It’s pretty fun. Try out things like:

_al__la__

or

phi[10] (and then read about the equation)

or

(Population USA) – (Population Spain)

Well… have fun!

Spotify

This is a music platform similar to iTunes, and you can import files from your old library or elsewhere:

It only plays DRM free songs (logically) and it’s ad-supported. The ads let you browse their online library for free though, so that’s pretty great. Personally I’m still using iTunes for most listening, but it has a feature that I don’t see many other places and that’s music sharing.

Not just any music sharing, but extremely easy and fast sharing. I can right-click on a track and tweet a link to it or post it on my Facebook. Unfortunately the link is only accessible to people who have the program and since it’s only a European thing (for now), I don’t have many people to share with.

The best best BEST part is when you click and send it to a friend. Because it integrates with Facebook, Spotify lists all the people on Facebook that you’re friends with who have this program. Then when they open the program they’ll see a little update in their “inbox.” It’s an inbox purely for music. Awesome for sharing new stuff.

If I had a pro account (which I won’t get, because hey this is the internet, who said anything about paying for things?) then I could sync it with my no-longer-existent iPhone. I could listen to all my music and other people’s music anywhere with internet and not take up space on the phone. A decent idea, and a fair offer for people who spend money online.

Well, I have been enjoying this light Air App on my laptop for skimming the NYTimes.

You can subscribe for it here: https://timesreader.nytimes.com

I’m not sure what the deal is, but I got a trial for free and it still works. Take a look around mine:

I’m sure there’s more I could share but I’ll keep it short. Have anything interesting for me to play with? Comment it!

(Oh, I currently have invitations for Paprika if anyone wants an extremely simple, web “notepad” of sorts with a markup language for tags and check boxes, etc.)

This has everything to do with what intrigues me and what I want to study. I need to buy this book (maybe after I finish some of the ones I already own)! My address is to the right, if I have any adoring fans that want to send me a copy.

Wednesdays at the American School:

I’ve been working at ASB (see “video update” post) every Wednesday in a sort of filler capacity. I get there at 9am and during the first period, I help a small group of third graders that need more practice with math. This involves playing quick-answer games and talking about shortcuts to answering some multiplication or addition problems they have had. The nice thing about kids is that anything is easily made into a “game.” In a group, have one kid throw a die and then a second kid across the table gets to throw one and between the two, they have to quickly say the correct answer. They’re so focused on being allowed to throw a die that they don’t realize they’re practicing math!

Then for the second period, I walk down to an adjacent building and walk a K5 class up to art and help the teacher during the class. Telling the kiddos “oh, very pretty!” for colouring in something completely. Things such as walking instead of running, and following a line still elude them however. I escort them back to the ECC building for their recess and I have a half hour break. I usually sit in the never-quiet library and read little bits of Steven Pinker’s The Language Instinct.

Then I help the librarian do random things until it’s time to take kindergarteners up from their story time to the cafeteria where I coerce them into eating at least half of their portions, sitting in their seats, and not touching other people’s food. Whew!

I’m known as a jack of all trades there by now because I seem to have been trained in just about everything. I file books, I know the catalogue system, how to check people in/out, and not to mention I’ve worked with almost every grade by now as well as worked in the office. I try to make myself as useful as possible to them. Although I came to teach, I quickly realized I wasn’t going to be doing any real teaching at the school so I’ll just do whatever they want to pay me for.

So, I don’t need to give you a rundown of the entire day. That’s how most of it goes. The remainder is more lunch duty, more library assisting, and an hour of watching the K5 class during snack time until their parents come around. Don’t be deceived. I have learned first hand that such simple tasks can be very tiring. I’m not a napping kind of guy, and I often fall asleep as soon as I get home on Wednesdays. The younger they are, the more of a handful they can be!

Speaking of which, I also get called in for other substitutions aside from my Wednesday assisting. Lately I have had K3 a few times. It’s getting a tad easier, but I admire the people that teach kindergarten as a profession, and couldn’t imagine dedicating myself to that every day of the week.

Substitutions I’ve done so far:

• 6th grade Catalan
• 4th grade Spanish
• Kinder 3 (3/4 year olds)
• Secretary
• MAP (standardized test) proctor for a whole week
• Librarian

Some of these were really fun (Catalan, Librarian), and some of them were hell (Spanish, MAP), but all-in-all I’m stashing it away as good experience.

So then, what do I do with myself outside of ASB?

I’ve been getting into reading again. I used to read a lot, and then I went to college and the last thing I felt like doing was reading (after all my class junk). Now with an abundance of free time and passing several days of doing nothing, I started to delve into books. Some for fun, some for learning, and some for exploring.

Stuff I’ve read since January:

• Generation A by Douglas Coupland
• Illusions: Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah by Richard Bach
• The Fall by Albert Camus
• aaand I’m about two-thirds of the way through The Language Instinct. I tend to pick that up when I run out of books, then put it back down quite easily. It’s interesting yes, but not captivating.
• The Captain’s Verses by Pablo Neruda, a bi-lingual edition, for a second time
• Some short stories by Quim Monzó

In other news!

Actually, all of this stuff is “other news” for the reader, I just enjoy using h2 (heading formats) to keep your interest.

• I learned to make coffee on the stove. Completely foreign to me.
• I made paella and have had some other adventures in cooking with Jenn.
• With this book and those dice I showed you in the previous post, I’ve learned to write in the Japanese script, Hiragana (except I don’t remember the R set very well).
• I bought two new books: Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami and The Black Swan by Nassim Taleb! Yay new books!
• I got an email today about a possible teaching slot for two months, three hours, four days a week! Hopefully this plays out well for me.

