language clock

 

 

this is one of the things I do sometimes to get an idea of how I am using my time in languages, and spaced repetition (golden time, as they call it, in several language learning platforms)   Even before I really figured out what that was - I noticed I WAS using that method, of separating things out by 6, 12 or 24 hours  I really do much better spacing it out like that than trying to go all one language or in really large blocks - sometimes 5 to 10 minutes is enough to 'make my ears smoke' - especially in Spanish and Catalan, and other times I can work for a half hour or more and not feel overwhelmed

so when they say I could really be fluent if I focused on just one language?  No, I don't think so.. I think I'd get so overwhelmed and swimming with multiple things in the one language that I would stop and not go back to it for days - which, I do sometimes... but since I'm rotating through 10 to 15 languages, I'm never static or frustrated for very long - I just go to other content, and then bounce back when I feel I'm ready, whether that is 6 hours later, or three days, or even a few months  And other languages REALLY help me understand more - I was studying Romanian when I tried to learn Spanish, (and already A2 in French) and it was so VERY hard... and then I tried to learn some Portuguese, and bounced in a little Italian, and dove deep into Catalan, and then came back to Spanish and said 'Oh - there's MORE room for this, in the right places now, in my head - and it's not mixing with the French so badly I can't keep them separate'  That is definitely a synesthete thing

 

of course, languages isn't the only thing I do all day - although, looking at that clock, you'd wonder maybe?  I've gotten little girl off to school, worked driving postal route a few hours, came home and did some laundry, cooked dinner etc.. but this is a good example of how I smatter / scatter languages throughout the day and make progress over time, and this is three years into my 'goal' so it is not a passing fad.  I continue to recognize more and more in many foreign languages when I watch videos, television and movies.

I also did an audio test in French during that larger block, and came out with 80% recognition of the words.  I watched a children's video in Latvian, and did some more clozemaster in Bulgarian - all the rest was on my two Duolingo profiles (one mobile)

 

Catalan meses : Surface practice with sound, DuoLingo learning from Spanish

gener

febrero

març

abril

maig

juny

juliol 

agost

setembre

octubre

novembre

desembre

I'm in that 6:30 pm block right now doing Czech grammar on the whiteboard - mostly just writing down sentences from Duolingo for reinforcement of the grammar topics I know I'm weak on - then I can look at them all together

The Random Light

 

The Random Light

“Step out of your comfort zone, before it steps out of you…”

story by Marie Lamb

 

I have sat in the same seat on the subway, give or take, for the past three years. I sit with my shopping bag held defensively in front of me and watch the crowd pass in and out of the automatic doors. I listen to the familiar voice of the driver and count the stops until home. I know what every stop looks like, through the wet and the dry, with people in their coats and Christmas decorations, tourists and schoolchildren and elderly people and guide dogs alike trying to stay cool in the baking heat of summer. So, this last week, I knew that the random light I was seeing on Drake Street was not normal. I would have seen it before. And I could not remember, in any of the times having passed that stop, having seen it before.

It wasn’t really random. But, it shouldn’t be there. As far as I could ever tell that wall was solid brick. Beyond it was probably machinery or compacted dirt - definitely nothing of notice. The first few times I mostly ignored it. But, it wasn’t really very easy to ignore. It reached out with fingers across the subway station even at speed, and yanked at my awareness. Now, this light had my full attention. I could almost hear it, almost feel it, almost taste it. It was like remembering tea - herbal and citrus. Even though I denied it, there was something there calling to me. Tonight, I had been looking for it ever since I got onto the train. I had been telling myself it wasn’t really there. Deep down, there was a hope within me that it actually was.

   

My shopping bag shook and rattled. It was vibrating as if something with tiny feet was running back and forth at the bottom of it. I was just about to open it up and take a look with my cell phone camera when a lady with a red jacket brushed by me. As I looked up the random light was shining through the windows with such intensity it took my breath away. The urge to go see it was so strong that, even though this was not my stop, when the driver called ‘Drake Street’ I found myself rising with the small crowd, bag in hand, edging towards the doors. I thought hard about calling Alec and telling him I would be delayed, but I was just too absorbed. My eyes were on the light.

I stepped down from the car onto the platform and looked around. The few passengers that had exited with me were already on their way, down the side trail, up the stairs, waiting for another train. I felt silly, and more than a bit worried about breaking my routine. What would Alec say, when I finally arrived home? Would he not even wait that long, but call me a few minutes after six, worried to death? But even as I thought these thoughts, the amber pink light seemed to glow more intensely. I could see it stretching out golden tendrils like I have only ever seen before in fairy tale books. I was encountering magic. It had to be. And I could not even gather up a third of me to run away from it.

