Monday, June 09, 2008

I can't believe it's Monday.

Monday's just seem to be rushing at me and I'm not getting much done. Come Friday my youngest will be home from her first year of college. I'm looking forward to having her home and hoping I maintain the discipline to keep up with my project. Guess I'd better practice that a little this week!

For fun, my daughter and I are going to try and learn as much Italian as we can this summer. I'm trying to do some studying before she gets back home. I need all the help I can get - she already sings arias in Italian. Me, I think I got 'va bene' down and working my way toward 'andiamo a farci un cicchetto.'


Living consciously...

Some days the practice hits a nerve, today's one of those days: Fight or flight; what's your poison? In the reading Hendricks weaves fight/flight and passive-aggressive behavior together and offers an explanation of a half-fight that allows the fighter to claim no knowledge of his or her intentions. Having had a recent "discussion" with my spouse, half-fight makes sense and I can see how I do both at the same time. I understand that when I'm stressed I can slide back the continuum of ego defence mechanism into more neurotic or even adolescent behavior (say it isn't so!) In my half-fight, I tend to intellectualize and numb my emotions. It's easy to see how by being conscious (and not controlled by my ego) I could improve this second half of my life. Easy to see, yes... the actual doing of it continues to be the challenge.


1 comment:

jenclair said...

I tried learning Italian one summer several years ago and found it both challenging and fun. My main problem was being unable to understand rapidly spoken conversations, but those Latin classes years and years ago helped with reading.

I can't remember much now, but I can recite a bit from Dante's Inferno at will. "Per me si va nella cita dolente/ Per me si va nelle enterne dolore...." (I love the first 9 lines of Canto III and memorized them) -- very useful.

Actually, my intent was to be able to read The Inferno in its original Italian and to be able to order food if I ever had the opportunity to go to Italy. Didn't get far on either one.

How much fun to learn and practice with someone who has the experience of singing Italian arias!