Hello again, peoples! Did you miss me? ^_^ I'm sure you did. Anyhoo, now for another informative session of...I Have a Lot of Time On My Hands Between Classes So I Use the University Computer. This should be known as IHLOMHBCSIUUC for short. (aye-h'llo-mahb-seeook if you want my pronunciation of it.)

Before I jot down my notes for Spanish class (where the Prof continues to be cool--no fue un sue~o, *mariachi yell*), I should say that I bought books this weekend, and they were expensive. x_x ICK. The reason I mention this is because I just happened to be reading an article as I was eating lunch (mmm, sandwich) which blamed the whole expense of textbooks on Profs. Actually, more the lack of money one gets when selling books back. THat's all the Prof's fault. But they reported that bookstores mark up their books 15-20%, even though they're sympathetic to the "poor college student." I understand markup generates profit, and also they don't have to worry much about competition, but still...yeagh. My SO had to pay some $60 bucks for a tiny booklet of pages. Something is rotten in this system...

Anyhoo, Spanish! Se~ora is really a sweetie, and she reminds me verra verra much of Dana--same accent, same really genki approach to teaching Spanish, same hair color...it's a strange twin sorta thing. I should ask if she knows her, or the two know each other at all. That would be spiffy. Anyhoo, we reviewed the pres. indicative and reflexive verbs today. Pretty much a piece of cake, though I did pick up some new verbs.

Notes:

Verbs that require stem changes to conjugate:

• Verbs ending in -cer preceeded by a vowel--conocer, parecer, merecer, nacer--the yo form changes from -co to -zco. (conozco, nazco)
  
• Verbs ending in -ucir--conducir, inducir, lucir, traducir--the yo form again changes to -zco. (conduzco, traduzco)
  
• Verbs ending in -cer or -cir proceeded by a consonant--convencer, vencer (to conquer) and the spiffy zurcir (to mend)--change the yo form to -zo,
  as in zurzo and venzo.
  
• Verbs ending in -ger or -gir--coger, proteger (a), recoger, exigir, fingir(to pretend)--have a change in the yo form from -go to -jo in order to preserve the sound.
  Protego=protejo, cogo=cojo, and the like.
  
• Verbs ending in -aer--caer, traer, raer (to scrape off)--have a yo form ending in -aigo, like traigo and raigo and caigo. (If I recall correctly, these verbs also do weird stuff in the preterite. We shall see.)
  
• Verbs ending in -uir (not preceeded by "g")--huir (to flee), destruir, incluir, construir--take on a "y" in all forms except nosotros and vosotors. For example, huyo, huyes, huye, huimos, hui'r, huyen.
  
• Verbs ending in -guir--distinguir, seguir, erguir*--drop the "u" in the yo form to retain the hard "g"--as in sigo or distingo--but retain it through the rest of the verbs forms: sigo, sigues, sigue, seguimos, siguen. ("uen" is pronounced "en" after a "g"--it's simply there to retain the hard sound.)
  

*The verb "erguir" has a strange conjugation. It means "to erect, lift up" and replaces that "e" with an "i"--irgo, irgues, irgue, erguimos, erguis, irguen.

Reflexive verbs are still easy, and it's just vocab, but I do need to learn the vosotros conjugation. Essentially, it's "a'is" for -ar, "e'is" for -er, and "i's" for -ir. (Those apostraphes stand for accents, BTW."

Whew! That's all for now, minus the little bit of homework there is to do. I'll be back later this eve, so jya ne!