started french class today. je ne comprends pas. no entiendo. pero ninguno de los otros tampoco entonces todo bien, ¿no?

right.

my class is full of high school and university kids. actually, 4 of the 10 were once my students in english class. i was a little embarrassed at first because i was going to be in class with former students. if you have not been a teacher, i think you can still imagine how this feels. although you realize that you do not know everything (indeed you know next to nothing in the large scheme of things), they do not know this. students see you and their estimation, at first, goes down. good or bad, this is how it is much of the time.

i must say that taking a foreign language with a base of another language is interesting. i am learning french, but with spanish speakers. the two languages are similar, not in any way the same, but it is interesting to hear explanations about the french in spanish. kind of like two classes at once. i highly recommend the experience if any of you have the chance. learning a third language (or fourth or fifth or sixth) through a language that is not your own is interesting. i am not sure if i am explaining this phenomenon very well, but there it is.

on another note, i am trying to catch up on books i somehow never read. last saturday i read ¨the picture of dorian gray¨ by oscar wilde. how did i never read that? it is an unbelievable book (although after the first 70 pages or so it drags for another 30) with all sorts of famous phrases and witticisms. i highly recommend it.

my next project is tolstoy's ¨war and peace¨. again, how did i never read this book? i started it yesterday and have only read 150 pages or so, of the 1500 in the version i have, but it is unbelievable. brilliant writing (the translation by ann dunnigan is superb), great characters, excellent description. i love dostoevsky, and have read five or six of his books, but somehow i overlooked this one. i read anna karenina about 7 years when i first arrived in california and had no job but lived in the house a former relative. i went to the library (internet for jobs) every day during those two months in vallejo, and read numerous books including the aforementioned and ¨the brothers karamazov¨ which i also read again this spring when my sister sent me the book in a package. russian authors are amazing. too bad i do not read russian (and probably never will).

my next project is ¨les miserables¨. again, how have i never read it or even seen the play? my education is wanting. either way, it will be at least 2 weeks, maybe 3 before i finish war and peace, so i have time to find a good english translation. and no smartasses, my french will not be good enough by then to read it is french.