Friday, January 9, 2009

quick update

Had jury duty yesterday. I was on the standby list, so when I called in to see if I was needed, I was told "Thank you for your service and enjoy your day off." Sweeet! I promptly got to laundry and sitting on my butt, watching TV. I've discovered this show called The First 48 on A&E -- it's a documentary show (don't call it reality, that cheapens it) that follows homicide detectives around in several cities and tracks the case they're assigned to for the first 48 hours after it breaks. It's fascinating to see how quickly they can work and how good they are at their jobs.

Every once in a while I find myself oddly fascinated by some sort of niche -- right now it's forensic science and detective work. Anytime I'm near a TV playing Forensic Files, CSI, Law and Order, or any other of the host of crime procedurals, I get sucked in. And in another lifetime, I probably could have been damn good at that too.

I've been thinking about learning another language. Or six. I'm always in awe of people who can fluently converse in multiple languages and I've secretly yearned to be one of them. I took three years of Spanish in high school and I can pick up bits and pieces of conversation... but I speak what is commonly known as 'restaurant Spanish' -- enough to communicate, too little to converse. I've heard lots of good stuff about Rosetta Stone and it's not astronomically expensive, so maybe one day I'll go learn Spanish. And French. And German. And Japanese. And Welsh (they have Welsh!). While living in NYC, I ran into so many visitors who were so tenative and scared about their broken English. I always wanted to be able to allay whatever fears they had by spilling out with their native language out of nowhere.

--

Finally, had a doctor's visit today. CD4 is 447, VL is 28k. That's a considerable bounce back from my previous readings... in fact, my CD4 is higher than it was when I first started seeing Dr. Z. Meaning: No meds. I'm holding steady and have been for a year, minus that one little blip... that's good news.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ancestry.com has an ad running right now that features a mother musing about where in the world her children get their propensity for dare-devil behavior. Then It tracks back the generations and finds a circus family of acrobats. Did you know that your Dad's great grandfather was a police detective? Also, Andy may not have told you but he is in line for a promotion to detective. Maybe it is in the genes....

Congratulations on the good numbers!

Maggie tells me her IB class uses Rosetta Stone in the language studies. I think it is a goood idea for you to learn other languages. American schools are sadly lacking in that department. In Canada, learning French is mandatory if one is an English speaker.

Mom

Sayre said...

I would love to learn another language as well. I am so entrenched in English. It is becoming the planetary language of travelers and business, but the REAL people still speak their own languages. Welsh would be fun (though not terribly practical). Perhaps we can speak it at each other? I'd go halvsies on a course...

Congratulations on the numbers - you must be doing something right!

Anonymous said...

Good numbers--keep it coming! dad

Anonymous said...

Congrats on the numbers, little bro! :)

Before you spend money on Rosetta Stone, let's see if you can get an account on Army Knowledge Online. They offer Rosetta Stone free. That is how my kids do it.

John

TeKay said...

Hello precious one! Congrats on the numbers. And my cousin is a detective in the Hotlanta, he just got his promotion a few months ago.

Yay multiple languages.