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Sep. 22nd, 2006 07:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
icarusI owe responses to comments on my random Buddhist rant, but you guys are too deep for me on a Friday night.
Good news though. The financial aid fiasco is (knock wood) over. Done. Finito.
I called the school and they were mystified, two people said there was no record of a problem (yes, I've learned to call and get confirmation from at least two separate voices). They researched it, and said, "It must be someone goofed and then fixed whatever they did in the system."
*kisses entire financial aid department* Thank goodness. You know, I've really grown to like these guys?
This coming Wednesday I'll be sitting in a chair, scribbling notes and studying Sanskrit at 9:30am. As I quietly hyperventilated over what a difficult language I was about to tackle (harder than Latin, easier than Chinese) someone told me, "Yeah. But the nice thing about dead languages is you don't have to learn how to speak it."
Of course, the speaking is usually the easy part, because spoken language is like music. Imitate it like a child learning Do Re Mi and you'll pick it up very quickly.
Memorizing zillions of declensions-? I think I'm in trouble. *starts doing Manjusri mantras as my only hope*
Good news though. The financial aid fiasco is (knock wood) over. Done. Finito.
I called the school and they were mystified, two people said there was no record of a problem (yes, I've learned to call and get confirmation from at least two separate voices). They researched it, and said, "It must be someone goofed and then fixed whatever they did in the system."
*kisses entire financial aid department* Thank goodness. You know, I've really grown to like these guys?
This coming Wednesday I'll be sitting in a chair, scribbling notes and studying Sanskrit at 9:30am. As I quietly hyperventilated over what a difficult language I was about to tackle (harder than Latin, easier than Chinese) someone told me, "Yeah. But the nice thing about dead languages is you don't have to learn how to speak it."
Of course, the speaking is usually the easy part, because spoken language is like music. Imitate it like a child learning Do Re Mi and you'll pick it up very quickly.
Memorizing zillions of declensions-? I think I'm in trouble. *starts doing Manjusri mantras as my only hope*
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Date: 2006-09-26 10:16 pm (UTC)It made reference to an old Sanskrit teaching system that relied on linguistic terms that applied to English (and Latin?), weren't relevant to Sanskrit, and assumed one was already a student in linguistics, too.
I'm reassured by the fact that we'll be learning the Sanskrit grammar terminology. The professors who wrote the textbook back in the 80s say that Sanskrit has one of the clearest systems of terms for grammar (they point out inconsistencies in English grammaticaly terms) so it doesn't make sense to force a system that is not only inappropriate but also unsystematic and unclear, and bound to cause confusion.
They also said that for the first year they've left out a lot of subtleties and exceptions where those exceptions are rare, so as to aid the students' initial comprehension. More complexity is added later in the second year. So I am going to be learning a slightly simplified version.
That said, I'm a little panicked. I mean, quite worried. After scanning each chapter in my grammar book I've come away with one impression: Sanskrit is hard in a way I've never encountered before. I admit right off the bat that I think I'm in over my head.
Icarus