ARRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!

[ramblin_rosie]

I hate Latin.
Specifically, I hate the fact that Latin has no word order. If you give me "fierce where of the Aecean by the spear lies Hector," I will not necessarily untangle it into "where lies fierce Hector by the spear of the Aecean," especially when a) "to lie" looks a lot like "to throw," b) I'm in a hurry, and c) I've misunderstood the previous sentiment as "I wish you had killed me" instead of "I wish I had died by your hand," which happens to be a very important distinction in the context.
Virgil is a great poet, but I despise the way he twists sentences.
Stupid Trojans.

Yes, it is Monday. Thanks for noticing. (But I got a 98 on my last test, so it's not *all* bad.)

Comments

[ramblin_rosie]

I know. It's insane. Sometimes it does that with edits, too. :P

Gifted and talented, yes. There's a list of personality traits of a G/T child somewhere, but I don't know where it is.
Well, at least in German, the case of the article makes the case of the noun more obvious. There are times in Latin where two or more cases look exactly alike, but if there were an article (or a preposition), it'd be clear which it was supposed to be. As it is, I keep taking leaps in the dark and missing.

[agentmaly.livejournal.com]

Ah, I see. I think I would be considered to be a member of that group, but I'm not sure I've ever been conscious of an especial need for structure.. maybe I've just never noticed. I actually don't like great deals of structure very much, though. ^^

Ooh, yes. Though I've never studied German, so I'm not sure how the case of an article would make the case of the noun more obvious, because I don't recall it really did in French. I think I've said this to you before, but that does get awfully confusing - when it looks like it could be either an ablative or a dative, and you can't really find a preposition or whatever to go with the ablative, but then it could be one of the ablative uses that doesn't take a preposition, and.. it's bad.

Then of course there's also taking a nominative for an accusative. I don't do that as much, but I'm more displeased with myself when I do, because I feel like I have less excuse. I think what disgusts me most is the times that declensions and even conjugations of completely different sets and cases and even numbers have exactly the same form.. that's just.. gah. That gives me lots more trouble with verbs than nouns, though. With nouns I just wonder why they found it necessary to have so many forms end in -ī.

[ramblin_rosie]

Well, I don't have time to find it right now (gotta go run errands), but Google "Das doofe Fischlied" and see if that helps; it's intended to teach article declension and adjective endings, and it goes through nom/acc/dat in the context of a sentence to show how it works.
Ablative eats my lunch, *especially* when it could just as easily be dative. German doesn't use ablative if it can help doing so; there are always prepositions to show means or place or whatever. And ablative absolutes... grah.
And why *did* they feel the need to duplicate forms in completely different contexts?!

[agentmaly.livejournal.com]

Have a nice time being errand-ish. ^^ I'll have to look into that, then. German is high on my list of languages to learn. Thank you.

*shakes head* I have no idea. I could deal with it very well if various declensions had the same form in the same context. That'd be highly useful. But having the second declension masculine plural be the same as the third declension dative singular and sometimes ablative is just.. really.

[ramblin_rosie]

You're welcome. :) There's a big page of German links that a prof gave me before I left for England, but I haven't had a chance to check it out yet. I'll post it if I think it's worth your while.

I know. And people talk about it being so regular... which it is in one sense, but... like for declensions, there are five rules that don't necessarily connect logically among themselves, whereas there are really only three rules for German (der-words, ein-words, and unpreceded adjectives). And the conjugation rules are simpler in German, too.
Bah. Humbug.

[agentmaly.livejournal.com]

Sorry to just flood you with comments like this, but I found a list here (http://www.gifteddevelopment.com/Articles/Characteristics_Scale.htm).. and um.. I've always exhibited all of those. That made me laugh. ^^ Is that the kind of thing you were thinking of? It's just so funny, though.. they might as well have just created a list of my characteristics, or something. Though if I were compiling a list of my learning characteristics I'd've included a great capacity for language and probably given less precedence to the jigsaw puzzle thing. ^^;;

[ramblin_rosie]

Yes, that may be exactly what I was thinking of... my mom's just described it to me, but that sounds pretty close. And I agree; the only thing where I'd put a question mark is, ironically, the "questions authority" trait. The rest are definitely checks.

[agentmaly.livejournal.com]

Hee, that one describes me, though. ^^ They all do, they really do, I just wouldn't really consider being good at jigsaw puzzles to be very important, even though it would be evidence of good spatial and problem-solving problems skills.

And I've just been reading another article (http://www.geniusdenied.com/articles/Record.aspx?NavID=13_0&rid=11341) I think you'll probably find very interesting.. it's funny that I've never really looked this much before, since I've always been interested, and always known I fit the category. The only problem is that it's rather disconcerting to read things that describe oneself so well - it makes one seem so.. normal. Like all gifted children are made this way and you're just another one of them, if you follow. I guess I feel like it strips individuality especially because so few personality descriptions really do describe me very well.

[ramblin_rosie]

Wow. That explains a LOT about my problems transitioning to public school--I think most of my peers in private school were gifted, so it was a whole lot easier to find friends.

But really, how many people *are* gifted? We only seem normal when we're in a group, which isn't all that often IRL. And even though gifted kids are similar in some ways, we're all quite different when you look beyond those traits. I don't think I would have described any of my friendships in terms of chords when I was 8.