Kingdom of Knuffel

"Fluency" by Jennifer Foehner Wells has been DNFed at 18%. I expected a linguist decyphering an alien language but the protagonist is someone naturally learning languages "as easily as breathing" and the alien race basically contacts her through her head. not interested in a story like that so I started another sci-fi instead, "Starglass" by Phoebe North. seemed appropriate for Hanukkah too.

Chag sameach!

Speaking of learning languages, my father is trying to take up Hindi. Do you happen to know any good resources for that? Right now all he has is Duolingo.

chag sameach :)
we somehow turned out to have no hanukkiah so we made our own. a drawer handle, a piece of wood, foil, a cap from a soap bottle, and two forms for cutting out cookies that look like stars. and I'd wondered why we were keeping everything XD

unfortunately not, but I could ask my students. one of them is Indian, it's unlikely he knows anything but never hurts to try

even if all he has is some children's authors to look up that would be useful! Thank you.

That does sound like a very ad hoc hannukia you guys created! And it sounds like it might have been a blast to put together, too

How is it working?

(One year in college I just used 36 tealights, with a taper for shamash. Got a bag of 100 on sale, and the very entertained roommates helped to hide it since we technically weren't allowed candles).

We ironically have extra. Every time an Elder moves in with me, there's an accumulation of various Judaica (and I am discovering that we evidently don't follow the typical Jewish culture which seems primarily Ashkenazim around here, so some of ours is a little odd-looking. Apparently a bonfire at the end of Sukkhot is not the default tradition, lol, and it seems we've picked up some random local customs from every country we've lived in) and it takes a while to gradually disperse it back into the wider family, or find new homes for it since sadly we seem to have fewer children each generation.

And I'm still working on my "knights of hannuka" comedy hannukia idea; so that'll be more.

You might enjoy that one, actually, you've got a good sense of humor....

I'm ignoring all history and turning the Macabees and three random others into medieval-era Crusader-style full-plate knights, plus an even later era bedel/mubaashis (however you spell it) as the shamash.

I have two of the knights carved to where I'm happy. Still working on the others (they're sketched out but that's it; at one point I had more but decided they weren't good enough, so the project sometimes goes backwards as well as forwards). My brother says he'll help make the molds once this part is finished.

Undecided yet, is would it be fun to create a "round table" for them to stand around, where the table top comes off and you can keep matches inside...
They're turning out to be relatively large, though, so at this rate the table could turn into a whole candle-holder as well as matches.

If I like it enough, I'm hoping I can make extras and sell them for enough to cover the costs of making them, and then give them out one year as gifts. Since they're a set but they're all separate, they're kind of modular and can be placed around the house all year instead of just brought out once a year, so I'm hoping they'll go over well.... but it's taking forever. I'm not used to representational art!

Alice - YOUR students? Are you a lecturer :o?

Also, the first sentence about "Fluency" sounded super cool, but then I realized you are quite disappointed.. So am I now :D

Sanssouci, this actually sounds like an interesting book the the picture on the attic... Have you stopped reading it or did you continue?

Akili, you might ask memoriam, she studied Hindi :)

Oh that's right! Mem's a linguist too! So many gifted people on KofK. Thanks!

@Akili: heeeeeey that sounds fun! be careful with the round table if you end up using it as a candle holder, so that it's still clear where the right and where the left is. though it may be just ashkenazi, now that you mention it. I was told about that rule at a workshop and the instructor was ashkenazi. what materials are you using? do you have pictures of the work in progress?

I would totally adopt the bonfire tradition if I had any space for that!

if you know any converts, you could give them some items that are piling up at your place as a welcome gift..? that is just an idea, of course. I'm not sure I would give away family stuff unless those people are close friends...

@Julez: noooo I'm a teacher in a private language school, so I have a lot of foreign contacts (for as long as the course goes). technically they're pupils (for Germany) but they're all grownups, so I call them students. but I also have university students, I'm just a teaching assistant there though. I have 2 hours a week to make sure my group understands what was going on in the lecture and can apply that practically.

I thought I was going to love "Fluency"! but while a linguist who is naturally super talented at learning languages would not be such a big problem (it still could involve real field work and challenges of understanding a different civilization who might not even have a language in our sense), the alien race initiating a contact with her through her thoughts and requiring no effort from her (in the book it literally went like BAM she understands everything), just means that it will be exactly like that: no effort required. there's still a challenge of convincing her team mates that she's not delusional and can really communicate with the alien entity. this story can be exciting but I'm not interested in it at all. so I didn't DNF the book because of cliches, I just wouldn't pick this kind of story up at all if it was clear from the blurb. you may like it if you're into books with a plot like that!

LittleJulez wrote:
Sanssouci, this actually sounds like an interesting book the the picture on the attic... Have you stopped reading it or did you continue?

I haven't officially given up on it, and I do plan to read at least a little more, but I haven't read any more since I posted last. Instead I started Wideacre by Philippa Gregory.

how is that one?

I'm only about 30 pages (out of about 650 pages!) in, but I'm enjoying it so far!

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