 | | | Subject: Ahlan!
Posted Jan 17, 2006 by Lady Pennywhistle - Coming to a city (possibly) near you this summer! Meet me in Leeds (A87792664) or in London (A87795382)! C'mon, it'll be fun!
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  | | Ya hala biki!
(I do speak some Arabic - though Lebanese Arabic can be a bit difficult for me...  and very fast, too)
Weather here's pretty wintery. I'm in Jerusalem, and there have been some snow-speculating recently, but we didn't get any. 
It might be snowing in Lebanon, though; it did snow a bit in the north, here. Mainly Mt. Hermon (Jabal e-Sheikh), but a bit elsewhere as well.
Have you really just been to Lebanon?  Wow. It's supposed to be very beautiful, from what I hear. Of course, I've never been there... but who knows, maybe someday, huh? 
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| | | Subject: Ahlan!
Posted Jan 17, 2006 by  Wilma Neanderthal
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| | Yeah, Lebanese Arabic can be quite challenging - for me too  English is my first language... I grew up in West Africa and so have a real time of trying to make sure I avoid saying stuff that has double meanings...  got me into trouble many a time, I can tell you.
We have proper snow and skiing and all in Lebanon my daughter was very impressed. It snows in London but melts very quickly so she's seen it come down but not been able to play in it... She made a snow angel and got very wet and cold. We made a snowman and had a snowball fight and my husband and son wrote their names in the snow My son said it is difficult to pee when it is so cold *down there* 
... and I have always wanted to see Jerusalem. my best friend who is Irish and now lives in London used to live there  she has told me many wonderful things about the people and how special it is to be surrounded by all that history.
*waves from across the world to the Lady*
W
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| | | Subject: Ahlan!
Posted Jan 21, 2006 by Wilma Neanderthal
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| | Hi Lady Pennywhistle,
I have heard so much about it from so many different people over the years... Jerusalem is defintiely on my list of places to visit.
How did I get to West Africa? Long story - 'bout three generations long My father was born there and that's where we grew up. Sounds quite simple put that way, I must remember that! In fact, we are Lebanese. My grandfather emigrated as a youngster seeking his fortune in the early 1900s and the rest is history, really...
The plan was to educate us in Lebanon but in 1975 they had to pull us out of school due to the war. I ended up in and English school instead. It is a very common story among Lebanese and many other nationalities here in London.
You've always lived in Jerusalem?
W
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| | | Subject: Ahlan!
Posted Jan 31, 2011 by Wilma Neanderthal
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| | Ahlaaaan, Lady P Lord, it's been a while!I'm great, up to the nostrils in errant teenagers and work and stuff but strangely sane with it. We're still in Blighty, albeit in a new a improved abode and planning our ultimate move to LalaLand rather more energetically than I am finding comfortable right now. How are you doing? I hear you are a fully fledged Dr of summat now. Good for you!! What's happening your end of the crazy Med these days?
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| | | Subject: Ahlan!
Posted Feb 1, 2011 by Lady Pennywhistle - Coming to a city (possibly) near you this summer! Meet me in Leeds (A87792664) or in London (A87795382)! C'mon, it'll be fun!
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| | Yeah, I was pretty surprised how long it's been, too. I mean, yeah, I've actually only been on h2g2 occasionally since, umm, somewhere around 2008 I think - but this convo is _ancient_!
Errant teenagers and work sounds like a surefire way to go insane (although back when I was a teenager I was such a nerd I think I pretty much skipped the errant phase...) so kudos on staying sane, I suppose. It's a good thing there's a crazy place like h2g2 to balance it all out, eh?
Now, a more linguistic sort of quandary - when you talk about LalaLand, what do you mean exactly? I know it's often used to denote Los Angeles, but I think I've seen it applied to the US in general, and also to some other places, so don't want to make a blunder. Anyway, if it _is_ LA-LalaLand (heehee!) I have a cousin who recently moved there to do his post-doc in... umm, one of the UC-places, either Santa Barbara or Santa Cruz (I only remember that it's the one where Tom Lehrer is not ). So who knows, you might meet him.
Me, I'm no where near that part of academic life yet, goodness! No, I still need to write a thesis for my MA (I did a programme that does not require a thesis, but one is needed to move on to a PhD, so that's what I'm now trying not to procrastinate, while also combining it with other work), and only then I could _start_ my PhD. But I'm generally enjoying it. It's an Arabic satirical work from the 11th century, and the author drives me crazy sometimes (if you want a longish and probably weird rant, ask me about the pitchers. Or the rhyme-games, actually), but I like doing it, and it's never been translated to Hebrew before so it feels kinda important.
As for the crazy Med, with current events it actually seems lately we're in the less-crazy end of it!
