Post Father’s Day Clearance

There have been a few ‘I should write about this’ ideas floating about in my head over the past week or so. Here they are:

I was recently told that I speak Serbian better than the King of Yugoslavia. He was born out of the country (or in a room in London that was temporarily considered part of Yugoslavia just so they could say he was born there) and spent most of his life abroad. Apparently, he’s been studying Serbian for the past fifteen years. Maybe it isn’t saying too much, but it’s still a really nice compliment.

Women in Black recently published a booklet on religious pacifism. I co-wrote it. Much of my job as of late has become being ‘that religious girl who says religion isn’t necessarily bad, but who supports secularism and is against fundamentalism.’ I like this niche and am trying to figure out how I can turn it into a career.

The English word ‘refugee’ is about refuge, what the refugees are seeking, while the Serbian word for refugee, izbeglica, is related to izbeći, to avoid or escape. I am not going to read any deeper meaning into how refugees are seen by both societies. I am not qualified and being so essentialist about language troubles me, but I think it is interesting how these words are constructed.

A few weeks back, an American friend and I spoke about gender in language and how weird a concept it is. During the conversation, I realized that when I am speaking Serbian, I think about people’s genders constantly. Any time I want to say something I think to myself, ‘okay, she’s female, so this is how I construct it…’ Again, I don’t know what the ‘deeper meaning’ of this is, but it’s curious and a little troubling that I always think of people’s gender. It’s not as if I don’t notice others’ gender when I am speaking English, but it is not something I consciously focus in the same way.

My immediate-family-minus-me is going to Portland today for the annual gathering of our church. I am jealous. A weekend seminar on fundamentalism on a mountain in southern Serbia is lovely, but it just doesn’t compare.

I will be going home in five months. I am supposed to be starting to make plans for that. More and more people are starting to ask me about these as-yet-inexistent plans. I am having a really hard time imagining myself not in this place. My fingers are crossed that such thinking will become easier when it starts to turn colder in the fall.

I feel like I have been working a lot recently, between the grant from hell, translating a book, and attending seminars many weekend. Last night, I checked my schedule and realized that I only have one work-free day in June. (Sure, there were a couple of weekend days where I just put in a couple of hours of translating in the mornings.) That day was last Saturday. No wonder I am feeling burned out.

And I am trying to care about tennis. Serbian teniseri players are high on the world rang-list. People talk about it all the time now, but I still can’t manage to work up enthusiasm. There was a big gathering for the triumphant returnees from The French Open a few weeks back. Even though it was only a block from my house and would have been good people watching, I couldn’t muster up the effort.

To je to.