My feet were moving without my head telling them to. I stood in front of the wall and stared hard at the glowing light. I dropped my shopping bag to the ground. It rocked and swayed before coming to a balance. My jacket and hat were discarded next, untidily onto the ground. There was no common sense to this. My very shoes started to be too binding, but the ground was fading away and it no longer mattered. I tried to lean my hand upon the wall but it seemed to melt into it like warm frosting. I had one shoe on and one off. I should be mortified, worried about who was watching, but I couldn’t even turn my head to look around.

I leaned in further and began to taste the joy radiating off the threshold. The glow was intense and surrounded me like peach ice cream on the hottest beach vacation with caramel sauce and brandy. The air had grown hushed and close, like cotton around my ears. I held my breath and did not feel the need to breathe again. The brick surface turned to warm sand under my fingers and then broke away in a crystalline surface, thin like brittle wax, melting around me and pulling me through the soft silk of summer.

There was a cascading of feathers and soft grasses that came down around my face. The golden light was everywhere and piercing my very skin to share in its glowing. I swam through honeyed sound and silken waves like a child’s timeworn blanket on a safe warm bed. I remember the light turning from gold to white, and the air solidified around me like a grid. The warmth melted away to rest only within myself, pooling down into my center like a warm glut of rich and satisfying soup. I felt myself slowly released from the pull to rest upon the ground, clear and open and relaxed. I did not even have the energy to pull my head up on my shoulders. I lay there, listening to the sifting of the sands and the crackling of the air.

It took a moment for my vision to focus. I was looking at a pair of shoes. My own shoes, on legs wearing my hose, and a hand carrying my bag. I looked all the way up to a mass of brown curls that were conveniently looking the other direction. I wondered if I was imagining myself in two places at once? The other me turned and reached for me. Things were happening so quickly. I tried to twist and turn limbs that were not responding, and ended up only turning in circles three times over. I could not fathom how she picked me up with one hand and dropped me, small and fuzzy, into the white shopping bag.

She opened the bag and stared at me for a long moment. I froze completely still, a tiny yowl caught in my throat. My whiskers were twitching, and I wanted to scratch her with a vengeance. Her eyes were too green, but they began to equalize, less catlike and more like I remembered my own human eyes. As she closed the bag and began to walk in a rhythmic swaying, I heard my phone snap open. She said ‘Yes Alec, don’t worry. I just got off at the wrong stop. No, I don’t know how, it was all in a rush. I even lost a shoe! I’ll be home soon, love, there’s a little someone you should meet…. I think you’ll be the best of friends.”

trip and back

I'm back from my trip to South Carolina, have been since the weekend, but had to deal with some tooth pain during then.  Moving ahead on my bath design work looking for some tile that matches a shower, ordered the vanity top etc ... Today I am going to get the vinyl sign put on the car, and mail out a few copies of the book.

I collected a few more of my short stories together, working on pruning that, and writing more.  Tried to sit down the past few days and put some of my synesthesia and driving thoughts and dream images into a few scattered stories to come back to.  Found a few others that were half-written in my archive and added them in to look at, too.  Two more I remember but can't find.

During the worst of my tooth pain I had a few hours there where the pain came through as light and color.. it was pretty and gave me a bit of a break, but it came back to being only pain after that.  Synesthesia has its uses, but right now the world seems a little dim and black-and-white because the light and color in my mind's eye were brighter.  I guess this is where I get some of my weirdest writing from *heh*

Got a list of things to do today.  Brew the coffee, throw a few eggs in the microwave and get ready to go do it.

sarvis bits and a chicken in a doghouse

The sarvis trees are starting to bud out, one of the first signs of Spring.  I also caught our Gennet chicken (English game hen) hanging out in the old doghouse I stuffed with extra straw.  I threw her some seed there.  Daphne dog still holes up there sometimes when it is cold or rainy.  A few other shots just because their patterns and/or colors attracted me.  The chartreuse in the moss is like sunshine on fields of new grass.. which I adore even at a distance.

 There is something about the stone wall to the right and the mirror reflection showing through the ice cracks ... the progression of ice along the right edge.  I didn't capture exactly what I wanted to say - but there is always another day to try.

More sarvis trees.   I do love how the buds in the background blurred to bright spots scattered artistically behind.

 The aforementioned chicken.

sarvis buds

// I have a drawing I did of Mark in our first year of marriage that is sort of Klimt-styled that I want to put up somewhere.  It is not 'much' of a drawing, black ink on white paper, but it has that something that I always remember, some bit of expressive joy.. and I don't have anywhere that is 'right' to hang it up at and it isn't really small and easy to tuck in anywhere.  Have to think about it.  I go hunting for it every once in a while.  It has little fish (of course, its me) swimming out along the edge of it that suggest he is dreaming something.

kitchen towels and mathematical elegance

It would be hard to explain to you what I mean by 'mathematical elegance', but I see it everywhere, and when I get a moment to reflect on it, I try to capture the feeling. Being a synestheseate (senses overlap) it is like seeing music that is too complicated to be heard - deep wide music that stretches over and inside you at the same time.  You are part of the Universe with all of its patterns extending around you, rhythms and melodies and harmonies interspersed with color and light and space.  

