Fili’s world

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At the time I couldn’t get it. We were usually both naughty high-schoolers that didn’t spend too much time in the classroom, and when we did - we would usually drift out to other worlds or find something else to do meanwhile class that we were interested in. We used to spend a great deal of time together, especially during the 9th and 10th grade, since we were interested in a lot of the same things - liking technology , sci-fi and hanging at the movies. Every once in a while we would start weird projects together - usually geeky computer related ones, like opening a 2400baud modem BBS called Waste of Time and messing around with the school’s computers. We also had our own separate hobbies, so while I was spending time on the courts playing basketball and hitting ping-pong balls he was into drawing really neat cartoons and… studying languages. Cartoons, I could get, he and another friend (who’s become a wonderful international pianist) would create some a twisted sarcastic comics adaptation of our school’s happening. But the way he was moving on from one language to another, repeating words no body understood, drawing funny characters no body could recognize, never ceased to amaze me. He was one of the few people in class doing advanced-Arab-studies, going through French and other European languages to some really strange stuff - like Esperanto . At one point, I vaguely remember something about him being a member in a club promoting the use of Esperanto world wide and seeing him read and write some pretty advanced stuff. It sometimes seemed like an addiction, and as we would be in some boring class he would pull out his language study notebooks and go on from where he previously stopped. I guess he was a natural, and it wasn’t only the simple concept of languages but also methodical languages like Math and science. I remember him memorizing the numbers following the dot in the math constant PI (you know - 3.1415blablabla), and me clearly believing that this was his way of studying how to speak math. Combinations of sights and sounds were especially interesting, as he examined Chinese/Japanese characters and went to see how numbers evolve in picturious Fractals.
(as it usually is with memories, I’m not really sure how much of this actually true :P, but - it does make a good story, doesn’t it?
I’ve lost track of him a while ago, somewhere around finishing my BAs. Looking his name up on “Google”, I have no way of knowing if it’s him, but it sounds just right. First hit - “Non-linear wave propagation in the one-dimensional Toda lattice”, second hit - extreme left wing protests, a few after - exhibiting amazing writing and humor talent, and moving on to actively participating in Arab speaking forums regarding the Israel-Palestine relations.

I’m not sure when exactly I was reminded of him, but having enjoyed my Chinese language studies so much I was able to trace some of the roots back to my time with him in high-school. After all those years, I now suddenly understand his fascination and addiction. It’s a wonderful rewarding thing, language. It takes you one step closer to understanding and being with people, getting closer to those who were previously unapproachable and distant. That’s all I could ever ask for.

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Categories :

• b-studychinese
• b-aboutme