#learning french so i may have written some things wrong :p

[dumbsterchild]

Beat bugs Kumi :D

J'ai dissné sur un journée. :D

I drew her in one day. :D

[twonderland]

☆*:.｡ NRC HAS A MAID CAFE ?!? .｡.:*☆

Note: sooo this is my first writing ! Omg I’m so nervous I have never written for any fandom before but I wish this goes well 🙏🏻😂 anyway, hope y’all like it and if you have any thoughts about it pls comment I would really appreciate it ☺️💖💖

Summary: NRC was organizing a school festival to attract new students and also to let the guys have a day of fun and chill. However the dorm leaders were out of ideas while deciding what activities they were gonna have, until you decided to talk about some options of what your school used to do in this kind of events (before coming to twisted wonderland), most of those activities were really alike to what NRC already had, except one thing ...

- when you mentioned that in your “dimension” there was different options that could be introduced in NRC at the festival he was actually pretty interested. Obviously he would have to make some changes so that “activities” could fit in Heartslabyul rules but, he never thought that he could have the opportunity to see you in such an ... outfit.

- Who does he think he can fool ? He’s a blushing mess and can’t even look at you in the face. How can he ? The moment you got out of your room with that white coping, that really short skirt, and oh god the stockings

- You look so cute and obedient and hfkogkebdiej

- The plan was simple, you were a “maid” and the boys attending the clients at your side were butlers, easy ! Except from the part of talking to you

- He’s angry because he can’t believe that such an outfit has this power over him and he thinks “god Riddle get yourself together and just talk to her about the menu” but somehow you think he’s angry for some strange reason since he tends to get all red face when he is angry (poor bean he’s trying his best to not collapse)

- HE’S A GENTLEMAN ! HE DIDNT HAVE SUCH A HARD UPBRINGING FOR NOTHING !! he goes with a straight face to your direction and then .... “(y/n) ! Have you learn your lines ?! Customers need the best of attention from this establishment !!” (Riddle this is just a classroom turned into a maid cafe, chill)

- “Ah sure Riddle-senpai, just look *you clear your throat* Welcome home master !!”

- Riddle.exe has stopped responding

- what ? A maid cafe ? Isn’t it just like the rest of the maids at his palace in Afterglow Savana ? He’s used to being attended by this kind of servitude at his homeland but he had never seen Classic or French (I leave that to your imagination ☺️) maid style

- He thinks “ohoho this can be quit interesting” and has that smug smirk in his face, OF COURSE he’s gonna take this opportunity to tease you

- However after he sees you in that cute and tempting outfit, for a little moment (just a little moment) he doesn’t want to admit it he goes shy, stops just a moment to admire you from head to toe in your outfit, you go like “what? “ and then he just shrugs it out just in time before you notice “hmph are you some kind of panda ?”

- Seems like he doesn’t care but actually you never get out of his view, he drinks his woman respect juice every morning but not the rest of the students

- If he sees that some idiot gets a little too close to you he may roar from across the cafe and shoot some killing glares to those idiots and problem solved

- Don’t get it wrong, he’s still Leona and may slide the tip of his tail under your skirt a little ... just a little 😏

- He listens to all your descriptions of the activity of the maid cafe, takes notes and adds some good ideas so everything’s on point

- He’s pretty chill the majority of the time while preparing everything, he even helped you to practice your lines so you could attend customers with the best training !

- Until ... he saw you in character. It was kind of a self goal since he told you to not get out of character when you wear your uniform, how fool and unfortunate (lucky) soul he was

- “Ashengrotto- sama ? I had some doubts about the menu ...” “yes ? (Y/...n)”

- his glasses break

- Azul.exe has stopped responding x2

- His mind can’t process all the things that are going on, you , on a cute really really short skirt, calling him “sama” with your innocent voice, and OH LOOK AT THAT

- THIGHTS

- he didn’t know he had a thing for thights until this day

- Tries to solve all your doubts without stuttering but fails miserably

- Thinks really seriously in a way to make you sign a contract where you accept to wear that outfit whenever you visit octavinelle (azul that’s practically impossible but ok try 😂)

- OMG A MAID CAFE ?! It’s foreign and interesting !! This guy is all in after you finish to talk about your idea

- Kalim is also used to being all pampered and having hundreds of people attending him at all times so he’s really curious about what is the difference between what he knows and what you know

- You tell him that is nothing too awesome, but is more to have fun in getting into character of “master and servant” BUT NOTHING IS BORING IF YOU ARE IN IT he tells you that you don’t need to worry and he just wants to participate in the experience

