twenty nine: books on the go

Read classic books by email. One page at a time.

Came across the onesmallpage app on Sebastian Marshall's blog today. The creator advertised it as a way of reading more if you find it hard to find time to read (although he worded more eloquently than that!)

I subscribed to Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, and have just received and read the first ten pages. Seems like a great idea to me, especially as the email is readable on my phone's screen.

Yet to see whether five pages a day works as an amount, but I see no reasons why it wouldn't.

The selection of books available is impressive also.

twenty eight: second post about French

This morning's post was about various aspects of the immersion technique for language learning.

This evening's post is about the more 'traditional' textbook and audio technique, which I am also using.

The following is what I'm able to write after completing chapter one of this book:

bonjour, je m'appelle Chris. et vous? j'ai vingt ans. vous avez quel age? quelle est votre profession? un deux trois quatre cinq six sept huit neuf dix onze douze treize quatorze quinze seize dix-sept dix huit dix neuf vingt, trente, quarante, cinquante, soixante. j'habite á Leeds, en Angleterre. oú habitez vous? je suis anglais / britannique. je suis né á Maidstone, en Angleterre / Britain. quelle est vous nationalité? Ça va? bien. Tres bien. Je suis bien. Pas trés bien. comme ci comme ca.

hello, my name is Chris. and you? I am twenty years. How old are you? what is your profession? one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen seventeen eighteen nineteen twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty. I live in Leeds, England. Where do you live? I'm English / British. I was born in Maidstone, England / Britain. What is your nationality? Okay? well. Very good. I'm fine. Not very well. so-so

twenty eight: first post about French

I'm listening to some French radio on my Blackberry. A technique I've read a lot about with language learning is immersion: AJATT is a blog/website encouraging total immersion in Japanese language through using only items with Japanese packaging, watching only Japanese television, conversing only in Japanese and so on. Obviously this approach, while potentially hugely valuable, isn't compatible with all lifestyles. Nonetheless, aspects of it interested me enough to consider methods of learning a language I may not have used otherwise.

One of these methods being the use of foreign radio.

Despite understanding <90% of what is being said, it's interesting to hear what sounds are prominent in the language. There aren't many strong consonant sounds, for example. Some words I've picked up sound different when spoken by French natives. Others I've seen written sound different to how I'd expect them to. It's also good to hear where emphasis is used and trying to identify where words begin and end. (This is native conversational French rather than textbook-accompanying-CD dumbed down French, remember.)

Another benefit of this technique is the music. The programme I just listened to was a presenter talking to a youngish sounding guy, their conversation being occasionally punctuated by live music by, as far as I could tell, aforementioned youngish man. The format worked really well, and the songs were good. (Although unfortunately I didn't get the guy's name..)

eighteen: zodiac overhaul

So, there's a new zodiac sign. According to some sources. I'm not sure if it's official yet. I'm not sure who has the authority to make it official, either. Or what they plan to do considering some cultures (one example being Hindus) already have a zodiac that differs from the possibly-former Western 12 sign system.

Regardless, it makes you think. If the zodiacal tenets of astrology are true, and personality characteristics can be attributed to the position of the Sun at your birth, some people, whose birthdays fall into different zodiac signs under the new system, will be expected to overhaul their personality to conform.

I imagine this isn't such an easy thing to do..?

Also, I realise that other things have parts to play in astrology. Houses, angles and the zodiac are all consulted to determine a person's horoscope, so perhaps only a third of one's personality will need to be changed?

Who knows. This is entirely speculative, I just wanted to write something.

ten: this weekend

My watch's little loop-strap that holds the main strap in place broke, and the general consensus seems to be that little loop-straps are quite hard to fix. What a mare.

On a more interesting and prose-worthy note, we moved house on eight. Step dad enlisted the help of one of his employees and their son, Mum enlisted the help of her neice and her son (me), and with the combined efforts of everyone mentioned we moved the contents of our old house into two transit vans to be transported to our new house. (Three loads per transit were required (three return trips.))

A motivational fish and chip lunch was provided, or saveloy and chips / battered sausage and chips if preferred. The petrol garage had one litre bottles of Pepsi Max for a mere sixty five pence, so we bought three of those, along with two smaller yet more expensive bottles of Fanta, and a milkshake for cousin (Mum's neice).

At fiveish, Step dad, employee, employee's son and cousin left. Cousin had a party to go to, employee's son had to be home, and Step dad and employee decided to move some furniture from somewhere else that evening rather than postponing it 'til a new day. This left me, Mum and bro (who had recently returned from Mama's) in the new house.

The evening consisted of a Mediterranean supper (smoked salmon, olives, stuffed peppers, bread, and crisps), unpacking, moving and sorting contents of boxes, bro trying on an assortment of fancy dress items, and once bro had gone to bed, several games of Boggle. (I love Boggle.) Step dad returned around midnight, then I went to bed because I was knackered.

Nine was fairly uneventful: Grandma came down to help tidy, we chatted briefly, then she, mum and bro dropped me off at the station for my journey back to Leeds. In Leeds there was pizza, Planet of the Apes, banter, and Scrabble.

This blog post marks the start of a busy week. I have three pieces of coursework due in on fourteen, only one of which has been started. (Not out of laziness; the software required to complete the coursework is only available on a handful of computers. All of which are in one computer lab in a building which was locked over the holidays.)

That being said, please excuse any delays that may occur in ma bloggin'.

seven: kanji (七: 漢字)

Tomorrow (day eight) I'm going to resume my self-study of kanji, with the help of flashcard program 'Anki'. Ten new kanji per day with a one-day-per-fortnight slackness-buffer and seven days already passed gives me time to encounter three thousand, three hundred and twenty new kanji this year.

Not such a shoddy amount.

バイバイ for now!

six: twice in one day

The title doesn't refer to the fact that this is my second blog post today, although that's a nice touch I thought.

What it does refer to is something my Mum and I have noticed: sometimes the number of things that happen twice in a short time period increases by such an amount that it's hard to chalk it up to coincidence. These aren't things like seeing a bus by the way, if that happens twice in one day we're quite capable of understanding why - an example of something that would be considered odd is waking up and remembering a TV show you used to watch but haven't seen for ages, then throughout the course of the day either a) seeing it on TV b) overhearing a stranger's conversation where the show is mentioned or c) something similar.

There probably is a logical explanation for such occurrences. Perhaps the program was mentioned on the news or on the radio the previous day and you don't remember hearing it outside of your subconscious? This could also explain why strangers are talking about it; they saw / heard the previous day's mention too.

Still, it's odd. Especially because, as I said, the number of such 'twice in one days' seems to periodically increase by a large amount in a short time. I've had two over the last week, for example. On January 2nd I was curious about Gerry Rafferty - the singer/songwriter most famous for 'Baker Street - and so read his Wikipedia page, then, on January 5th, I saw in the newspaper that he'd passed away on the 4th. Before January 2nd I hadn't given him a second thought for a long time.

There's a second incident I'd like to write about but unfortunately, and perhaps anticlimactically, I've forgotten what it is..

Oops.