Ichiban Mumtaz

When I was originally taking Arabic, I was in the class with two active duty Marines who were getting their commissions. I think that both of them had been stationed in Japan, so when we learned the word for "excellent" or "fantastic" (ممتاز, "mumtaz"), they paired it with Japanese for "number one" ("ichiban" - I'm not going to try to get a translation because Chops will berate me if I botch it) to get "number one excellent" - "ichiban mumtaz". Today, I've been ichiban mumtaz.

So, I did my fifty-ish flash cards, both this morning after my Bible and BCP readings, and upon returning from work. (There are a few of them that have been yanked for one reason or another, mainly ones that need to be fixed, so it's not quite fifty.) I think I mentioned previously that I've been using the same fifty cards for going on two weeks now, because they're new and I want to get to know those words. Once I've got those ones down pat, I'll switch to the next fifty, the combined total of which are those flash cards that I finally did a few weeks ago after taking forever to just sit down and do them. So, anyway, forty-five-ish flash cards, twice today, which is a habit that I was pretty good about last week and have been good about so far this week.

After I'd finished with the flash cards, I did another study-reading from the Quran, this time being سورة الحجرات (al Hujurat, "The Apartment"/"The Chambers"). (Apparently God inspired Muhammed to write an entire chapter on how people shouldn't disturb him when was in his digs. Who knew?) Once that was done, I finally, at long last, broke out the Ahlan wa Sahlan textbook and did the CD-accompanied exercises for the first chapter. At some point, I'm going to have to start going through the lessons beforehand, it's going to take additional time, and then I'm going to have to do the audio bit; for now, though, it's all review, and pretty easy review at that, so it only took the eleven or so minutes for the first track of the CD. It's all stuff that I knew, but I want to go through the book from start to finish, just to make sure that I don't miss anything.

So, the results so far this week are fantastic. Also, I'm about to go hit the pool, which is a great thing, and could result in me emulating Chops by transitioning into a second bloggable activity. That, ladies and gentlemen, is great success at its finest.