I was looking through railings at him in zoo-like fashion and he was surrounded by junk but I don't think he's feral - too healthy looking in close up. He's giving Monty, who hadn't seen him, a hard stare.
The book I'm reading ('Far from the Tree' by Andrew Solomon) has a whole section on Deaf culture and he talks about 'aural/oral learning' which is better for communication with the hearing world, and 'signing' which is better for language development and communication within the Deaf community, but you can end up not being able to communicate vertically within the family group. It's interesting stuff and of course the improvement in cochlear implants is adding another alternative into the mix. So I was thinking about that when I met a nice young girl in the park who, in between throwing hoops for Monty, was speaking Greek with her grandmother. I love that Cambridge is packed with families from all sorts of cultures (we have Greek next door on one side, Thai next door on the other, Zimbabwean across the road, German next but one, French, Danish, Irish, Indian, Italian, Chinese, Iranian, Israeli along the street - and that's only the ones I know) and quite a few parents have told me how difficult it can be to sustain their native language among their children. It occurred to me today, when my little friend said she couldn't remember the Greek for 'dog' that a side effect of living here can be losing the ability to communicate with family - grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins at home - and that's rather sad.
Three good things:
1. My neighbour has chopped down the pampas grass that Rafiki is partial too.
2. He also paid for vaccinations for our other cat who lives with them - which was very welcome given how must I've spent at the vet this year.
3. Turning the alarm off tonight (after Nigel gets up at 5 am) - R & A need a lie in and I'm not going to deprive them.
...well all cats have this look-ness thing eh?
just been laughing at mine - sat right next to my lads speaker which is pumping out a huge amount of sound..
interesting thoughts about language.
I can see her intense stare, she is nice though, lovely colours. I know what you mean about the culture loss, my sister-in-law is Polish and there is a very large community in Ireland and there are 'Sunday schools' to learn and keep their culture and language alive, and glad that grass is gone.
She has picked a perfect vantage point....she looks like a she!!!
Your book sounds great for someone like you who helps with the reading in school & is generally involved with young people.
There were some ladies from Spain I think chatting & laughing at Boundary Mill today...might help us to learn a bit of foreign language, we are not good at speaking other tongues in this country.
She's got quite some attitude! I love that multi-culturality about my city as well :). If we move to Cambridge some day we won't have to miss that then :).
Even though i like your shots a lot, i love your thoughts about the world and life. I imagine a fabulous woman's group with many here...you, Alison, Ruth, Pat, me for starts. In another lifetime I guess! Love the expression you captured here and hooray for the end of the pampas grass
Not a happy kitty, beautiful all the same! My boyfriend is Chinese and I find it fascinating how his mum will swap half way through a conversation to Chinese, then switch back again, you don't quite notice until you realise that you can't understand what they're saying... but I love it all the same, they also refer to each other as "big sister, little brother, middle brother" (in Cantonese, obviously) and I think that is lovely :)
Nice one :) Did you watch the Pompeii documentary? - too much loud music and not enough science, but some more facial reconstruction stuff which made me think of you .... :)
I like the composition and the interesting place the cat has chosen to sit. What a fascinating tale. Good to hear about all your foreign neighbours. We have very few here.
He's certainly giving Monty a good glare.
Interesting stuff on language. I often think the internet & TV are homogenising language and we're losing all those lovely local words.
Wild, he looks livid! That's what we call a PHS (Paddington Hard Stare) The book sounds really interesting. I'd like to get a copy of that to add to my 'normal' reading selection post degree xx
I had a co-worker that looked like this often. Glad she moved on! I took a sign language course for a short while so I could communicate just a bit with a girl at church. The others in the class were very comfortable with signing and were working on improving their vocabulary. I dropped out after one term since I couldn't figure out how to use words like "hospital" and "community" when I hadn't even mastered the basic "how do you do's". Sigh.
I do like the 'I'm untouchable up here, but I'm watching you' expression on the cat. Interesting text on language in the home. When both parents speak a non-english first language the children seem more likely to be bi-lingual.
@judithg I had a little look for it last night but there were a few different versions by the look of it. Not sure which one exactly you have? Is there a subtitle after 'Far from the tree'? xx
@psychographer 'A Dozen Kinds of Love' . It's about children who are different to their parents - so autistic, criminal, prodigies and various other groups and about horizontal & vertical identities.
@ellida Loads of local children are bi & tri lingual (I feel like a failure!!) but even when both parents speak the non-Englush language they often find it hard to fight English. When the patents' common language is English (like my neighbours) it's really tricky & the kids next door struggle to talk to the family in Thailand.
@bpaquette It's tricky to learn - like learning another spoken language with completely different grammatical structure. I don't think people appreciate how complex it is. Phew about the co-worker :0) !
Lovely shot, really nice composition. It's amazing when dogs blithely trot by, totally oblivious to that killer look, and other times they hone right in.
just been laughing at mine - sat right next to my lads speaker which is pumping out a huge amount of sound..
interesting thoughts about language.
Your book sounds great for someone like you who helps with the reading in school & is generally involved with young people.
There were some ladies from Spain I think chatting & laughing at Boundary Mill today...might help us to learn a bit of foreign language, we are not good at speaking other tongues in this country.
Interesting stuff on language. I often think the internet & TV are homogenising language and we're losing all those lovely local words.