So, I should really get to sleep - this I know. But before I go, I wanted to share this website with ya'll:
http://wordsmith.org/awad/
I wouldn't be surprised in discovering that many of you already know all about it and consult it quotidianly. BUT, I've just discovered it, and it makes me happy - so let me have my moment!
Basically, this website posts one new word every day - its' definition, origin and use (all the usual dictionary stuff), as well as an inspirational quote, which isn't related to the newly-learned word, but enlightening all the same!
In Vietnam, my life is pretty good. I teach three hours a day, I run daily (in preparation of a 5K I intend on taking part in come December, in Cambodia) and I frequently gorge on delicious cuisine that costs me less than a buck. Pretty awesome.
I also read, a lot. And I find that I long so much to hear the English language when that's no longer a luxury to me. Vietnamese is, well...not exactly light on the ears. Like most other Asian languages, it's tonal, and many of the sounds required to say these words must come through your nose. Not a skill I have mastered yet, to say the least...
So anyway, yeah. English. I love it. It's beautiful. I often find myself reading and researching new and different things during my time over here (don't worry, I'm not a complete loser - I do go out on occasion, when my Vietnamese friends are granted permission to stay out past their usual curfew time of 11 p.m.) and I have learned one thing: I am a lover of the English language. And I find that my amazement with words (the Oxford English Dictionary contains over 170,000 of them) is somewhat simlar to the opinion that my favorite TV personality, Anthony Bourdain, holds about travel:
"I know that I will never understand the world I live in or fully know the places I've been. I've learned for sure only what I don't know - and how much I have to learn."
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