I peaced out mentally during my lecture today and ended up going ahead in the book while the class followed along with the prof. I did a bunch of exercises on my own and as a result I’m starting to get my bearings with this language. It’s melodic, undulating, hard to sift apart into units. English is so broken and sharp - beautiful in its own way but it staccatos and hisses in ways Māori does not. The lack of aspiration and few phonemes in Māori make it very easy to lose track of where you are if you don’t pay close attention to the speaker. It’s quite beautiful - and challenging.
Also unrelated -- we had faux “meetings” last night organized by the wonderful Clare and it was really great. All the good vibes. My last study program was so socially fragmented and strange, so it was nice to see a bunch of very different people come together and make an effort to be friendly and have a good time together. It gave me extra good vibes to use today when they were needed.
Should probably start my homework now even though all I want to do is lie around and watch old episodes of 30 Rock. We all gotta make sacrifices.