That Kind of Day

Today is a long dreary rainy day. It's coming down in sheets now. It's hard to believe that the summer solstice is only a week away. It's the kind of day where one feels obligated to settle down and relax. What it could be is:

1. a homemade soup and bread making while listening to tunes kind of day
2. a blog some crazy ideas kind of day
3. a browse the bookstore kind of day
4. a start reading a new novel kind of day
5. a pencil and puzzle book/sketch pad day
6. a blow the dust off the Wii console and play video games day
7. a cheesy sci-fi/cult comedy movie from Netflix watching afternoon kind of day
8. a read Make, and other such magazines, and dream up of a project kind of day
9. a rewire my sound/home entertainment system kind of day
10. a watch TED talks kind of day
11. a reorganize my playlists and iTunes library kind of day
12. a nap with the dog on the chesterfield kind of day
13. a get my ass to the gym and do some back/core/strength training kind of day
14. a cocktail experimentation/formulation kind of day
15. an embracing one's inner nerd kind of day
16. a learn some more programming kind of day

But that's not the kind of damn day it's going to be. I've only managed to do (a half-assed job of) points 1 and 2. The reality is that this is day eight of a 14 day stretch of work days; I'm feeling so burnt out already, and it's like there has been no way to find any solace. There has been only one night during this time that I haven't slept like crap.

The list I produced is the stuff that I feel like I only have enough energy for. Running usually is a remedy, but for some reason, it has become a greater challenge than usual. I'm trying it today, despite the heavy rain. Lately, on even short distances, I feel like I'm slowly being smothered, with my breathing becoming badly arrested. I'm hoping it's not some kind of seasonal pollen allergy or something. I hope the heavy rain will settle it down if it is, but I'm not optimistic. If it occurs again next time, I think I'll need to see a doctor. The only sort of social leisure I have lined up ahead is a supper after a convention I'm attending next week, but I honestly don't think I'll be up for it if I'm even more drained than I am feeling now.

I found an app to try to deal with this failure in my resilience. It's called SuperBetter. However, I've been slacking in using some time to commit to interface with it. The concept of it is really quite interesting. It will make more sense after watching the TED talk by its developer, Jane McGonigal.

I touched on www.codeacademy.com for a bit. The format of the site is great for anyone wanting to learn some programming. I think I found my substitute for TV, now that I discontinued my cable service.

Mother Tongue, Other Tongues

It has not been a very restful weekend. Friday was my only day off, and I used most of it to catch up in doing a lot of neglected little chores and DIY household tasks, which included an emergency plumbing fix. I still don't feel anywhere near being at the better/best state of my physical health yet. My stamina isn't lasting; getting exhausted too easily, and I'm still not getting any refreshing sleep. For this past week, after depressing and angering myself thoroughly with watching too much negative TV news, and other documentaries about some weighty issues, and whenever other frivolous game playing and diversions became too frustrating and boring, I've felt like I've come close to snapping.

Lately, because sickness and uncooperative weather has rendered me so physically inactive, I've been desperate to learn some new skills and tricks to at least keep my brain ticking and exercised by processing some kind of positive novelty. When self-improvement isn't coming quickly enough on the physical level, there are still realms in the mind to work on.

So then, my chosen method of healthful mental stimulation for the week was language acquisition*. I've been testing and drilling myself with an app on my iPhone called Duolingo. It is great for introductory learning of a new language. I've been concentrating on a couple of languages: German and Portuguese. Why German? Because I already know some basic vocabulary of it, and I'd like to progress beyond a beginner's comprehension level (and I know some Germans). Why Portuguese? Because it's just entirely new to me; plus it has enough noticeable cognates in it similar to French and Spanish (which I already know on intermediate levels) to help me grasp it, and feel around it, and intuitively test with it for creating phrases and sentences. Duolingo is great for Western European languages, but I'd like to see something equally compatible for learning non-Latin alphabet languages as easily, like Cyrillic alphabet languages (Russian, Ukrainian), and Kanji (Mandarin, Japanese).

Curiosity and novelty are not the only motivators. Logically, by learning a bit of these extra two languages, a door is a opened a crack to speak with about another additional 300 million people on this globe. For instance, with learning Portuguese, plus coupled with my Spanish, just about 93% of the continent of South America is then a bit more accessible linguistically to me. English, French, and Portuguese are the main colonial protocol languages used for much of Africa**. Learning more German would allow me to be more capable of living in a few of those 20 other countries that are compatible with my idea of progressive, civilized societies if, for some wild reason, I should ever somehow become uprooted, and have to move away from Canada.

