The articles for the Tech Expo are done. Like most things, it turned out to be less work than it looked like.
The other morning on NPR they did a thing about language. There was this Czech word that caught my attention. Val looked it up for me:
litost [lee-tosht] (noun)
This is an untranslatable emotion that only a Czech person would suffer from, defined by Milan Kundera as "a state of torment created by the sudden sight of one's own misery." Devices for coping with extreme stress, suffering, and change are often special and unique to cultures and born out of the meeting of despair with a keen sense of survival.
I think there should be a word in English, preferably untranslatable that means "I am so busy I can not even take the time to comprehend how busy I am!"
Whatever that word is, that's what I am.
Wednesday, January 26, 2005
Some Progress
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3 comments:
Perfectly - perfectly - stated. I would have copied itonto my away message but that would just take more time. Oh wait, this reply is taking to long too!
Caitlin
Just saying hi to let you know I'm reading, by the way.
Very well stated Andrea. And to think, you are defining it for the man who, by his very job description, is a contributing factor to the state of fucked-ness for many students. Though, into the upperclassmen years, most PTM students who are "Fucked" are there due to poor time management or a production assignment that has gone awry, more so than blatant overload in classwork.
Where when we get into that state of busy at the sign shop, it is usually because we are "in the glue" on a project that just won't end. Does anyone else use that phrase? I first heard it from my dad, and it makes me think of a big puddle of rubber cement all over the floor of the shop. or 33 (which is a much more vivid image).
I'm just bleary-eyed with delight that I got mentioned AND linked in someone else's blog. I have finally arrived in the geekdom of blogland.
Thank you David.
And yes, "Fucked beyond all comprehension" was our version of description of that state in my time at CMU.
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