I’ve included a lot of links this time. So enjoy your surfing if you wanted some book recommendations. Hope this sufficiently updates everybody!

In case you were wondering, I’m planning on being here until the end of June, and then who knows what. I’ve applied to schools in Costa Rica and I might look into Turkey as well. Although I intend to go back to school soon, I’ll need something to do for another year.

Donations welcome!

Pro account! Mine is going to expire in a couple of days. This means that all of my HD videos on here will no longer be available and I won’t be able to post more until I renew. I don’t feel like spending $25 on it right now. So if you want to send me a non-birthday present, this is a good idea!

or of course… more Skype / external number subscription!

I don’t give myself much credit, so you won’t catch me claiming to be good at Spanish, but yes I think I had an affinity for it. My parents would rarely use it around me as a child in the same way that a monolingual household might encounter two adults s-p-e-l-l-i-n-g things out so the kids won’t comprehend it. I don’t have specific memories of this, but I recall a general urge or desire to speak whatever the heck it was they were using when I was little.

This was all reinforced with cultural items around the house and stories and slideshows from my Dad about living in Paraguay and elsewhere. When you get to the point in school where you can pick a second language if you want to learn one (it’s quite too late to begin, honestly, at thirteen) I obviously picked Spanish just as someone might pick their science fair topic to be on something their engineer parent knows about.

Like piano lessons and reading Steven Hawking to Steinbeck, it was the sort of scholastic thing that I enjoyed more than I thought someone my age really should, but didn’t think of actually devoting myself to it. Never paying much attention to Spanish, I was fascinated by science throughout the majority of my school life. Then came college, and I had to pick something I was good at to actually pay attention to. I suddenly shifted to Spanish.

The more I learned the more I loved.

It was a good choice, and in retrospect, maybe the worst way to go about learning it. At least at Grand Valley State University it was near pointless. The Spanish program seemed to follow a logical skeleton (reading, writing, culture courses, etc) but lacking in coordination and a real focus on fluency of the language. If you want to learn one, don’t waste your time in academics. Yes, it has the value of learning about culture, which I loved, and the grammar is useful if you want to teach it perhaps, but… just immerse yourself, take private (or small) courses with a heavy emphasis on conversation if you want to learn a foreign language.

Oh, here’s a thought:

Learning a language :: heating some food

University :: using a microwave (focused, the design is well engineered, yet in the end, soggy food)

Living off L2 movies, music, podcasts etc. :: boiling (useful to the point that it gets hot in the end, but really wet – or: can’t use it much)

Moving to a country that uses the L2 :: oven (perfect, a little slower, might require preheating, but it’s the best overall)

Apologies if you didn’t get any of that. Sometimes I think an analogy is just great, but poorly executed.

——————————————- ::

That’s why I STUDIED Spanish, but why do I like it, and why stick with it?

I like how it sounds.

I like how it looks.

It’s simple (yet complex); almost elegant.

I think the same can almost be said for me and piano. That’s a kind of interesting self-observation. You might be able to identify if you play an instrument. It’s something that does require practice, but is enjoyable when you reach a good level. I am very critical of learning a foreign language in a university setting, but I must say that the literature of any language you want to learn is a beautiful medium to immerse yourself in. The downside might be when it is used as a principle method for teaching you.

I love Spanish. The end.

It seems to be a common fight with spell check on this one. In the end, it is preference.

Why do I travel? It seems like an obvious interest for anyone to have, such as going to the movies, but I have encountered a few people who simply prefer to stay put. Fine for them. In fact, excellent, because I now have a reason to write about why I enjoy travelling.

Life is all about new experiences and people. You can come across this by staying in the same place, learning new things about the place you’ve been in or getting to know people better. Travelling is another, more exciting method of doing this I think. You put yourself in a new place and cultural situation. You have to learn about it and adjust to it. You inevitably meet new people because everything is new. They also view you as a new person and while reiterating your opinions or past, and listening to their views, you can view life in a different way. It’s a more direct experience of growth, I think.

Oh yeah, travelling is fun too.

That doesn’t mean I speak loads of languages, but that means I dream about doing so and I occupy myself about what a thought sounds like in someone else’s head. I can’t imagine what other people could be thinking about, but even wondering how it sounds in their heads, that fascinates me.

I think the diversity of language that we humans all have is more fascinating than the types of bodies we inhabit. You can be born of somebody and shipped to a faraway land because of an adoption, or you could be some donated DNA for a couple, or whatever and whatnot for suchworth and soforth… but that doesn’t represent who you are. Now before you jump ahead, the language you speak doesn’t represent who you are either, but it does carry a certain amount of the culture you were raised in and it is formed at least vaguely around what may have been important to the history of the culture you come from. There are exceptions to every idea. There are loads of people who feel as though they’re cultural misfits, belonging on the other side of the globe, but I’m sure there are some things you can pin down about them that is in their language. In fact, these cultural “misfits” probably have an urge to learn the language of where they feel they belong. Why? To sound like the people they might belong with? Maybe. Or on another level, they want to create an association those people – something possible through understanding the language.

Sorry, this is wavering off into linguistic diversity.

Linguistics is too vague a term to write about without going into things like that. Imagine writing about “science!” Linguistics is the most of what we can think of and utilize as a science for studying languages. Minds are what interest me, and since we have yet to be able to look into minds (debatable, depending on what you think of F-MRI, but) this is the doormat to the mind – as close as we can get. Until we can get inside, I’m content with being fascinated by who (what) comes in and out of that door. Am I losing you in metaphor?