Sick.

So verbs in Semitic languages are almost always composed of a root made up of 3 consonants. This makes translating alternately easier and harder: easier, in that you get the meaning from the root and then the other letters added on the front and the back tell you what the tense, number, binyan (verbal pattern), etc. are; hard, because some verbs have one letter missing/variable/otherwise funky. So the word “qwm”, which means “arise, stand,” is termed a “middle-weak” word, because its middle root, W, is mostly a placeholder and drops out at every available opportunity. The “placeholding” root varies–usually W or Y or aleph.

In Syriac, I have learned, these are called “sick” letters. They are “sick in the middle” or “sick at the beginning” or “sick at the end.” Naturally I found this beyond hilarious. There are a ton of very common “sick at the end” words–the words for “to see,” “to drink,” “to call,” “to fill,” are all of this type. Yesterday we were going over some participial form for this irregular verb type, and the professor (who is just wonderful) went through them: “You see? hazyo’, shatyo’, qaryo’, malyo’. They’re all SICK.”

I am pretty sure he had no idea what I found so funny.

The Summer of Dork

I’m on an overload of dorky media this summer. It started innocently enough in the spring, when Battlestar Galactica was in its last season and suddenly everyone I knew was saying what a GREAT SHOW it was–deep and interesting with religious commentary etc. So I decided to order it on Netflix and see what the fuss was all about. That’s ongoing–my friend Jessie and I watch about 4 episodes a week. It IS good, though I’m getting ready for them to raise the stakes a little.

That was fine, but then I watched “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog” on Hulu, as Penelope recommended, and it was so awesome that I had to find out everything else Joss Whedon has ever done. I ripped through Firefly in about a week and a half–also so awesome, though some of the characterizations are a little shaky–I want to see what Whedon would have done had he had the chance to make a second season.

Then I was telling my roommate Carmen about Firefly and she said, “Well, my sister is really into Buffy the Vampire Slayer–want me to borrow the first two seasons from her?” And I said YES YES PLEASE and, well, now Luke and I have watched the first two seasons and I may have cried on multiple occasions. (Side note: The only distressing part is that the character I identify with BY FAR the most is Giles. Which, well, is probably to be expected–he’s a big nerd who deals with ancient texts and supernatural forces; me, ditto–but, well, people call him a fuddy-duddy. Do people call me that?  Basically I am afraid I am rapidly becoming a short-sighted fussy librarian. Or maybe I am FULLY EMBRACING my destiny of becoming a short-sighted fussy librarian. You be the judge.)

THEN, because Carmen apparently loves/hates me, she brought over ALL the sequels to Ender’s Game, which is one of my favorite books ever. So now I’m reading those too. Conclusion: my summer has been a very odd melange of German readings about HIV/AIDS and workers’ strikes, Syriac fragments of the Peshitta, books about liberation theology and the martyrdom of Oscar Romero that I’m reading aloud for an MA student, and science fiction/fantasy media. Add all that up, and still my dreams are mostly about Clementine peeing on the rug. Go figure.