- He doesn’t assist as a butler but like a customer, and the night before the event he can’t sleep from the excitement, “Jamil, how do you think is a maid ?” “Idk Kalim sleep now” “ne~ ne~ Jamil do you think that (y/n) will call me master? tehehe” “OMG KALIM ENOUGH” poor Jamil he also couldn’t get enough sleep that night

- He’s one of the first clients to arrive and oh god ... when he finds you. He doesn’t know what is it with that uniform that it makes you look ADORABLE AND BEYOND also ... kind of .... ?? (Sexy kalim the word you look for is sexy) he just doesn’t know how to react the very first seconds but doesn’t last long until

- “Kalim-sama ! Welcome back, we are so enlightened to see you again”

- What is this ? Why is he feeling funny things in his stomach, every time he’s called like that in his palace it doesn’t happen anything, is something of everyday but now...

- “.... kalim-sama ?” “AH ! Sorry sorry ! Haha I zoned out , say ... could you say that again ? It was so fun !” “Uh.. hu, of course, if that’s my master’s wish !! ☺️” (HAPPY BOY HAPPY BOY HAPPY BOY)

- He probably is inside the maid cafe for very long time just to hear you every time you come around

- “Is everything alright master ? Would you like something else ?” “YES ! One more parfait please !! “ meanwhile Jamil is like “KALIM STOP, YOU HAVE ALREADY ORDERED 30 PARFAITS !!!, what are we going to do with all of this ?!”

- “the potato ? As a servant ? That’s hilarious” Vil is aware of all the maid thing since where he comes from wealthy families tend to have this kind of employees in their mansions

- NEVERTHELESS he can’t have a girl/boy in NRC dressed as a maid and you NOT 👏🏻 BEING 👏🏻 ON 👏🏻 POINT

- DRESS ! Check HIGH HEELS ! check STOCKINGS ! Check .... he goes on and on

- “Vil-senpai, I’m really grateful that you have taken your time to help me but don’t you think that your dorm also needs help-?” “SHUT UP GRACELESS POTATO we are not getting out this classroom until you learn how to move graciously in those high heels between tables while holding the tray , NOW LETS START AGAIN”

- At the end of the day somehow you have managed to make him happy, the next day you will show all your effort to Vil !

- He comes with Rook, it seems that he’s looking for you with his eyes but when you look back at him you never expect to receive such a gentle and proud look

- “Vil/senpa- ! I mean ... “Vil-sama !! Welcome ☺️” you say nervous yet excited to see him there. “Good enough, it looks like even dirty potatoes can turn into princess” (you are like “wait I’m the maid here, not a princess 😅”)

- Vil leans forward and puts a string of hair behind you ear and says in a low voice so only you can hear “a really pretty potato indeed”

- He enters the maid cafe and leaves you blushing in the entrance

- “Are we gonna treat ourselves or what potato ?! “ “ ah ! I’m so sorry master !!”

- Vil has a satisfied smile

- He is so grateful that every time he attends councils is via LIVE ‘cause the moment you said “maid cafe” he spilled the beverage he was drinking

- “m-m-m-mAID CAFÉ ?!” He can’t believe this is happening, for some seconds he can feel a creepy smile appearing in his face until ...

- “But how am I going to go to the cafe ?, I can have Ortho going there but knowing him he will focus the camera on desserts and not in (y/n) costume ... NOT THAT IM A CREEP OR SOMETHING Ijustwanttoseearealmaidinaction well is not that she’s/he’s “real” per say but-“

- Ortho is listening to all his mumbling from back his seat

- “Onii-chan 😊”

- “Ah... what is it Ortho ?”

- “Just go 😠”

- It took A LOT from his little brother to convince him to go and look for you

- The day of the festival it was CROWDED as hell and he was sooo grateful that the classroom where you were having the cafe had a window that had a view to one of the gardens

- He was peeking all the movement from the window looking for you, but some minutes passed and he started thinking (what am I thinking ? Obviously she’s not gonna see me from here ... but entering is NOT an option either ... maybe I just should go-) “Iidia-San?”

- You scared the crap out of him, he was lost in thought but thanks to that he didn’t go

- “Ah! Sorry sorry, Um ... (you remember your character) “iidia-sama, is something the matter ? Why are you out there ?”

- Perhaps Zeus had pity on his soul. You look SO CUTE SO ADORABLE SO SEXY-

- “Uh.... no, it’s just ... there’s a lot of noise inside” you know about his anxiety and you tell him “well, doesn’t my master want something ? I can bring him anything he desires to this window if Iidia-sama wishes”

- He just had a nosebleed

- “I-Iidia- sama ?!” “Ah ! Sorry .... Um yeah o-one crepe... p-please”

- He goes back to Ignihyde with a delicious crepe and a memory of you calling him master... but wait a sec...

