Brain Rain

When it's like a desert out there, rain is sooooo refreshing. It turns dust into productive soil, and a dry hole into a pool.

And when cool things happen that stimulate your mind and your artistic muse, it is similarly rejuvenating.

I played a ceilidh last night with a great fiddle player who was driven'er as they say here, and that was musically great. Some of the best playing I've done in while, which was nice, cause I was wondering if I had lost it entirely. When you get a mojo going with another musician, I am amazed and what it pulls out of you that mightn't otherwise have been there. So fun.

So that was cool. And then I noticed against the wall, an older gentleman who had Is féidir liom JIG a dhéanamh written on his t-shirt. That's Irish, by the way, and I knew those shirts are only available in the Gaeltacht in Ireland, or online, but probably this guy had at least visited a Gaeltacht, so I had to meet him. He came up to me at the break and when asked, yes, he spoke Irish, and come to find he is from Conamara (a Gaeltacht), and is familiar with the area where I stayed, has worked near there etc. We had almost 15 minutes solid of Irish conversation which was super encouraging and fun for me: encouraging that I understood him, and he me. I press on in my goal! Then after playing a tune on the tin whistle he told the crowd that one of the reasons he had come to that town was to meet me, and how impressed he was that I sound like a native! Yay me! :)

This sounds egotistical I guess, but if you know me, you know I'm just excited for affirmation, since I have done soo very much of this as an auto-didact, I'm not super confident in my pronunciations etc. sometimes.

------------------------------------------

I have a new game I play. It's called give-the-phone-to-Anna-when-a-telemarketer-calls. Anna likes the game too. I like hearing her responses to their requests for one of her parents, and her attempts at making conversation with them.

-----------------------------------------
some of Anna's English:
covereds = cupboards
tugga four = tug of war
their chuthers = each other
high hill shoes = high heel shoes

-----------------------------------------

One of the best rains on my brain of late has been that I have been somewhat frequenting

here...

*sigh* aaaahh yes, fresh beachy watery airy goodness how I love you.

Did I mention this is 5 minutes from my house?

That is Atlantic Ocean by the way.

Did I mention that I have lived here 6 years and it was 6 years ago when I first visited this beach, then didn't see it again til this summer when I have become a bit more vocal about my wants, and I've been half a dozen times in the last month nearly. And it is love...

2nd verse same as the first

so, remember that Irish speaking Fred Sanford? I'm expanding my repertoire with Irish cowboy/hillbilly, Irish valleygirl, Irish Ernie, Irish Bert, Irish Cookie Monster, British Irish (I could almost go into convulsions on that one, the bipolar disorder -identity crisis kicking in).

At least Anna is having fun and using more Irish. If it takes me sounding like a hillbilly, I'm good with that.

Wow my house is fun, if a little strange. We'll say, distinctive.

What language is THAT?

Hi. I've been a little absentee because I'm working on other things. Remember the elation mentioned 3 posts back? So now I am working on my vocabulary etc. in an attempt to keep ahead of speed-learning children. I'm absolutely amazed at the things coming out of her mouth on a daily basis... some new words, sentence structures, etc. So exciting!

I might have before mentioned Anna's infatuaion with Shrek. Well, she pretends to be Fiona, and usually she says Niamh is donkey. Poor Niamh. Someday she will have a say in these these things. Well, Niamh must have been napping one day, and I became Donkey. Remember, that I endeavor to use Irish exclusively with her. I've also learned that one of the reasons she wasn't liking when I was using Irish was that I would do more funny voices and be sillier when I was using English. So shoot... stretch, Jennifer! I took a deep breath and did the best Irish-speaking Eddie Murphy I could muster. I was surprised, actually, it wasn't bad. I was pretty impressed with myself. Although it turned into more of a Fred Sanford from Sanford and Son after a while, the idea was still there, and it was hilarious if you are me.

But the excitement does not even end there. Who out there has seen Jonah, the Veggie Tales movie? Remember Chalil (however you spell it.)? mmmm... do you see where this is going? Yes. There is now frequently heard in this house, Irish Gaelic with a ghetto and/or Pakistani accent.

Classic.

I hope my children don't grow up too confused.

My own little Everest

This cannot possibly be as cool to anybody else as it is to me.

I have been reeeally discouraged for the last, oh, year, about the progress, or lack thereof, of Anna's Irish. Mind you, I believe she understands everything I say, but she wouldn't ever use it with me. We have always had bilingual conversations in which I speak Irish to her and she replies in English, minus the odd Irish noun tossed into an otherwise English sentence.
"Mommy, can I have some bainne?" (milk)
"I'm not tuirseach." (tired-adjective, I know)
"Look at that puiscin!" (kitten)

I was just about to get downright depressed about it. I knew many people at the University of Toronto who had been raised with their parents speaking something else to them (Mandarin, Arabic, Bengali, you name it), but they always answered in English. They all reported understanding the parent language but being unable to use it themselves. I did not want this for my girls! I wanted them to SPEAK it.

Not wanting to give up, I tried to find ways to be more proactive. I joined an online group for parents raising their children with Irish (to which my brother-in-law said, "Wow, there really is an online group for EVERYthing."). I've gotten some great ideas and most importantly, encouragement, from other parents in there. I sought out Irish blogs to read, worked on my own Irish blog more which was surprisingly helpful, and made the general daily effort to be as exclusively Irish speaking to them as possible. In some literature I got from another parenting resource in Ireland, when it is only one parent seeking to pass on the language, it is recommended that that parent uses the language exclusively with the children. Ouch, I said to myself. Not possible, but I'm trying!

WELL! It has happened! Finally! Anna started using it with me all the time and I am simply ecstatic! That is part of her motivation I'm sure, that she has seen it gets her approval and some big mommy smiles, even when she might have been about to get in trouble. (no, it doesn't get her out of trouble, try as she might).

I don't think I can communicate why or how thrilled I am at this, but it feels so huge to me. Growing up in purebred mono-lingual anglophone Midwestern USA, bilingualism seemed so exotic, foreign and untouchably elite to me. I never imagined it for myself (even though I am not calling myself fully bilingual yet, since I'm not fluent at all in Irish) and to be passing it onto my kids is just thrilling. It feels like I have conquered a huge personal mountain.

Cool. :)