Acte traduse in limba engleza si legalizate

M-am saturat de minunata noastra tara si sunt hotarat sa imi iau jucariile si sa plec pe alte taramuri. Ca sa fiu sigur ca nu voi fi tentat sa ma intorc prea curand m-am hotarat sa plec cat mai departe. prima mea obtiune a fost Canada, insa in ultimul an s-au inasprit conditiile de emigrare si cred ca am sanse destul de mici sa ajung in tara frunzei de artar. Limba franceza nu prea e punctul meu forte iar pe partea federala unde se vorbeste limba engleza nu am nici o sansa. Asa ca m-am reorientat spre Australia, tara cangurilor, crocodililor si ursilor Koala. Am citit toate site-urile, blogurile si forumurile posibile despre emigrarea in Australia. Se pare ca acolo oamenii stau cu capul in jos, cred ca va fi destul de greu sa ma adaptez. Primul pas e sa imi adun hartiile: diplome si alte acte de genul asta. Nu a fost prea greu pentru ca nu am prea multe. Pasul doi e sa caut un birou de traduceri legalizate cu niste preturi decente. Traducerile actelor trebuie realizate de catre un traducator autorizat si apoi legalizate la notar. Evident e nevoie de traduceri legalizate in limba engleza. Momentan m-am oprit aici. trebuie sa mai strang niste bani pentru taxele de inscriere a dosarului. Vreau sa zic ca m-am oprit aici cu dosarul dar intre timp m-am apucat sa invat fotbal australian. Rugby stiam, am mai vazut la televizor, sunt oamenii aia care se imping cu capu in fundul celui din fata. E un sport ciudat in care trag doar peste poarta si se bucura cand sar in aut de porta cu mingea in brate. Va salut si va tin la curent cu aventura mea australiana.

For Once, Then, Something

I suddenly wanted to read poems by Robert Frost. I had read him in high school, then did not for many years. I found this poem, which I had not known before, but which I found beautiful:

For Once, Then Something

Others taunt me with having knelt at well-curbs
Always wrong to the light, so never seeing
Deeper down in the well than where the water
Gives me back in a shining surface picture
Me myself in the summer heaven, godlike
Looking out of a wreath of fern and cloud puffs.
Once, when trying with chin against a well-curb,
I discerned, as I thought, beyond the picture,
Through the picture, a something white, uncertain,
Something more of the depths-and then I lost it.
Water came to rebuke the too clear water.
One drop fell from a fern, and lo, a ripple
Shook whatever it was lay there at bottom,
Blurred it, blotted it out. What was that whiteness?
Truth? A pebble of quartz? For once, then, something.

Several Things

It's fever season. We always have malaria and typhoid, to greater or lesser degrees; this year we have chikungunya. I'd never heard of it; it has emerged after 37 years. And more recently, there's dengue. Dengue is usually more prevalent in the north, but I heard from someone here a couple of days ago that he had been diagnosed with it. Both are carried by a day-biting mosquito.

When we sit out on the lawn at night and I get bitten, I think, "Never mind, it's a night-biter," and if I get bitten during the day I think, "Never mind, this one isn't likely to be carrying anything." So far, this primitive magic has worked.

One night, very late, there was such a thunderstorm that it was like a very austere musical composition: concerto for thunder, with the soloist right overhead, and supporting thunder all around. It was so beautifully spare a piece that the only frill was the percussion of rattling windows. By the time the rain started, I had already gone back to sleep.

Numbers

I just finished reading an article in the March 3 New Yorker, “Numbers Guy – Are our Brains Wired for Math,” about the work of Stanislas Dehaene. I was particularly interested in this paragraph:

Today, Arabic numerals are in use pretty much around the world, while the words with which we name numbers naturally differ from language to language. And, as Dehaene and others have noted, these differences are far from trivial. English is cumbersome. There are special words for the numbers from 11 to 19, and for the decades from 20 to 90. This makes counting a challenge for English-speaking children, who are prone to such errors as “twenty-eight, twenty-nine, twenty-ten, twenty-eleven.” … Chinese, by contrast, is simplicity itself; its number syntax perfectly mirrors the base-ten form of Arabic numberals, with a minimum of terms. Consequently, the average Chinese four-year-old can count up to forty, whereas American children of the same age struggle to get to fifteen….


I have a hard time with Hindi numbers (partly, of course, because I don’t use them often) – anything over 50 is confusing for me. From 10 onward, the numbers are irregular – for example 10+1, which logically would be das-ek or ek-das, you have gyarah, and every decade has its own oddities. 21 is ikis instead of ikbis (ek+bis – 1+20). And what about the 50s? Pachaas, 50, is followed by ikaavan, rather than ikpachaas (1+50), and then baavan (52), and then trepan – not trevan – so even within the decade it’s weird. Sheesh.

Tamil, on the other hand, is very logical. Except for 90 and 900, once you know the system you can count anything. Eleven is 10+1, not a special word like 'eleven.' After 20 (iruvathu, i.e. 2 tens), you have 20+1 , 20+2, etc. Simple. (Aha -- I just noticed that there is some variation between p and v, just as there is in my Hindi example above -- e.g., 20 is iru-vathu, while 30 is mu-p-pathu -- so the Santhi rules for joining letters together are coming into play in both cases.)

Is this understandable? I’m putting it in a cumbersome way. And I'm sure my spelling of the words for Hindi and Tamil numbers is atrocious.

The article made me wonder if Tamil children pick up counting faster than Hindi-speaking children – the system is more logical, so there’s less rote memorization required of small children. At the same time, Tamil is more polysyllabic than Chinese, so Chinese children might have an advantage over Tamil children, but not as much of one as they have over English-speaking children…

What do you say?