8.22.2008

Slightly OT: mad people, international languages, and kids' empty heads

* Miss Erin once again proves her awesomeness. Squeaky Books interviewed her for their newsletter and, in the interview, Miss Erin lists this as her favorite quote of all time:

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars…" ~Jack Kerouac

That. Is. Awesome. I've never read that quote before; I particularly love "desirous of everything at the same time." That very brief phrase describes me entirely.

* Thanks to my AL Direct email, I have discovered Livemocha where you can take online language courses (free!) and chat with fellow language learners around the world (free!). I signed up for a course in French but I haven't had lots of time to get into it. I'd like to take Spanish too, just to learn some basics to get along. But I'm stoked. This is a great idea!

* Last, from my AL Direct email again, this picture was in the sidebar of the email:
Am I the only one who finds this image deeeeply disturbing????

3 comments:

Erin said...

:) isn't that quote brilliant? I first heard it from Justina Chen Headley, who also sites it as her favorite quote. It describes me PERFECTLY.

Anonymous said...

Laura,

Hi my name is Steph and I'm a community manager at eduFire.com another site that can help you with French, Spanish or any language or exam you need to learn or study for. I'm also a huge fan of Kerouac! Great exerpt.

Unknown said...

I totally agree, Erin. I know I've told you this before, but you have to come to NYC so we can all meet you. I'm convinced that my inner-17-year-old could totally be BFF with your current 17-year-old-ness.

Steph, I'll totally check out edufire.com. I can't keep doing semesters of French at NYU so I'm looking for online alternatives. Thanks for the info!