Esperanto meeting....

[fajrdrako]

I went to an Esperanto meeting this evening. I've been a member of the local Esperanto club off and on since I was a teenager, though this is the first meeting I've been to in ages - not counting a literature course I took last winter.

I'm not terribly fluent. I should be; I just don't practise enough.

I knew they were having some trouble finding people for the club executive and was somewhat afraid of being roped in, but no, that didn't happen. Instead I got volunteered to make a presentation at the October meeting about what's coming up at the theatre where I work. Yeah, sure, I can do that, I said. Only I said it in Esperanto.

I can. I have months to prepare, right?

I was glad I went to the meeting because I love hearing people talking Esperanto around me. I love the language. I should go more often. At the same time, I had mixed feelings because I wanted to spend the evening working on my historical CLex story, or the Eliot story, or doing a final draft and posting my current story about Martha.

There's never enough time.

At least I got in plenty of exercise today: an hour of kundalini yoga, 15 minutes on the cross-trainer, and walking downtown and back twice - about 8 miles altogether. No wonder I'm tired! That, and a very busy day at work. A day in which my printer broke down again for the second time in a week. Could the faithful old Hewlett-Packard laserjet 400 be getting old?

Comments

[isagel.livejournal.com]

So how's the Eliot story coming along? Which poem are you using? I'm embarrassed to say that I don't think there's any way I can keep our deadline for this. I have an idea, but absolutely no inspiration. But I will write one, honest.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I would be happy to extend our deadline, since I want to work on the historical story first and I'm falling behind already. Shall we make our Eliot deadline the end of July?

[isagel.livejournal.com]

That sounds good. I'd really like the story to turn out well, and the historical story is taking up a lot of my time too.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Okay, we'll extend the deadline so we don't have to rush it. July 31 is our new deadline!

Esperanto

[acampbell.livejournal.com]

I know I could look it up elsewhere, but I'd rather hear it from you.

What exactly is Esperanto? I should know.

Re: Esperanto

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

It's an artificial International language, created in 1888 by a Pole named Zamenhof. The point of Esperanto is that it is very easy to learn: people speak it all over the world, and have worldwide conventions, read and write books in the language, and so on.

If you want to see a bit of what it looks like, here's the begining of the Bible - Genezo 1:1.

"En la komenco Dio kreis la ĉielon kaj la teron. Kaj la tero estis senforma kaj dezerta, kaj mallumo estis super la abismo; kaj la spirito de Dio ŝvebis super la akvo. Kaj Dio diris: Estu lumo; kaj fariĝis lumo. Kaj Dio vidis la lumon, ke ĝi estas bona; kaj Dio apartigis la lumon de la mallumo. Kaj Dio nomis la lumon Tago, kaj la mallumon Li nomis Nokto. Kaj estis vespero, kaj estis mateno, unu tago."