- “WHY DIDNT I BROUGHT A CAMERA?!?!?!?!” “I ALSO COULD HAVE RECORDED HER/HIS VOICE DAMN IT!!!!”

- maid ... cafe ? This is interesting

- He was processing everything, from the concept and your explanation to all of the reactions that caused in the guys

- (Why were they so shocked ? Well I guess I will have to find out)

- He’s royalty and everyone calls him “sama” all the time, well except from Lilia, so he thinks that a bunch of butlers calling him that again isn’t any different ... but you 🤔

- How intriguing, you always call him “senpai” or “san” ... now this have caught his attention

- His dorm was organizing everything quite well and as usual Diasomnia had really disciplined members so his presence wasn’t really that necessary so he went to Lilia and asked him about this “maid cafes”

- Lilia knew about the maids but also didn’t understand the concept of mixing maids and cafes, but Lilia being the little devil he was he said some ... funny information that could intrigue Malleus

- “They are humans, but just like pixies they charm every man when they see them” “charm them ? But (y/n) is human ... how can she/he charm anyone ?” “Hehehe you will understand when you see her/him”

- The day arrived, and oh yeah, Lilia was right, he was expecting you to be little and with wings, leaving pixie dust behind but no ... it was just you with a strange yet cute little skirt and fluffy sleeves... your eyes looked at him and your little cheeks tainted a light shade of pink ... (what is this ? I can’t stop looking at her/him) he was in daze

- “Umm .... Malleus-sama ?”

- “Uh .... I’m sorry, so this is a maid ... you are quite powerful”

- “ uh.. hu” you just said your lines when you saw him but he didn’t seem to have listened to you so you decide to repeat them

- “Welcome back Malleus- sama ! We are so enlightened to receive you !!”

- Again .... he’s dazed , but this time he did hear you, so acting a little weird he enters the cafe, you handle him the menu and explain the recommendations

- You are so nervous trying to remember all your lines that you don’t notice it but Malleus is admiring everything about you with loving eyes

- You take his order and go to the kitchen (he honestly doesn’t know what the hell he just ordered since he isn’t familiar with the dishes but anyway)

- Maybe he doesn’t notice himself but he’s looking at you everywhere you go with a little smile on his face

- “Maybe (y/n) has magic after all”

[whatdoesshedotothem]

Wednesday 28 February 1838

7 25

12 ½

fair and clear morning and F32° barely at 7 25 – a good deal of snow had fallen during the night – and about 8 ½ or before began snowing again with every likelihood now at 9 am (F31 ½° or near 32°) of a snow day – stood ½ hour before dressing considering Dr. Renders’ German Calligraphy which I got out last night, resolved to learn to write and read German writing as soon as I can – then for a moment before breakfast turned to Cochrane vol. 1 17/428 cure for blistered feet which C- never found to fail ‘Rub the feet at going to bed with spirits mixed with tallow dropped from a lighted candle into the palm of the hand on the following morning no blisters will exist; the spirit seems to possess the healing power, the tallow serving only to keep the skin soft and pliant. The soles of the feet, the ankles and insteps should be rubbed well; and even where no blisters exist, the application may be usefully made as a preventive. Salt and water is a good substitute; and while on this head, I would recommend feet travellers never to wear night right and left shoes: it is bad economy, and indeed serves to cramp the feet’ read forwards from p. 16 to 35. breakfast at 9 20 in about ½ hour – then out in the stables a minute or 2 – then in the drawing a minute or 2 when Edward brought me another parcel per coach from Mr. Bull – containing note and his bill –read over the latter in astonishment - £38.2.0!!! stood musing 8 or 10 minutes – I will pay this bill when I must – can it not be taxed? I will what Mr. Harper says – I can depend upon him – I feel irritated to have been so taken in – went in to A- she thought the bill might be £20 – it seemed to us both a little like swindling? A- owned she should feel as much annoyed and irritated as I did – staid talking till 11 ½ - then came upstairs and wrote the last 7 lines – A- poorly but more out of sorts reading the lesson for the day as I found her doing yesterday  is she going wrong again? I asked for a little comfort a bit of petting she began crying  I said she had no reason to fret  should not do so for me  whatever came to me she was very well off she could not be hurt and she used to say she would keep me yes she would keep me but she could not keep the estate  I said quietly the estate would keep itself  but if she would make any proposal I would come into it if I could a little more passed in this sstrain she not speaking  I got affected said she would think of me sometime and I then came away – I suppose the thing will blow off as usual but had I not best get her to make some proposition that can be acted upon?  yas [yes]  all quite right see line third below had just written so far at 11 ¾ am then in my study looking over Taylor’s builders price book and my little bankers’ and merchants guide (36mo) published at Glasgow – then looking over the accounts current of Messrs. P- and A- till went down to A- at her luncheon at 12 ½ and sat with her till came upstairs at 2 20 – from then to 4 examination of my accounts of 1833. to see my real receipts and borrowings – went out at 4 10 – no! with A- a few minutes and then went out – to the Lodge ½ hour there – talking to poor Matty – went upstairs to see the corpse – very neatly laid out in the bedroom an 2nde – just mentioned to Matty her remaining at the Lodge having the room an 2nde to herself and George and his wife (to be married said Matty on the 14th proximo) have the other part of the Lodge – this seemed to please Matty – took a turn in the Lodge road – then to Listerwick and back and walked in front of the house till came in a little after 6 – then ½ hour with A- a few minutes in the west tower – dressed – dinner at 7 5 A- read her French – tea – I read partly aloud the newspaper –(A- wrote her journal) then read ½ p. 23 and ½ p. 24 Kotzebue till came upstairs at 11 5 at which hour F33° snowing till after 10 am and again from about 1 to 4 more or less –afterwards a little small rain and then fair or thereabouts for the evening and now at 11 ¼ pm

