i must learn a new language. what should it be? dutch? they don't teach dutch at uva. german then? would it be easier to switch to dutch later on with some german now? no i'm not being silly just because i'm on a dutch expedition now, or because i think that reading the "original" is the only way. i'm sure i'll appreciate a translation more, simply because i can pay better attention to the ideas, than to struggle with a dictionary and get bogged down with grammar and not be able to see the big picture. but it's so hard to get dutch writers in english, and i must read them: i've just heard of magriet de moor and willem frederik hermans and s vestdijk and midas dekker and hella haasse and connie palmen by looking up publishers' lists of dutch literature. oh i've got to get some connie palmen. i read somewhere about a book she wrote called "the laws" about a young student pursuing an m.a. in philosophy and her sexual/intellectual relationship with the seven men who each teach her something different about philosophy and the nature of love, and she grows to surpass each of her mentors except for the seventh. sounds exactly like my kind of book. gad i don't know why i didn't start earlier on languages. clearly i've been ill-advised *look around accusingly* then there's italian. nooteboom's herman mussert says: latin is the essence, french is the idea, spanish is the fire, italian is the aether, and catalan is the earth, portuguese is water. well i've got the essence and i'm getting the idea. now aether, that's fancier than the rest, at any rate. aha.