Tag: language

Bread

When I correctly answered spontaneous trivia questions posed to the audience at a Taiwanese tea ceremony presentation this morning, my coworker turned to me – he’s white Anglo, but a Mandarin teacher – and asked, “How do you know all this stuff?” Yesterday had been a surprising exposure of my Día de Muertos knowledge and experience, and a few other things had come up in the past week to show how I had grown up participating in many cultures. And, while I sat in on his Mandarin I class last week and this week and blew him away with my random knowledge of Mandarin and of character radicals, I am certainly not part of the Mandarin department, and have never been to or studied about China or Taiwan.

I smiled and said to him, “My family is very not-white.”

To solidify such a statement, let me merely add that my hand is covered in mehndi right now, as I helped my mom for a presentation and event she was doing tonight for Diwali, and I wanted to play with some henna just for fun, since I’m wearing an Indian outfit tomorrow… As I said, we are very not-white… 😛

Happy Diwali, y’all!! 😉

Post-a-day 2021

RKBS and R

It seems like every time we do a lot of Russian kettle bell swings in a week at the gym, I end up with a really sore lower back, and it clamps up on pain unexpectedly at times when I bend over, though not every time, of course. Am I perhaps doing them incorrectly? The coaches and owner always approve of my technique and movement. I always check the boxes mentally in what muscles are tight when and whatnot. And they always feel great when doing them. And yet I end up really sore a few days later. Perhaps it is merely that I am doing them right, and so it is easy in the moment for me to do loads of them. Only later do I discover how much work I really did… not sure yet.

At the very least, my pursuit of the Russian language is feeling much better than my body is regarding the Russian kettle bell swings. This pursuit has proven to be surprising, as well, but it is surprisingly fun and delightfully satisfying. No real pains with that bit of Russian. 😛

Post-a-day 2021

Learning fiend*

*friend, do I mean??? ;P

Well, I am apparently learning some Russian now. And it has beautifully reestablished a deer friendship of mine from high school, for which I am already grateful!

Thank you, God and Universe, for these seeming absurdities that I pursue, and for my ability to pursue them so full-heartedly and effectively.

Please, bless my mouth and brain, that I succeed with Russian beautifully and bring joy and honor to the speakers of this beautiful and slightly frightening language.

Post-a-day 2021

Boewulf

So, I just read Boewulf. I’m a touch surprised at its being so famous and important in literature, because the story was very meh to me, didactic, too. However, a coworker has said that it is more about the language and the lyric and the history of the work than it is about the story.

Although, we don’t read it in the original language…

I am intent to have further conversations with him on this tale/work, now that I’ve finished it, as I would like to learn further details of the greatness of it. I do not imagine it is highly ranked for nothing much.

Post-a-day 2021

Surprise

There were only boys in class today. Boy, was I surprised to discover how much more I liked it… There just really is something about these boys that has me absolutely love working with them. Girls are great on their own, of course. But they tend not to speak up for themselves and their needs when boys are in the class, and it causes problems in learning, unfortunately. And that is frustrating to me as a teacher. But just having boys in class… sometimes, it feels like I was made for that…

What do you think, God and Universe? Is this part of my next step forward in life?

Post-a-day 2021

Surprised

I am cold, but not ashamed, sitting naked on the floor.

I have been putting together ideas for how to approach a particular class that I’m teaching. You see, I absolutely love teaching – I can’t stop getting excited about it, when I have the opportunity actually to do it. I just love teaching and helping people learn things. And teaching foreign language, despite its struggles, is one of the most exciting things I have ever been able to do in my life. I really wish that I could devote more of my life to doing just that: teaching foreign language.

I think I always got so frustrated with teaching, even though it was mostly foreign language, because of the books I had to follow. I would do my best to use the books, but despised how terrible they were, not just in terms of accuracy, but in terms of how ineffective they were in creating someone who genuinely could say, “I speak this language.” And so, I would make a belated effort to come up with something better, while keeping on track with the required timing of the course, and covering whatever silly info the book had thrown in as ‘important’ for the course. Actually, of the courses – I was never just teaching one, but usually three to five courses in French, all at once.

And I think that that is how I grew so exhausted. The frustration combined with the inefficiency and knowing that I could do so much better, if only I had the time. Yet, when summer came around, or any other longer break, I was already too exhausted to do anything about it all, and too overwhelmed by the frustrations and inefficiency in which I had been living for so many months already. It was easier just to give up. And, eventually, it was easier just to walk away. The state requirements were too stupidly set up for my efforts to be worth it on my own, it felt.