I saw this on the way back from the school bus this morning and it played out a rhythm to me - staccato drums overlaid with a delicate pattern of bells and strings.  I love the way the colors of the sunrise came through as well, changing the timbre of the 'music' within the depths.

I was going to capture the golden grass in front of the fog, like the high tones of clarinets and other woodwinds and perhaps mid-tone violins in front of a quiet symphony of other small sounds. and then Daphne walked behind the grasses and added her own part to it.

 The fairyhouses have their own mathematical elegance, too

I liked the fog progression into the distance here, and it shows how the fairyhouses are stretched out across the landscape.

 Esme said this was a 'fairy moon' far above the fog.  I liked her description.

// other
I made myself some kitchen towels the other day - the patterns of the blue cacti fabric still clung to my mind weeks after seeing it - so I bought it and some 'Ursa Major' fabric with little stars and bears to go on the backside.  I had cut up some bright turquoise bird fabric that never became shorts (Esme just is too big for me to really make much for her now, the fabric cost to off-the-rack cost almost is the same now) and paired it with some polka dotted blue fabric I had in my collection.  I made three of the bird towels and one dishmat, and two of the loop-top kitchen towels to hang on the fridge.

 I made little loop tops on them - not extremely useful right now but it cost nothing to put them in - they might be useful later.

 They actually hang on the other side of the fridge - not in front of the door, but there is no sunlight there ;)

These are very cheerful.  Seeing their colors is like tasting crisp cherries buried in ice cream.

I did this one morning while waiting for Esme to get dressed for school.
We have a collection of coconut and pineapple things on the table to make some granola bars Mark has been wanting.. and I wanted to update the board that previously had the 'rabbits in rowboats'  She has a coconut on her head and is dancing the hula.

language processing

Just a little note mostly for myself.

I have noticed when I am listening to languages that most foreign languages process into my audio 'eye' instead of my actual audio 'ear'...  This might be because I am synesthetic (synesthesia, senses blending together) or because I am also dyslexic or  maybe it is how the two meet in the middle.

When I hear most foreign languages I 'see' the words in my head and that is how I process them, from the 'sight' of the words transferred from what I hear.  However, this makes the recall of what I just heard slower and it has to go through layers to remember what words I heard in what order.

English and Welsh, surprisingly both process through my audio 'ear'.. as in, I remember in an audible recording in my mind what was said instead of a visual picture of what was said.  If you had said something to me in English while I was listening to something else I can 'pick up an echo' of what I heard and respond to you.  People do it all the time.  And I've noticed that if I heard a sentence in Welsh I can use this same channel for Welsh.  It is there for me to 'echo' as I heard it, and then try to pick it through if needed but usually the words I know translate over almost immediately and the others are left to visualize.  With other foreign languages, almost the entire thing is visualized first, with the audio being lost until I try to pronounce the words separately.

I'm not quite sure what it means, but it is pretty amazing to me.  Each time it hits me I feel : 'This is the way it should be.  This is why this comes faster to me than other languages.'

French is in between -I know many things but the sentences need to be rearranged to match English's sentence rhythm and pattern.  Things that are 'so French', like 'je ne sais quoi' are there, but not other phrases. 

I also notice a lot of 'back and forth' feeling with the French as if I am visually hopping back and forth over the sentence to rearrange it for myself before translating.  But even listening to some children's stories I was able to work it out quickly enough to understand without having to pause over and over.

With Welsh, the hopping and back and forth happens like a skip recording on a tape player, and 'echoes' when I ask it to, without a visual overlay of words as an automatic part of the information.  I think this is a much more 'natural' way - the way children learn a language - so it has been easier for me to pick up phrases and get the accent for Welsh than it ever has been with any other language.

I've described trying to listen and respond in Spanish as 'rolling down a hill'.. I feel like everything is crazy wrapped up and spinning and I'm not sure of enough of what is happening to do anything but hold on tight until it stops (which in real Spanish conversations, it hardly ever does) and then I can sort it and try to figure out what I heard and try to answer.

This is why I couldn't learn to speak and hear Spanish the many times I have taken a try at it.  Although I've succeded in being able to read it on a n elementary level.  I've tried with Esme when she wanted to learn - but it just never will be useful for me in conversation and I definitely couldn't teach her.  She didn't want to learn French.. although I tried that and had a bit more success with her, she just started saying she only wanted to learn Spanish.  She still says she wants to learn it - but she won't stick to any program to try.