassettes, regardless of the practicality of their content.

Elizabethan Mores

Dear Fate,

Please be nice to me. Not because I'm special but because you shouldn't abuse your power.

Yours truly,
Laura

Thanks job market!

I realize that the last post was also the last time I gave any thought to my essay. What was I doing in between? Sorry Einstein's theory of relativity, but it wasn't fun unless you count it fun to write quizzes on Beowulf and articles about student unions - what's that you say? Hearing 'student union' gets your rocks off? We will never get along. Ever.

School has turned me into a wench, as the University Secretary joked about with me on the phone today. She asked me how to spell my name - was she Googling me as we spoke? - and then told me that Keil isn't counterintuitive at all if you go by the German spelling. What do you know, taking German contributed to her getting where she is, so maybe it's not completely useless. She can advise the President on his Ersatz busts of philosophers, and his Schadenfreude with CUPE union members, and his blitzkrieg experiments in the [paper] airplane room in Thorvaldson late at night.

Anyway, the university secretary joked about my being a wench before we began our interview when I told her that my last name was in fact German and meant wedge. She laughed really hard in my ear - I thought you said wench! - and I was like, "yeah... ha ha ... like a wench..." realizing that her innocent comment ran deeper than she knew; I am indeed a wench and take no precautions to ensure I am not.

I am a bit fat wench.

Thank you university secretary for telling me the most important thing about life: it doesn't matter what you know, it matters what you can make fun of.

I can make fun of my name - but I find it hard to make fun of the fact I've turned into a wench that inhales academia and exhales dirt, cynicism, and unemployability. These exhaust fumes are mutually affirming. The lack of showers and the cynicism make it impossible to pretend I believe in the human race during service industry interviews - it's hard to score points that way. The lack of job makes me feel more and more desperate, which turns me into a wench. I can't make a living off that, not even exploiting that point of view - it's been done before. Thanks most nameworthy female writers of the 20th century. Thanks for making it ok to be a wench, but also flooding the market.

I'll just have to continue being a passive-aggressive wench until society and I decide to get along again. Until then, though, I'm retracting all my bets and investments and putting them into extra-societal things. What you ask? That's between me and the extra-terrestrials. I find it more profitable to believe in them. They put me in a crystal tube of images and dreams and memories, and then it doesn't matter if I have an income.