Last year around this time I decided I was tired of the "hunt and peck" typing style I'd been using for almost ten years. I wasn't sure I could learn it (can't teach an old dog new tricks and all) but I decided to at least TRY to teach myself how to type (with help from online resources, of course). It was a relatively slow process...I'm sure that a teenager in a keyboarding class could figure it all out a lot faster than I did...but it wasn't half as bad as I thought it would be. In fact, it turned out to be a lot of fun. I'm not quite where I want to be in my typing skills, but the long and short of it is that now I CAN TYPE! No more searching for a letter then looking for another and another and another and so forth and so on. You'd think that a person could become a proficient typist even eith that method if he/she did it long enough. I suppose I was about as good as anyone can get. But now that I know how to do it the "right" way I feel like an idiot for not learning long ago.

I took up that project out of what I considered necessity. The BIG project I'm embarking upon now is just for fun, but I hope to put as much time and effort into it as I did in learning how to type...I AM GOING TO LEARN THE ICELANDIC LANGUAGE!!! What the hell, you know?

Why Icelandic, you ask? "Good God, man! They're a great band but do you really want to learn a whole new language just so you can understand a few of their song lyrics?" No, that's not it. I admit that my love of Sigur Ros played a part in my decision to learn their language. But it's not a case of excessive devotion to a band. Its just that, having heard them speak their native tongue (watching "Heima", listening to the lyrics, various interviews, etc.) I think it is a very interesting and somewhat intriguing language. In other words, it sounds cool to me.

What good will it do me? I don't know. I'm hoping it will be fun, first and foremost. I'm hoping it will help me see the world in a slightly different way through a foreign language. Why not? It's a Zen thing...I want to do it because I want to, because I can, because it can be done...I don't care if anyone thinks it's a waste of time because of some deluded perception they might have about "what I can get from it". What I hope to "get from it" is the satisfaction that comes with knowing I can do something "big" if I put my heart and mind into it.

Just like my typing education, I am in no real hurry. I don't know how long it will take me to fully grasp the language, but if it takes a year or two (or even longer) I'm going to do it anyway. It's going to be so cool to go into a store and when the clerk asks if there's anything they can help me find I'll go into an Icelandic spiel, just to see the look on his face! Or maybe the next time Sigur Ros come to a neighboring state (or Oklahoma, could we be so lucky?) I'll wait until the applause after a song dies into silence and then I'll yell something in Icelandic. The last thing they would expect in this part of the United States of America! Talk about wanting to see the look on someone's face!

I'm starting out with the "vikudagurrin"...the days of the week. And today I will say the word "manudagurinn" so many times I'll hear it in my dreams tonight.

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