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Sunday 12 July 2009

ABC, easy as ...

I've also been *attempting* to learn the Nepali alphabet of the past few weeks- a good friend of mine advised that the script is the most important thing because often signs will have English words written in Nepali script. It's the same script that is used for Hindi, so my handy translator can show you what I have learned thus far:

अ a आ aa
क k ख kh
ग g घ gh
ट t(retroflex) ठ th (retroflex)

It's a bit difficult because they have more different sounds in their alphabet than we do in ours, and my phonetics slt training is proving very helpful to me to understand how I'm supposed to say things, but I've still not quite mastered actually making the sounds yet! But show me some Hindi/Nepali with any of the above characters and I'm there :)

Friday 10 July 2009

Being Mum

This week I've been at home minding Ben while mum and dad were away celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary. In fairness to me, by the time it gets to being responsible for a 13-yr-old, you've usually had 13 years experience, but it's been exhausting! I'm definitely not cut out for the mum thing just yet (which is just as well I guess...)

So it's been a hectic week of making lunch boxes and attending parents evenings (ha!) but also making some seriously awesome props for this year's M-Powered cafe. Seriously awesome. My nifty plan of getting creative materials and creative people together in one room and setting them loose came off well- creative juices and acrylic paint were flowing all over the place!

Chris is staying in our house at the minute so it was nice to have another 'housemate' while everyone was away, though with the busyness of the week a lot of time seemed to be spent with me rushing in and out and Chris looking on with a 'bemused' look on his face. Fun.

It was a strange week really, but I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the added independence of having the car, and catching up with people I hadn't seen for ages, and spending time with the girls in the youth group, and the crazy home set up where I (and Ben) were the only constants there. I wasn't really in a rush to get back to Leeds but I came back yesterday and went out as a kind of 'housewarming' with some of my housemates from second year, and that was nice because as part of my horrendous third year I all but lost touch. So it was a different week to anything I've had before, but it was good.