icarusancalion

Buried and confused: nowhere does it tell us how to form the past imperfect passive tense on the very irregular "to make." Of course, like all irregular verbs, it's used all the time.

*guesses wildly*

Hmm. What I just wrote, my unique version of "was made" looks very illegal.

How the hell am I going to do all this? I'm taking second quarter Sanskrit with a less structured teacher than last quarter (he's not bad, just not the crack-the-whip, step-by-step type) alongside two graduate courses.

Thank god for snow. It's beautiful outside with a crystal white dusting like icing everywhere. And a pink sky over silver blue mountains. wildernessguru's home, happy to not be kicking around work with nothing to do in this cold. "The cold's not bad when you're working, but when there's nothing to do...."

He's cuddled under the blankets, oblivious to Monte kitty bouncing after his fuzzy ball.

Back to Sanskritsanskritsanskrit... only eight more to do. Let's look at it that way.


ETA: Kitty's sproing-sproing-Pounce woke WG up. "Is that Monte?" Now the mountains are pink. Those roads look icy, don't they?

My marks are in. My Sanskrit professor is a very, very generous grader.

The verdict: I'll be able to apply for honors in Asian studies next quarter. Thank god.

Sanskrit - 3.6 (A-/B+)

This means I got approximately a 3.4 on the final. Either that or she gave me a 4.0 on my class participation -- that would balance a 3.2 on the final. But either way, she must have graded that final very, very generously, because I was guessing and giving partial answers. This is better than I deserve. I would rate my performance at a 3.2, or a 3.4 at best. But I'm grateful for her good-heartedness and accept the 3.6 with glad relief. This saved my GPA.

Creative Writing - 3.7 (A-)

A little harsh, but not so harsh that I can justify a protest. I deserved a 3.8. The obvious effort in the re-write of my first story should have bumped that grade up, and the second story was a 3.9-4.0. I have a feeling the professor/T.A. graded everyone low as a reflection of his feeling about the class as a whole. Next time? I don't tell the teacher I have any experience writing. :)

Ethnomusicology - 4.0 (A)

Oh, I hoped, but his final was so sneaky and littered with trick questions that I wasn't sure. I hoped for a 3.9 at the least. The class was easy, the tests were hard, and... you know? I always do better in a class I enjoy. This class was a blast.

Time to break out that bottle of Saki and celebrate. (If I'd done poorly the same bottle of Saki would have been for commiseration. ;) I have little ceramic cups for you all. *pours* *turns up the music*


ETA: To the person who asked which I preferred, the really killer hard Sanskrit or the awful Creative Writing class.

I feel like I learned something in Sanskrit, like I just had a good workout and yes, it hurts, I still ache, but in that satisfying "muscle burn" sort of way. The Creative Writing class has left a bad taste in my mouth and made it harder for me to write even fanfic right now. Even if I knew in advance that I'd get a 3.2 in Sanskrit I'd still take it, while I wish I'd dropped that Creative Writing class.

My Sanskrit teacher is the sweetest person in the world. I told her how frustrated I was, emailed her my questions, and she found time in her busy schedule. As we left Sanskrit class she told me, "Based on your questions I think this is fairly simple."

In our meeting she said, "The problem's with the textbook."

She explains. The textbook uses some indeclinable examples in the section where it decribes the declinable relative/correlative, and declinable examples where it describes the indeclinable relative/correlative. Then the section on declinable relative/correlative begins in the middle of the discussion of the indeclinable, stops, goes back to a discussion of the indeclinables, then returns to the declinables.

She says, "I'd hate to have to write a textbook, you have to make choices," and this textbook is so much better for beginning student than many others, which were written in 1800s, "but this chapter is problematic. I mentioned this in class."

So I explained it to wildernessguru last night (I figure if I can explain it to the guy who has no interest in foreign language, then I've got it down).

There are relative and correlative clauses. Some don't point to a specific. 'When I went to the store, then I bought some milk.' The 'when' doesn't point to anything specific. That's an indeclinable -- "yadaa/tadaa." So that would be:

'When I went to the store, then I bought some milk.'
'Yadaa I went to the store, tadaa I bought some milk.'

