Peonies

Wouldn't it be nice to have your own country house with lots of luxurious fragrant peonies outside?

What does it take to become a linguist, translator and interpreter?

3 stacks of notebooks,

a stack of booklets, several folders with xerox copies (mostly German), a pile of Russian, English and German newspapers and magazines,

a shelf full of dictionaries, also an English-English and a German-German dictionary kept in the desk (not featured here)

One also has to write a paper (probably using half a hundred of cookbooks, needlework books and other how-to-make it books as material for linguistic analysis).

One has to make a speech at a students' conference - and of course to write that speech first:

An Old, Deserted House

"I think an old, deserted house is such a sad sight," said Anne dreamily. "It always seems to me to be thinking about its pastand mourning for its old-time joys. Marilla says that a large family was raised in that old house long ago, and that it was a realpretty place, with a lovely garden and roses climbing all over it. It was full of little children and laughter and songs; and now itis empty, and nothing ever wanders through it but the wind. Howlonely and sorrowful it must feel! Perhaps they all come back onmoonlit nights. . .the ghosts of the little children of long agoand the roses and the songs. . .and for a little while the oldhouse can dream it is young and joyous again."

From Anne of Avonlea by Lucy Maud Montgomery. Seeing old deserted houses I always imagine the same thing Anne does.