Small, interesting, unconnected things

It still feels like magic to me that I speak foreign languages. Until I started learning Japanese when I was 19, it never even occurred to me that it was possible to learn another language well enough to communicate in it. Eight years later, I still have Keanu/kung fu moments where I go "I know German."

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When my feet get cold, my middle toe is always the first one to go numb. I cannot conceive of why this might be the case.

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While we're on the subject of toes, I realized yesterday that I conceive of my toes incorrectly. I'll explain what I mean. When I said "middle toe" above, I did mean the one in the middle, but I usually conceive of the toe next to my big toe as being the central one, although a quick count of the toes on either side of it demonstrates that this is not the case. Oddly, I still think of the fourth toe over as being my "ring toe", leaving the actual center toe somewhat lost. Maybe it goes numb first because it is lonely.

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Rose and I have a perennial debate on the subject of what our children will eat for breakfast. My mom mostly kept us to unsweetened cereals. Well, unsweetened in the box - once Mom's back was turned I frequently mixed my Cheerios at a 1:1 ratio with cane sugar. I agree with this principle; if children are going to eat candy for breakfast, they should at least have to be sneaky about it. Rose, however, doesn't see the harm in sweet cereal, mostly because she's had a morning routine of eating Crunchy Nut Corn Flakes every morning since forever.

I see myself sneaking into the kitchen at night, dumping out the Froot Loops and replacing them with dyed Cheerios. Then I see my kids waiting until my back is turned and dumping out the entire contents of the sugar bowl on them.

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The character for "woman" in Japanse (女) is also found in characters meaning ease/relaxation/inexpensiveness （安) and slave (奴). This character (姦), made up of three women together, means noisy.

In German, herrlich means outstanding, wonderful, fine. Dämlich means idiotic, silly, foolish. These are derived from the words Herr and Dame, "lord" and "lady."

English, on the other hand, is the least sexist language known to man, though I'm sure anyone could find some traces of gender bias in the language's conventions if he tried.

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I know German. That is awesome.