Not that that's saying much - we had a former president recently convicted of rape and harassment (which, as it turns out, has been the kind of behaviour that has gone on for years, and that 'everyone knew about' but nobody says anything), and the usual bunch of lunatics seem to have moved their attention-grabbing attempts to racist grounds because they realised people like it, and I'm really quite tired of the whole thing, but, well, at least people aren't getting killed by the dozens on the streets, and we still have freedom of speech, and all that. Hooray for being better off than Egypt?
Or Lebanon. Jeez. I'm sure you have a better idea of what's going on there than I do, since I only run into the occasional news report or publicist's opinion, and those things don't always reflect how people there actually feel - you still have family there, don't you?
 It sounds pretty bad, anyway, and I really hope it doesn't go all '85 all over again.
Okay, enough about politics. It just makes me sad. So, when are you moving? How much stuff can you pack for a move abroad? I mean, I suppose you have to sell the furniture and really big things, and then buy new ones, or something, but it still seems like a lot of work.
Speaking of work, I'm procrastinating again... better be off.
See ya!
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| | | Subject: Ahlan!
Posted Feb 1, 2011 by Wilma Neanderthal
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| | Nonononono!! Lalaland is the land of mind boggling beauty, crazy politics and wacky traditions, not to mention food and wine to go gaga over - Lebanon, m'dear, where us lollyfants go to die.
Speaking of being off yer head, 11th century Arabic? Really!? Tell me a bit more, who's the author? - not that I will know anything about him (I assume it's a him) as my reading skills barely rival a ten year old's and as for crazy shenanigans in Egypt, it looks like one big carnival out there right now but  I suspect there's summat afoot in one-time Persia yet. Now that (and Saudi) would be something to behold... Time will tell, the winds of change seem to have passed us by in Lebanon. How we ended up with Mikati, I'll never know. He's probably the most convential and moderate Sunni in the country and I suspect are in for a period of intense boredom. Not that I'm complaining, mind
I'm for my bed, milady, but I'll be back. You be well, ok?
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| | | Subject: Ahlan!
Posted Feb 2, 2011 by Lady Pennywhistle - Coming to a city (possibly) near you this summer! Meet me in Leeds (A87792664) or in London (A87795382)! C'mon, it'll be fun!
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| | Right, well, I've been posting a bunch for a while now, but figured I'd keep this for last. I think I had a reason. Maybe something about feeling this is Serious and having to think of what to say.
Anyway, jeez, Lebanon. Well, that was definitely a usage I was not aware of, but I should have figured it'd make sense...
Also, I feel a bit  regarding what I said about Lebanon, since really, the last I heard of it was reading about Hizballah disbanding the government or somesuch, and all the related worries and actually don't even know who this Mikati guy is. I'm hoping for the best, though.
It feels odd, with all the recent events, since on one hand all the popular protest and calls for democracy and everything are so exciting, and you kinda have to root for them - but in places like Egypt there's always the niggling worry that the Ihwan Muslimun will take over (like with Iran's Islamic Revolution, which started out with a lot of liberal left and got kinda hijacked by the Ayatollahs)... but it feels terrible to root for a dictator just because 'Oh, but he's our friend!', know what I mean?
Gah. Sometimes, I really don't like this world very much.
So, what I'm working on... it's a text called The Epistle of Forgiveness (Risalat alGhufran), and the author is Abu Alaa alMaarri, who was quite an interesting character, really. The neat thing about this work is that it describes the protagonist's voyage through the afterlife - so kinda like Dante, except a couple of years earlier. Also, satirical. Also, in quite a different form altogether, which I guess might be best described as 'arabesque' - so far I've translated close to 5% of it (well, a rough, holey draft of a translation, anyway; also, I won't be translating the whole thing right now, that'll be for the PhD) and didn't actually get to the plot yet. He kinda gets distracted all the time. He starts by talking about Heaven, and how wonderful everything is there, and then he says the word 'pitcher' (Ibriq) and it reminds him of a whole bunch of poetic verses where the word was used, and he just goes on and on about it, with occasional asides-to-an-aside of various sorts (historical, philological, linguistic etc.) until he finally moves on.
Then, some paragraphs later, he quotes another poem, and tells a 'funny' little story about this one scholar and how he played with the rhyme on it, and then, well, R.A. Nicholson put it best, when he published an article that includes a partial translation of this work back in 1900: >>By way of "completing the story," Abu'l-'Ala goes through the whole alphabet and gives about forty variants, adding in most cases an explanation of the rhyme word.<<
 And that's the part I'm currently stuck at. Rhyme games.
Well, at least it's a relatively benign thing to complain about, eh?
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