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When Life Gives You Snow, Make Snowballs*
Feb. 9th, 2017 01:38 am*It's a little cold for lemonade.
Yesterday, it was 52 degrees F, which, for an Illinois winter, is almost tropical. Some people were walking around in a t-shirt and shorts. None of those people were me; I wore a light jacket. It was nice.
Today, it snowed. Some people were happy because it hasn't snowed much this winter. None of those people were me either; I was grumbling because it took 15 minutes to scrape off the car and run the defroster when I went to dinner.
However, a friend of mine who's a professor at the University of British Columbia posted a video of an epic snowball fight that they had on campus. My alma mater, the University of Illinois (about an hour due east of here) could have had an epic snowball fight too, but we're too jaded about snow. At least people here would leave their gloves on; some of the UBC students were picking up snow with their bare hands, and I wanted to tell them to put their gloves on.
I made a big score. Apparently old versions of the Foreign Service Institute's language courses are online, free to download. Polish was one of those courses, and it isn't too old (dates back to the 1990s). It has MP3 files of 14 tapes, and a 400+ page workbook. Well, it's almost free; I owe the library $25 for printing off the workbook, and I bought a binder to put the workbook in. Still, it's a lot cheaper than any other type of course.
I looked at the Chinese course, but that dated back to the early 1980s, and someone posted a warning that the information was out of date and some words have changed their meanings. So, no Chinese course. I'll probably print off the Italian one when I go back to it. Possibly French too, sometime, so that I can practice speaking it again.
Some language sites are saying not to use Rosetta Stone, which is what I have for Italian. I had one for Polish too, once upon a time. I need to see if it's on my old laptop.
Yesterday, it was 52 degrees F, which, for an Illinois winter, is almost tropical. Some people were walking around in a t-shirt and shorts. None of those people were me; I wore a light jacket. It was nice.
Today, it snowed. Some people were happy because it hasn't snowed much this winter. None of those people were me either; I was grumbling because it took 15 minutes to scrape off the car and run the defroster when I went to dinner.
However, a friend of mine who's a professor at the University of British Columbia posted a video of an epic snowball fight that they had on campus. My alma mater, the University of Illinois (about an hour due east of here) could have had an epic snowball fight too, but we're too jaded about snow. At least people here would leave their gloves on; some of the UBC students were picking up snow with their bare hands, and I wanted to tell them to put their gloves on.
I made a big score. Apparently old versions of the Foreign Service Institute's language courses are online, free to download. Polish was one of those courses, and it isn't too old (dates back to the 1990s). It has MP3 files of 14 tapes, and a 400+ page workbook. Well, it's almost free; I owe the library $25 for printing off the workbook, and I bought a binder to put the workbook in. Still, it's a lot cheaper than any other type of course.
I looked at the Chinese course, but that dated back to the early 1980s, and someone posted a warning that the information was out of date and some words have changed their meanings. So, no Chinese course. I'll probably print off the Italian one when I go back to it. Possibly French too, sometime, so that I can practice speaking it again.
Some language sites are saying not to use Rosetta Stone, which is what I have for Italian. I had one for Polish too, once upon a time. I need to see if it's on my old laptop.
