Friday is the New Thursday and Learning Farsi

I seem to be very challenged on Thursdays and even though I promised myself (with my will of iron) that I would post every Tuesday and Thursday I am seeing that it is impossible. Thursdays are too full! I’m thinking that the only solution is to make Friday the new Thursday and I will post on Tuesdays and Fridays.

I’m not loving the symmetry of that so maybe I’ll switch to Monday, Wednesday, Friday, but yikes that’s a lot of commitment. I miss the days when I posted everyday. Life was so simple then… sigh.

Hah! Life wasn’t simple at all then. I don’t know why I had so much more time in my twenties and thirties than I do now. Less kids? Maybe.

So anyway, speaking of challenges I have decided to pay for Farsi lessons this summer. It’s not that I’ve always wanted to learn Farsi or that I’ll find it useful in business or anything it’s just that I am surrounded by Farsi-speakers and Bug’s math tutor offers Farsi lessons.

When summer came and Bug desperately wanted a summer off from all things school-related I decided to keep her math tutor on (because I love her so much) and pay her to teach me Farsi instead. It has been fun. On weeks that I study I make massive progress and I am the best student ever. On weeks that I forget to study it is like being in kindergarten all over again and learning that these funny squiggles are actually letters.

I was really scared that I wouldn’t be able to learn, you know, being old and set in my ways and having a memory that is shit. It is definitely a lot easier for the kids to pick it up. And there are sounds and letters that I find impossible to say. They seriously sound like hacking up saliva to me but it’s actually a LETTER! These sounds roll off the kids’ tongues easily but when I try, it sounds like I have a hairball. Khagh! Ghagh! Cough! Kghlaagah!

But I am loving it. It is sort of like cracking a code. I have these sets of squiggles and lines that I can actually sound out and make words with. I can write from right to left! I’m still very slow and only six or seven letters into the alphabet but I am making sentences with words with those seven letters.

I’m really glad I decided to do this. We might not be traveling this summer (big bummer) but learning a new skill is the next best thing and having someone who is really patient and kinds teach it to you makes it a pleasure instead of a terrible learning curve that makes you want to cry and tear your hair out. (Wow that’s a really long sentence.)

I’m having so much fun with Farsi that I’m thinking of making Farsi-finglish flashcards. I’d love to make real Farsi flashcards with the words in Persian characters but I haven’t figured out how to do that on my computer yet (Do I load a special font? How do I know which letters to type on my keyboard? I know phones can do this but does it work the same way on my computer with my Adobe programs?)  Maybe I’ll use google translate and trace the characters in Adobe Illustrator. That seems like a lot of work though and the fonts are hard to read… Maybe some Farsi speaker out there has an Arabic keyboard and would like to collaborate?

In the mean time: Baba ob dad. Dara nan dad. Man toot doost daram! Abr Bood. (Lol)