(no subject)
Since people have been asking, I will just put general info up here. I am currently in Bahgdad. Over all things are good. As of late my job has been interesting. For the most part we just guard an entrance gate to the area where we stay. Its not bad. We work 8 hour shifts, so I end up with plenty of time to keep up with my kung fu (about 3 hours a day) and lots of running, because it is fun.(Even if I am crazy.) I have a cell phone and am slowly getting more and more acces to the internet, right now I am working office duty for 24 hours, then I will have 24 off so it is not a bad shift. Its also nice since I now have access to the internet for the next 24 hours. Hopefully I should be on AIM quite a bit. No phone calls today though. Sorry Beth.
Day to day life is interesting, I work the second shift so I start at noon here which is about 3am in the states, and finish about 9pm here which is about noon at home. So I usually try to call people at that time. If people have any questions for me, I will try to answer. I will leave the questions screened unless you tell me otherwise, so feel free to ask.
The neat thing about my job is that I am interacting with Iraqi employees so I am learning a fair amount of arabic. Its pretty neat. Definately something I will have to take when I get back to school. Its an interesting language, the pronunciation is very different. It almost reminds me of german in being somewhat gutteral. Although much of the sound is generated from the back of the throat instead of by the tounge(is that how you spell it?) That little bit there makes learning the pronunciation rather difficult, but a fun challenge. I am hoping to learn as much as I can over here then go home and take some classes and learn the formal language. The stuff I am learning here is a good mix of formal and slang. The slang is definately easier to learn, the formal is significantly more complicated.
The other interesting thing about the language is that they seperate the sexes for all congigations of verbs and such. It reminds me of spanish in that regard. I need to learn more languages. It would definately be nice to become fluent in more than one language. I just need to figure out a language and do it. I guess that means I actually have to work on it deson't it. No more procrastinating. That still does not sound like fun to me. Although it would be nice to have at least a second language fluently.
Well I think I will leave it at that. Catch you guys later. Like I said any questions, just ask, and I will try to answer. Some things i can't talk about and others I simply just don't know.
Day to day life is interesting, I work the second shift so I start at noon here which is about 3am in the states, and finish about 9pm here which is about noon at home. So I usually try to call people at that time. If people have any questions for me, I will try to answer. I will leave the questions screened unless you tell me otherwise, so feel free to ask.
The neat thing about my job is that I am interacting with Iraqi employees so I am learning a fair amount of arabic. Its pretty neat. Definately something I will have to take when I get back to school. Its an interesting language, the pronunciation is very different. It almost reminds me of german in being somewhat gutteral. Although much of the sound is generated from the back of the throat instead of by the tounge(is that how you spell it?) That little bit there makes learning the pronunciation rather difficult, but a fun challenge. I am hoping to learn as much as I can over here then go home and take some classes and learn the formal language. The stuff I am learning here is a good mix of formal and slang. The slang is definately easier to learn, the formal is significantly more complicated.
The other interesting thing about the language is that they seperate the sexes for all congigations of verbs and such. It reminds me of spanish in that regard. I need to learn more languages. It would definately be nice to become fluent in more than one language. I just need to figure out a language and do it. I guess that means I actually have to work on it deson't it. No more procrastinating. That still does not sound like fun to me. Although it would be nice to have at least a second language fluently.
Well I think I will leave it at that. Catch you guys later. Like I said any questions, just ask, and I will try to answer. Some things i can't talk about and others I simply just don't know.