just for fun

How about a short grammar lesson?

Tagalog, or Filipino, has only three tenses. Instead, because otherwise it would be too easy, it has a rather elegant but still confusing system that changes verb meaning. It's like the passive voice on steriods. Instead of subjects, and direct and indirect objects, Tagalog has a system of focuses which are determined by markers.

For example, if the verb is actor focused, the person doing the action will have the "ang" marker and the object will have the "ng" marker. Or if the verb is object focused, the actor will have the "ng" marker and the object will have the "ang" marker. In practice, the meaning created by combinations of markers and different verb conjugations is similar to the meaning created by combinations of prepositions like "by" and "for" and "to" with word order, the passive voice, actually using different verbs in English.

Take for example the root word "bili", which means "to buy". Ignoring any time aspect, my language tutor and I (well mostly my language tutor) came up with 17 different ways to conjugate the verb. These are all infinitive forms.

bumili - focus on actor
binili - focus on object
bilhan - focus on location of action
makabili - focus on actor, shows ability (e.g. "can buy")
mabili - focus on object, shows ability
pabilhin - focus on actor, shows causation of action (e.g. "caused someone to buy")
magpabili - focus on causer, shows causation of action
mapabili - focus on object of action, shows causation of action
ibili - focus on recipient/benefactor (e.g. "bought for someone")
maibili - focus on the recipient/benefactor, shows ability
ipabili - focus on the object, shows causation and ability
maipabili - focus on the recipient/benefactor, shows causation and ability
ipangbili - focus on the instrument used to complete the action (e.g. "bought with the use of money")
maipangbili - focus on the instrument, shows ability
mabilhan - focus on the location, shows ability
mapabilhan - focus on the location, shows causation and ability
makapagpabili - focus on the causer of the action, shows causation and ability (e.g. "I was able to cause them to buy something.")

Additionally:
- pagbili and pamimili are gerund forms of the verb
- magbili and several of its derivatives mean "to sell", but they are rare

As you can imagine this can get confusing, but it has its advantages. Namely, it's easy to figure out what is going on. It can be hard, though, to figure out who is involved, and in what ways.

a culture of tolerance

I was going to write an informative post about Holy Week here, but some guy in the net cafe is playing a loud game at max volume and it's getting really old, so I'm going to rant instead. Imagine being in the theater during a battle scene from Lord of the Rings, except there is no epic music. I keep telling myself I'm going to go to the other cafe that's a bit farther away, that has headphones, but I don't, and then I regret it.

The words "well adjusted" occur to me daily in reference to people here. I'm not sure if they are incredibly good at surpressing annoyance, if social norms are just that much more stringent about forbidding complaining (this is certainly a factor but can't be the whole story), or if they just genuinely don't mind when people do things that I mind very much.

Sometimes animals do things I mind very much, too. My host family has a dog in a cage outside my room that squeeks for hours, sometimes days, on end. It sounds like someone is cleaning a window very loudly, except there's a disgustingly piteous quality about it that you don't really get with windex and a paper towel.

The difference between people and animals, of course, is that human beings are responsible for their actions. Or that's the idea, anyway. At least in my town police officers actually pull people over.

back from the beach

I just returned from a weekend of sun, sand, and other fun things that unfortunately don't start with an "s", like ultimate and good food. Wait, another one: spending.

Due to this country's status as a "developing" country, it's really easy to spend far more money than the average person makes. Since I make about as much as the average person, I need to be careful.

Another reason I should be careful. *cough cough*