[fallingfor-fics]

Teachers Pet-chapter 16: everything’s fine

All chapters

chapter 15

I had just got done in Transfiguration and was headed to Snape's class for our lessons, yawning as I walked down the hallways passing all the students headed to lunch. I was dreadfully tired, I had only gotten 4 hours of sleep and was barely making it through the day. The only things on my mind being sleep and Severus. The conversation we had last night still burned in my mind. Thinking over and over again about him giving me his robes, talking to me, and giving me advice.

 It was such a special moment to me, and now I had to see him after all that and my feelings for him having grown. I didn't think it was possible to fall harder for someone practically overnight, but now I was sure I more than fancied him, It was definitely a whole crush now. A silly schoolgirl crush I should remind myself. I continued to the dungeons and waited for the last few kids to shuffle out of his room. It didn't take them long, kids seemed to hurry out of there as if they were being chased by a dementor or something. I knocked on the open door signaling my presence as I walked in. "Good afternoon Professor." I said smiling and walking over to his desk. He hummed a response and was writing something in a book. After about three minutes of silence he looked up at me, I had taken my seat now and was using my wand to mess around and levitate some of my books to pass the time, I smiled and then looked over and saw he was staring at me with a stern face and they all fell from the air onto my table. "Heh oops" I said, wincing and shrugging my shoulders. "Have you come to play around Ms. L/n or are you here to learn?" he questioned with his usual student voice. "I've come to learn, and it's Y/n!" I said flashing a sarcastic smile, to which he responded with a scowl.

   "For this lesson I'm gonna have you do some chores for me, I need to work and we can study in our evening classes." he said turning back to his book. I frowned realizing we weren't gonna be talking much and got up lazily walking over to him. "Ok, what'll it be? Cauldron cleaning? Potion organizing?" I said in a sarcastic but somewhat respectful tone. "Make yourself busy, I don't have time to look over what needs to be done." He responded as he continued to scribble in his book. I looked at it trying to see what it was, "What ya got there? Is it your diary?" I teased crossing my arms. He looked up at me with an unamused look, "Make. Yourself. Busy." he said sternly. I guess he wasn't in a fun mood today, and he was back to normal ol' Severus. A thought crossed my mind, what if he was being like this because of our conversation last night? And that's why he didn't want to talk to me. I fiddled with my fingers not walking away yet as I continued to ponder on the thought, I felt his eyes on me and I met mine with his. "Can I help you Ms. L/n?" he said clearly not wanting to deal with my antics. "Did I do something wrong? Is it because of last night?" I spat out internally slapping myself for letting my thoughts slip out. He stiffened a bit and his face flashed with an emotion I couldn't put my tongue on, and it was gone before I could guess. "I assure you Ms. L/n it doesn't concern you." I looked at him and he went back to writing, that was bullshit, it may not be about last night, but he definitely has some sort of issue with me. I walked away and walked around the room looking for stuff that needed to be done. There were a few dirty cauldrons so I scrubbed those, his storage closet was still organized from when I had last arranged it, and everything else looked clean enough.

