Good intentions...

Good thing I'm off work tomorrow, because the major weekend progress I had in mind for my conference presentations rather... didn't. Eh. As a recent liberal arts college grad, all I can say is that my procrastination abilities have been practiced to a finely honed art form (see just about any post from last year.) If I can't slap together a 5-minute powerpoint and decent poster - for a general audience, mind you - in under a day, then I'll eat my fancy latin-inscribed diploma.

I should admit that I had multiple procrastinational outlets this weekend... last night there was a dinner party for Martin, one of my housemates. I enjoyed (and contributed brownies for) his birthday "coffee and cakes" get-together last weekend, but this time there were twice as many people and huge amounts delicious food. (So much, in fact, that half the party came back this afternoon to help with the leftovers.) I ended up staying, mooching, occasionally contributing to conversation, until well past my bedtime... skipping out on the opportunity to meet Claire and Laura in town, which was unfortunate. Seriously, since when do I have a social life?

Well. Ahem... as for the main use of my time this weekend, I read a book. Or rather, finished a book that I started a little while ago. Das Wunder von Narnia, the first of the series chronologically speaking, was a gift from Laura after she got the whole set and didn't need extra copies floating around. Amazingly, I managed to get through what seemed like vast tracts of it with only minimal Deutsch-Englisch dictionary usage.

The exercise was very good, although sometimes wildly frustrating. In English, I'd devour such a book for breakfast and start wondering what was on menu for tea. In German, I read sooooooooo sloooooooowly. And I need to take breaks, often a couple per chapter. I can't get lost in the story and spend a whole day, pajama-clad, curled up on my bed/hunched at a table/lying on the floor/lounging on the stairs/half hanging off the sofa upside-down, simply living the characters cover-to-cover.

When I mentioned to Mike that I was reading a book, he asked some interesting questions. We've read together before and although he's no slouch, I read really fast. My brain is wired in such a way that I don't read words, per se. As in: ideas register, phonemes be damned. I don't hear an internal narrator, neither my own voice nor that of characters in the story, unless I take the time to consciously add one. When I was young, sometimes the easiest way to do so was to read aloud to myself... it slowed things down, but I liked creating funny voices and mentally playacting stories. (I still remember a primary school teacher complimenting my "expressive" reading in class... I stopped stumbling over words early and liked to let loose a bit when given the opportunity to read in front of an audience.) Usually, I don't bother to visualize scenes, except for the occasional flash of an evocative image or, again, by dint of will when I want to keep track of things. Maybe I don't have the "director's eye" as I know some of my friends do, but I don't particularly worry that I miss out. I've always been an avid reader, and my childhood favorites are dear and cherished friends.

But on to the wichtige Frage: how do I read in German? The simple answer is... pretty much the same. Like I mentioned, verrry slooowly, and with the occasional vocab issue (though my context-reading skills are getting a decent workout and proving useful) but by and large it feels no different. I tried to induce internal narration, and then I read aloud a bit. My pronunciation is notably better in my head than when I have to press the vocal apparatus to the task. Actually, reading aloud was more of a distraction and hindered comprehension enough that I dropped that idea pretty quickly. As for the overall, I'm pleased. It feels like a bit of an accomplishment to finish a book auf Deutsch... and I'm glad to note that, even if it's not up to native-speaker levels, my reading comprehension has come a zillion miles since we slogged through Dürrenmatt's Der Richter und sein Henker in intermediate German at Kenyon.

I've got a couple of other books on my shelf waiting around for my leisure, so I think I'm going to make it a goal to read a little bit every night. I'm almost done with my first nonfiction, Dr. H's Biologie der Angst, which has been living in my purse for the past few months and received passing attention on train rides and the like. Then I have Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod, a collection of Bastian Sick's amusing "Zweibelfisch" columns about awkward German grammar from Der Spiegel. I read the preface and a few paragraphs a couple of months ago, and I'd like to finish it before the end of the year so I can buy the sequel. At Christmas I grabbed a small volume on loan from Mike's mom: a translation of P.G. Wodehouse's Money for Nothing, entitled Große Liebe, kliene Diebe. I'm not familiar with the English version, so this could be an adventure. Finally, my albatross... the Terry Pratchett single volume four-novel set, Rincewind, der Zauberer. I have the advantage of solid familiarity with the originals, but the thing is a mammoth 1,068 pages. Not only intimidating, but a little unwieldy. Not gonna fit, even in my purse.

*****

So, tomorrow... I'll get work done, right? I already have evening plans for the second meeting of the Ferienchor ("vacation choir") so I guess I'd better make good use of my time!