i know something about you

today i feel: better
today i'm hearing: fastball -- all the pain money can buy
today i'm thinking: a vacation from life is still a very pleasant thought

Following last night's angsty, but still entertaining, post, my roommate decided to take some action to stop the angst. As you all know, friends don't let friends be emo. Thanks to her, Top Chef and Domino's Thin-Crust, some of my faith in humanity has been restored. Not much, mind, but a little bit. I really was pretty far gone, though: I wrote something that was actually kind of good.

Now that I have apologise for the vomit of angst, I'd like to continue to my main inspiration for blogging: my German class.

As many of you know (and probably all of you have gathered), I love German. I love it a whole lot. German makes me very happy inside. I find it a beautiful language, despite what all of you say about how it sounds like my cat hacking up a fur-ball. Have you ever been seduced in German? Oh my goodness. You are missing out. Ask Katiemakespie. I love German so much, in fact, that I intend to pursue it as a career when I finally decide that maybe I should get a Real Job. There is one part of German I do not love, however. That is the Genetive Case. This is the case of possession. The problem that I have with Genetive Case is that it is impossible to explain without examples. This causes a great deal of confusion.

zum Beispiel (Please note that the following is really funny if you've ever used a German textbook.)

A purple car pulls up into my parents' driveway over Christmas break. I am in the living room with my mum.

Mum: You, Kiri, who's purple car is that?
Kiri: Yes, Mum, that is Tony's purple car.

Makes sense, right? Nothing too strenuous there. Now let me explain why I hate the Genetive Case.

In English, this sentence works just fine. However, the Germans do not believe in simple sentence structure. Oh, no. We can't have that. Thus, it becomes much, much more complicated.

Yes, Mum, that is Tony's purple car becomes
Yes, Mum, that is the purple car of Tony which becomes
Ja, Mutti, das ist das violettes Auto des Tonys.

Now what really cracks me up about this is that a proper noun (ie. Tony) must have an article in front of it (ie. des Tonys), which to me looks like 'the Tony'. So, ,,Das ist das violettes Auto des Tonys," looks to me like, 'That is the purple car of the Tony', as if the Tony that drives the purple car is the end all, be all of Tonies. Naturally, I am easily amused.

The Germans love their articles. Love them. And every article has a specific gender. This says a lot about the policies of gender equality in the Fatherland. For example, a skirt is labelled as masculine (der Rock), but a prostitute is unchangingly feminine (die Prostituierte). It's things like this that make me question why I hold so much faith in this language. Or, rather, warum lieb' ich diese Sprache?

Here ends the rant on the German language. And scene.

Tim asked me if I thought that there was a point where leaving something out could qualify as lying. I'd like to talk about that for a while. My answer: yes. For example, if you are on trial for something and 'forget' to bring up the fact that on the night of 27 February you were, in fact, with the victim and were present for their final breaths, you are lying. If you are asked by your friend what you were doing the other night and 'neglect' to mention that you were with a friend and that friend happens to be the significant other of the friend asking, that would be lying. However, if you don't specify who the friend was, that's not lying. Because you were with a friend. Now, if that friend asks you if the friend you were with was his/her significant other, you are obligated to say that they were. The trick, I think, is in the specification. I can tell my parents that when I was in Chicago, I stayed with Bozarth one night. This is true; I did stay with Bozarth one night. However, I do not need to disclose just how late we stayed up or that we were watching Grand Theft Asian Ass. The fact of the matter is, I would probably tell my father this, at the very least, because he would think it was hilarious. My mother? Not so much. Leaving things out can definitely be considered lying, but it's a matter of circumstances and semantics. I don't consider leaving my evening's entertainment out of my story to be lying. I would consider leaving out certain broad details to be lying.

That's just me, though, and my morals are a bit skewed. What do all of you think? We shall now facilitate discussion! My blog is smart!