Thursday Anticipation - Inaasam Ko Na

Fr. Guy is one of the most articulate teachers I know. Observe:

"Keep everything away except your C.L.E. thingies."

Elsewhere, I was explaining to Kenn a while ago something Char told me before, "ti ya be^ lan m". It means to say you don't want something when you really do--practically the same thing as Noli's infamous jele jele bago quiere. My Spanish is quite rusty, but I do believe that quiere (actually, the word I heard was quiero, which might just be the flexion talking) means to want something.

Lord knows what the other words mean.

Anyway, prior to last Sunday, I hadn't a fooking clue what ti ya be^ lan m meant, and had been wondering until I got the opportunity to speak to 二姨丈 about it. Initially, he didn't understand either, but when I explained what it meant 你是講無欲, 毋過其實, 你欲, and he said "Aaaah! 伊是講 be^ lan m, a ni (這樣?) 講法 ba?"

Char's mom said this. Damn, that's really deep Fukien.

So I bet, by now, you're wondering what the title means. Well, after that Examen last last (?) week, I realized that I don't actually enjoy Thursdays. Whenever it's Thursday, to me, it's always "The day before Friday." And I'm not about to start enjoying them either. I'm waiting for the weekend.

But today, I don't think I could've helped enjoying myself. Martin had asked me a few weeks ago to teach him Fukien. Now I am far from the most qualified person to teach him Fukien, but given the abilities of Martin's peers, I think among them, I'm the best he's got. And I've actually thought the language through. So I'm going to try to educate him in the basics to the best of my abilites, before he can find a real 'master' to teach it to him (like Kenn, or one of the teachers).

Today, I taught him some of the most basic of basics: basic pronouns, yes/correct, no/wrong, want/don't want, the numbers, the unique sounds of Fukien (voiced initials, the nasal sound, the glottal stop) as well as 多音字's. We got quite a bit done, I believe, as I was rather stringent with the formation of the 'z' sound, the tone and the overall flow of the language. Yay!

I was most surprised when he, Gerick and I sat down on the benches, and Martin showed a lot of genuine interest in the language. Martin told Gerick to start learning to speak so that his mom would be happy with him, and Gerick repeated something his mom always used to tell him. He couldn't exactly replicate the sound, but I gave a gander at reconstructing the sentence and found that it was something my own mom had been telling me for years but I was too stupid to listen to.

"講咱人話!"

Elsewhere...

I had my Math LT today, which I prepared for by going to the tutor at nine thirty pm last night until about 10:30, after which I went home and read Noli Me Tangere.

THE MATH LT WAS SO FREAKING EASY, I COULD'VE ANSWERED IT WITH MY EYES CLOSED!!!! Okay, well not really--there were a few tricky questions in the Multiply Choice that threw me off. But otherwise... my God! It was NOTHING compared to last quarter's QT.

The proving was unbelievably easy.

Argh life.

Chinese introduced two new 成語's to us:

流芳百世 (閩: lau hong ba^ se; 粵: lau fong baak saai; 國: liu fang bai shi)

流 - to flow
芳 - fragrance
百 - a hundred
世 - world

For fragrance to flow through a hundred generations
To leave a good reputation for hundreds of years after.

遺臭萬年 - (閩: wai cau ban ni*; 粵: wai caau man nin; 國: yi chou wan nian)

遺 - to leave behind
臭 - malodorous
萬 - ten thousand
年 - year

To leave behind a stench for ten thousand years
To leave a bad reputation for ten thousand years.

The last thing I'll talk about is Kenn's Examen (yes, he was called to do it again. What can I say? They love his "sexy bedroom voice" (Mrs. Ocampo's words, not mine).). When he finished, both Stanly and I agreed that it was one of the best Examens in a while. The strategic use of the word "damn" was brilliant and gave off the proper abruptness.

Audren and I discussed how we knew it was Kenn afterwards.

Somewhere after the Examen ended and the advanced students began scurrying to get to the correct classroom, the pell-mell somehow reflected how I was feeling (IGNORE the fact that it sounds so cheesy). I felt absolutely messy. I didn't know if the Examen (about caring about the people on the street and just what kind of fucktards we burgeoisie really are) affected me or not, and, if you know me at all, you would know that I absolutely repugn not knowing how I feel.

There goes another day without the Chinese stillshot.