And yet, there was something else. Something I hadn’t realized until, perhaps, this week… maybe, even, until today.

I had not found a place where I truly wanted to put forth the effort. I had not found a school for which it felt my efforts would be worth it.

And yet, as I mentioned, though I never take work home with me, I am sitting here on the floor, most likely at home (because I’m definitely not sitting around in my office naked), working. But this isn’t work for me. It is something I am excited and impatient to do. So, I am doing it. Well, I was doing it. Once I hit the point of being done for now – no longer thrilled by it -, I closed up shop for the night. I likely will revisit it all tomorrow and Saturday, and possibly will go in to school on Sunday or Monday for the more “work” part of it all, the labor that isn’t so fun, but necessary for it all to be great.

And, you know, I excited about that. What kind of weekend is that? A wonderful one, filled with a sense of accomplishment and helping make the world a better place, and making a positive difference in the lives of those around me, on the lives of people I love.

So, I can hardly wait to get back to work. For now, though, Imma get up, get dressed, and get to sleep, because I’m exhausted.

Goodnight, all.

And may God and The Universe bless us all with love. 😉

P.S. If you got that song reference, it is extra fun, because I really have been torn about all of this teaching stuff lately. I thought I had left teaching for good…, but then I got an e-mail and phone call this summer, and here I am, teaching for the semester… and loving it in the most ironic of ways.

Post-a-day 2021

Colors

I was discussing yesterday with a friend how I never had a favorite color as a child (and still have none). I knew I needed an answer to the question that almost everyone posed to me, so, I took stock of the favorite colors I knew of the people around me in life. One neighbor girl was really cool. And so, I figured her favorite color would be an acceptable one to have as a favorite color, since she was so cool. Her favorite color was green. So, whenever anyone asked, so was mine. (Though, I regularly forgot this fact, unless explicitly asked for it.)

In my Duolingo lesson today, I was reminded of this conversation and that time in my life. Nowadays, I just tell people that I have no favorite anything. But most of my childhood involved the green answer. And so, it felt as though Duolingo knew all about me when t ave me this phrase to learn and practice:

What else could they possibly be referencing? 😛

Post-a-day 2021

Nerves

I think I’m nervous. I’ve been hesitant to share with too many people about this whole computer programming and engineering thing. And I think I finally saw today why. I think I’m afraid that I’m not actually good enough for it. I’ve always seen people who do this kind of thing well to be of a caliber above me, somehow. Super brainiacs, so to speak. I’m certainly smart, but I’ve never considered myself to be that smart.

And yet, as I mentioned while speaking of my concerns the other day with the family friend – who, by the way, is one of those super brainiacs and who has confessed complete confidence in me on this endeavour -, what I have done and can do with human languages is, in its core, remarkable. Sure, it is normal and no big deal for me – it is my own brain’s workings, after all, so I know nothing else. And yet, compared to how most people’s brains work around language and languages – especially people who were not born into a multi-lingual or bilingual family -, what mine does is a total anomaly. I’ve always held that I have a math brain…, and that language is just math to me. But who ever crosses that barrier between math and language/writing? Indeed, who ever dissolves that barrier? For me, it just doesn’t exist.

And so, I can see how my brain is already set up to step into that role of super brainiac, in a way. It already is a super brainiac around language education and teaching. Now, let’s have it expand into the real of computer language and art. I am ready to create, and to improve all this junk that is out there everywhere, currently wasting people’s time left and right…

Let’s do this.

LFG

Post-a-day 2021

Double down

What if the work I really want to do really does involve spending hours a day in front of a computer screen?

Hmm…

I just don’t see it. Part of the day? Sure. Hours every day? Nope.

But I can still see it as a possibility, my having a semi-desk job, in one of those hipster-y-yet-not ways, of course.

I am thinking this all, because I have been looking to see what lights me up whenever I cross it as an opportunity. And this nerdy language stuff and language software really has me booming like firework finales on repeat.

And I mean lighting up the whole night sky kind of bright, here…

Duolingo, I might be coming for you in the near future. I don’t have the credentials for it yet, but it is all too likely that I will be figuring them out and getting the necessary ones soon… You are forewarned. 😉

Post-a-day 2021

Show me how you nerd

I mean, let’s be real here. How many people actually spend time looking up and reading about punctuation…. just because they are curious? And how many people do it more than as a one-time-thing?

I do not believe that the count is very high, but I know that I am one of those select nerds. 😛

Post-a-day 2021