I notice, and have to admit, that through my mistakes I'm seeing just how anchored my brain is in the English language, and how much more inflexible it seems to be at learning new ones as I age. Like perhaps for most Anglophones, it is a challenge for me to automatically assign grammatical gender on things. Also, I neither readily think of using accent marks, nor can I instantly twist my mind around figuring out which of all the extra verbal conjugations of these other languages to use correctly. Two articles, one definite and one indefinite (a/n, the) are sufficient for me, versus the five articles in French, six in both Spanish and Portuguese. There are yet comparatively more and complex article forms in the case of German, which are really staggering my mind as I study them.

Online translators have a purpose and place. I have used them to learn more words and grammar, but they are not perfect. Although it's increasingly convenient for me and other Anglophones, that the rest of the world is becoming so much more accommodating and interested/willing to learn and practice English, I also think that it's a bit of a loss as well in terms of finding equal ground in communicating with people. I generally think it's a mark of arrogance, and an attitude of superiority, to expect other people to learn and speak my language when I'm touring, or living as a guest, in their country.

I don't have great expectations about how proficient or fluent I'll be with these two, but gaining a little confidence in having at least some more literacy in getting around in nations with these languages is a bit more comforting. I only wish I had more of the means and opportunity to do so.

*- For me, the true reflection of "intelligence" is the ability to: think systematically and strategically; maintain, retain, and relate a lot of detail from memory; do creative improvisation, and organize. All of these abilities are enhanced and exercised when learning another language.

**- I'm not saying that I'm making a future big plan to ever go back to Latin America, or I'll be stricken with some urge to head to a continent as volatile as Africa is, but never say never.

Progressive Apps

I have no clue as to why I feel jazzed up today, except for the fact that I've been really nerdish and anal about getting a few more applications and organizational tools working for me in a good way, and having a few more 'Eureka!' moments and breakthroughs as I continue to pursue re-establishing some sort of order to my personal domain.

I'm still struggling to bend my brain around some of the more abstract portions of my learning modules in the programming manual. I suppose after comparing programming to all else which I construe as a bothersome problem to deal with, I've given these things a new perspective, and they now appear a lot less difficult to manage. Whether it's done formally or informally, I'd highly recommend it to everyone to learn some kind of programming. It's not just about sorting out variables and configuring data to be processed. It's also about understanding the flow of information, and having that flow and following it's momentum is what is needed to get out of a rut when blocked by a problem.

With gaining more knowledge and skill at programming and flow of information, one becomes more attune to the concept that any common problems are just forms of information that need re-processing. Circumstances never arise with any label of "good" or 'bad' attached to them. Circumstances only become problems whenever they conflict, clash, and interfere with whatever ambitions, goals, missions, or ideals of progress we've set for ourselves, and then get wrapped up in our own dramas that we build around them. Most of the challenge in dealing with them is just breaking up things into manageable sets and putting them in a much simpler framework. Keeping motivated, monitoring , and applying action is the rest of the job.

My iPhone is armed with these apps that I find especially useful. If anyone knows of one that creates good flowcharts and fish bone graphs, I'd love to hear about then. Here are a few productivity apps that I find especially useful when I'm mobile, and when I want to capture, analyze, compare, and chart ideas that strike me from out of the blue:

Simple Minds - What this app is for is mind mapping: taking a central theme and creating related offshoots to build upon the idea to provide options and enhancements. It allows one to follow through with some open-opened creativity. It's relatively simple to use, and the variable colours can be helpful for coding categories.

MindTools - A nice little compendium of productivity strategies, for helping me to get out of ruts for planning complicated things. The problem solving and the exercises to challenge assumptions are some of my favourite ones in this app.

PDF Reader - Generally OK to transfer PDF files to, but on the iPhone screen, even with expanding the view, details of the fine print on a letter-sized paper formatted document are a little hard to read.

Graphio (Lite) - A cool little piece of productivity software that makes diagrams and graphs for flowcharts and more. The only flaw it has is the difficulty in bringing up the keyboard to label the chart objects. This prevents me from bothering to upgrade to the full version.

OneNote - This Microsoft app is a very dumbed down version of the full MS Office OneNote program. There is a checkbox function for to do lists, a point form outline maker, and photo capture button, but nothing else really. The only saving grace it has is for collecting rudimentary material, which can then be uploaded to a desktop/laptop for more detail with colour coding and graph making.

Dropbox - This provides instantaneous picture sharing with all cloud connected devices from your pics and other files. Simply splendid for faster processing of shared photographs, and posting them on blog entries. The process of having to email them to myself first was very cumbersome in comparison.

Evernote - A very good note app for collecting tags and sharing with other wi-fi connected devices. Unlike OneNote, it will record voice and index your tags and categories for you.

Lift  - The newest one I collected so far. It is what can be termed as a positive habit recorder and monitor. You can pick from a shared list of, or create your own, habits that you want to include in your life and stick with. It's a checkmark diary of sorts, to monitor your progress and account for all the little things that will amount to greater goals. It will also link one with a support community, some of whom are monitoring the same things they wish to include in their lives as you, who can even give you props to encourage you.