Some relative/correlatives point to a specific person or a place etc. Those are declinable. Let's use Monte kitty as an example:

'Which cat snuggled under the covers?'
'The one, Monte, is the cat who snuggled under the covers.'

(Sorry about the awkward construction. I'm keeping it close to Sanskrit. In English we omit a lot of the correlatives.)

That's where I was confused. I didn't realize that there was a difference between the relative clause that points to a specific who, what, or which, and a relative clause that's just general, "when I went to the store..."

---

A little fun with declinable relative pronouns, if you're curious how this works.

If we're talking about Monte kitty, well, he's a he, right? So in Sanskrit we have a different word if the subject is a he or she. Since Monte is a boy it would be "yaha/saha":

'Which cat snuggled under the covers?'
'The one, Monte, is the cat who snuggled under the covers.'
'Saha, Monte-ha, is the cat yaha snuggled under the covers.'

(If Monte were female it would be "yaa/taa." You were going to ask, weren't you? ;)

Let's bear in mind that Sanskrit almost always has the relative clause first. So this would really be: "Yaha snuggled under the covers saha Monte is the cat."

In Sanskrit we have a different ending depending on whether Monte is the subject or if something is given to Monte (for example) and he's the object. The version above Monte is the subject, "yaha/saha." If Monte were the object, it would be "yam/tam."

Quick refresher on the endings I described weeks ago.
Monte the subject would be: Monte-ha
Monte the object would be: Monte-m

'Which cat did wildernessguru give a treat to?'
'wildernessguru gave a treat to the cat, who is Monte.'
'Yam wildernessguru-ha gave a treat to the cat-m, saha is Monte-ha.'

Wait, wait, you say. Shouldn't that be "yam/tam"? "Yam wildernessguru-ha gave a treat to the cat-m, tam is Monte-m"? Well, you have to splite the sentence into pieces.

'wildernessguru gave a treat to the cat...'

What's the subject of that sentence? The cat? Or wildernessguru? WG, of course. Cat is the object, right?

'...who/the one is Monte.'

What's the subject of that sentence? "The one/who" is the subject. Who does the "the one/who" refer to? Monte.

Now. The entire sentence, 'wildernessguru gave a treat to the cat, who is Monte' -- is it about wildernessguru, or is it about Monte? That's right. Even though Monte's the object of the first part of the sentence, he's the star. So:

'Yam [points to the star of the sentence and tells us the star is the object in this half] wildernessguru-ha gave a treat to the cat-m, saha [points to the star of the sentence and tells us the star is the subject in this half] is Monte-ha.'

Is that cluttered enough for you? :D

It's a two-step process to translate.

1 - As soon as you see the "ya/ta" (or "ya/sa") relative/correlative combo, you divvie up the sentence. The "ya" and the "ta" are going to refer to the same thing.

2 - Then you check out the ending to your "ya" and that'll point to the star in that clause, and check out the ending to your "ta" which'll point to the star in that clause. Monte could be mentioned in both, but, well, that would be a little redundant even for Sanskrit. He'll probably only be mentioned in the first part.

Sometimes he won't be mentioned at all. You'll just get the "ya" and "ta." What do you do then? Oh, that's our good friend context. You can probably figure it out from the earlier sentences.

Now I can't wait to do my homework.

Sanskrit quiz done. *Icarus deflates like a limp balloon.*

You know it's going to be rough when the professor apologizes as she hands out the quiz and says, "Now remember, this is primarily diagnostic. Just do the best that you can."

It still wasn't as bad as I feared.

I'm useless at the moment. And hungry. But I might sneak a snack in the library and make myself study more Sanskrit before I go home. Tomorrow we start finite verb conjugations.

My textbook for this section reads (I'm serious): Don't Panic. Ha.

Raining today. The blue skies and sparkling leaves are gone and Seattle has turned back into Seattle.