Um... I did half of it? *hangs head in shame* I planned the essay ready and wrote 2 pages and then read almost half the book. I was supposed to have a while in the morning to finish the essay, but I overslept. Thankfully the teacher isn't terribly strick so I explained and got an extra day, and the presentation about the writer isn't until tomorrow, and despite the crazy long sentences this guy seems terribly fond of, I'm actually enjoying the book. *lifts book up* See, I'm reading it right now! (I'm not even keeping myself from writing any emails before I finish.)
Mhmmm... I remember doing half of everything so that I at least had a vague idea of the subject.... It usually worked just fine for me because I'm good at making shit up as I go (one memorable time, I had to read "crime and punishment" for school and the day of the oral test I had read just about 20 pages. The prof called my name and asked "Nastasia, are you ready for the oral test?" and I was all "Sure, Prof!" and then started rambling about the authour and that my favourite part was the beginning (ahahah) of the book because it was really intense and set the bar for the rest of the story and then slipped into a disquisition about the word-building and parsing and construe and I got an A without having read a single chapter. It was pretty epic) BTW, what book are you reading?
Hahah, that's awesome! I can bullshit, but I occasionally lack the basic common sense that makes it believable.
It's a Finnish literature, language & identity course so we're reading books by important Finnish writers from different decades. My book is Missä kuljimme kerran (Where we once walked) by Kjell Westö, which was published only 4 years ago, but focuses on Helsinki and it's people in the first half of the last century. He has solid and interesting characters and I like his descriptions, but he has this... rambly style of writing that results in terribly long sentences, and sometimes it really requires concentration to keep up with what he's saying.
He, it's all in the looks. If you look convinced of what you're saying, half the job is done ;)
Oh, that course sounds interesting. I'm not a big fan of the "rambly style", unless the writer is really good and has some sense of how to put sentences in an understandable order. I have the bad habit of doing logical analysis while reading (because I am stupid. Who the hell keep doing grammar analysis when they are already out of school?), and if the subordinate clauses are scattered around in a truly confusing order, I can't enjoy my reading and I end up hating the book. That's not to say that I can't read complicated books. It's just that I like being able to be a total grammar nazi when I read and not have stupid word order mess with my funtimes.
I'll have to remember that next time I need to fake my way through presentations. :D
The premise is pretty cool, but we aren't really going in depth about anything. There was this one interesting bit about how even thought our language only has the gender-neutral third person pronoun 'hän', and it lacks masculine or feminine articles, it doesn't mean that our language doesn't have gendered qualities. A lot of professions contain the word 'mies'(=man) and many sayings are gender-specific in the same way they are in English e.g. "to cry like a girl".
The writing certainly isn't bad. I like how it twists and turns and keeps me interested, but it also slows me down considerably. You know, I'd love to read like that. I'm not even sure if I know how to do logical analysis! (I'm recruiting you as my own personal grammar nazi for my BBB if I get it written. JSYK.)
Oh! I have a course like that next semester! It's all based on gender-specification and how it came to be and if it will ever be set aside (Italian nouns, pronouns and adjectives are all gender-specific. Most people have problems learning English because of the gender-neutral aspect of the language). I'm hoping the professor will be good, because often the premise is amazing, but when you finally sit in class for the lecture, it turns out to be a nightmare of bore and clichés.
Logical analysis is pretty easy and fun to do :) Well, actually, logical clause analysis is fun. Plain old logical analysis is a pain (that's the one where you have to divide a sentence in phrases and then recognise every phrase for their syntactic properties; as long as you have to name the subject phrase and the verb one it's okay, but as soon as you reach the complements it all turns into a slow, painful process because there are ten thousand different kinds of complements and, apart from those 4 or 5 basic ones, recognising them from one another is the hardest thing ever). Clause analysis, on the other hand, is a walk in the park :) And ahahah. I'm an Italian grammar wiz, but English is not my mother tongue. I did get straight As in my language courses at uni, but you might want to get a native speaker for betaing. I'm really good at spotting typos, though :)
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no subject
Um... I did half of it? *hangs head in shame*
I planned the essay ready and wrote 2 pages and then read almost half the book. I was supposed to have a while in the morning to finish the essay, but I overslept. Thankfully the teacher isn't terribly strick so I explained and got an extra day, and the presentation about the writer isn't until tomorrow, and despite the crazy long sentences this guy seems terribly fond of, I'm actually enjoying the book. *lifts book up* See, I'm reading it right now! (I'm not even keeping myself from writing any emails before I finish.)
no subject
BTW, what book are you reading?
no subject
It's a Finnish literature, language & identity course so we're reading books by important Finnish writers from different decades. My book is Missä kuljimme kerran (Where we once walked) by Kjell Westö, which was published only 4 years ago, but focuses on Helsinki and it's people in the first half of the last century. He has solid and interesting characters and I like his descriptions, but he has this... rambly style of writing that results in terribly long sentences, and sometimes it really requires concentration to keep up with what he's saying.
no subject
Oh, that course sounds interesting. I'm not a big fan of the "rambly style", unless the writer is really good and has some sense of how to put sentences in an understandable order. I have the bad habit of doing logical analysis while reading (because I am stupid. Who the hell keep doing grammar analysis when they are already out of school?), and if the subordinate clauses are scattered around in a truly confusing order, I can't enjoy my reading and I end up hating the book. That's not to say that I can't read complicated books. It's just that I like being able to be a total grammar nazi when I read and not have stupid word order mess with my funtimes.
no subject
The premise is pretty cool, but we aren't really going in depth about anything. There was this one interesting bit about how even thought our language only has the gender-neutral third person pronoun 'hän', and it lacks masculine or feminine articles, it doesn't mean that our language doesn't have gendered qualities. A lot of professions contain the word 'mies'(=man) and many sayings are gender-specific in the same way they are in English e.g. "to cry like a girl".
The writing certainly isn't bad. I like how it twists and turns and keeps me interested, but it also slows me down considerably.
You know, I'd love to read like that. I'm not even sure if I know how to do logical analysis! (I'm recruiting you as my own personal grammar nazi for my BBB if I get it written. JSYK.)
no subject
Logical analysis is pretty easy and fun to do :) Well, actually, logical clause analysis is fun. Plain old logical analysis is a pain (that's the one where you have to divide a sentence in phrases and then recognise every phrase for their syntactic properties; as long as you have to name the subject phrase and the verb one it's okay, but as soon as you reach the complements it all turns into a slow, painful process because there are ten thousand different kinds of complements and, apart from those 4 or 5 basic ones, recognising them from one another is the hardest thing ever). Clause analysis, on the other hand, is a walk in the park :)
And ahahah. I'm an Italian grammar wiz, but English is not my mother tongue. I did get straight As in my language courses at uni, but you might want to get a native speaker for betaing. I'm really good at spotting typos, though :)