   Hmm, make myself busy he says, I looked over to one of the bookshelves and noticed it was all out of whack, every book had a place, but they were not in any pattern. I figured I could sort them into alphabetical order and began doing so, he had many bookshelves so I figured it wouldn't hurt to just use magic to sort them. I began on the farthest shelf and thirty minutes later I was on the second to last one. Books floating in the air as I found proper places for each of them. I lifted one and noticed its beautiful exterior, it was a rose color and had an anatomical heart on the cover, it was labeled "Amor Promerendae." It was Latin I knew that much, but I didn't remember much Latin, my father had made my sister and I learn at least three languages, but I haven't practiced my Latin in years and I had given up on it,  I looked over at Severus and he wasn't paying me any attention. "Amor" I whispered to myself, well that was obviously love. Any one would guess that, I looked back at Severus and he was still glued to his writing. I walked over to his other shelves trying to find any sort of language dictionary but only found ones for Greek and French. "Sir?" I said looking over at him. "What Ms. L/n?" he said annoyed, "Do you happen to know what the Latin word P-prom-eren-dae? Means" I said, struggling to say it correctly. He looked up for a moment to think, "Earning, I believe" He said going back to work. I thanked him and looked at the book again. "Earning love" I whispered as I opened the book up. As I opened it a flower fell from its pages and to the floor, my eyes went wide and I quickly picked it up and turned my back to Severus to hide my finding. The flower looked like it had been in here for decades maybe. I began to flip through but just as I presumed it was all in Latin. I grabbed my wand off the shelf I had left it on and put it to the pages, I muttered a Translation spell they had taught me at Beauxbatons and the pages quickly turned to English. I flipped through the pages to make sure it worked and stopped when I saw handwriting in the margins of some of the pages. I was very scribbly and barely legible, but some phrases and sentences where underlined and circled, one note read, "failed" hmm strange I looked to the phrase it was written next to "This above all: to thine self be true" Whoever wrote in this must have been having a tough time they were unable to succeed in self love when they were in the process of earning someone else's.

Soon the bell rang starting me and I quickly used magic to put the books on the shelf and looked at Severus, he had gotten up and was writing lessons on the board. I looked at the book and used a shrinking spell and put it in my bra. Quickly walking to the front of the room and grabbing my bag and robes, "Thanks Professor see you in a bit!" I said quickly rushing out of his room not waiting for a response. I rushed to my dormitory and hid the book on the underside of Hera's cage. She stared at me as I did so, "Don't give me that look!" I said rushing back out and heading to DADA.I got in the class as soon as the bell rang and quickly sat down. Things with Harry and I were back to normal and it wasn't awkward any longer. "Good evening class! Today we will be doing something extra fun, so if you will all push the tables to the edges of the room and line up on each side of the room." I stood next to Harry and Ron stood across from us as everyone lined up. "Ok now whoever is across from you will be your partner. I shot a look to Harry and Ron, "No I call r-" I began but was cut off by the hideous professor, "Ahh Y/n I see you are the odd ball out once more I guess that leaves me to be your partner" he said smirking and walking to stand across from me. I shot Harry and look, and he just stifled a laugh.  "Today we will practice the rather simple shielding spell that we studied yesterday. Its incantation is simple, does anyone remember what it is?" "Protego!" one girl said batting her eyes at him. "Yes, very good! Now you will take turns casting light and non harmful spells at one another and using Protego to block them, it's important to be careful and take your time, we don't want to have any incidents." he said looking at me to which I just gave him a sarcastic grin as I folded my arms over my chest.

"Now spread out and begin whenever you are ready" murmurs between students filled the room as they talked with their partners and began practicing. I looked at Lockhart and he stood smiling at me. He raised his wand and I raised mine as well. "You first" he said and I shot him a smirk to which he dropped his smile for a second "Aqua Eructo" I said and water began to spur from the tip of my wand, it shot in his direction, but he thought fast and deflected it with the protection spell. He smiled tensely at me as I gave him a look, hoping he'd catch on, I wasn't going to mess around if he insisted on continuing to single me out. "Good" he said regain his composure, "My turn" he said we raised our wands and I prepared myself. "Vermillious!" he shouted, and red sparks shot from his wand, "Protego!" I said and successfully blocked them. How dare her, that was most certainly not a non harmful spell! It was considered a light dueling spell for that matter! We continued on for the next hour of class.

   The bell rang and this time I hung back as everyone left to confront Lockhart. "What did you think you were doing?" I said as he sat and leaned back into his chair smiling, "That was not an unharmful spell! If I had not blocked it I could have lost an eye!" I said, raising my voice. I had had it with this man. "Oh please Y/n I knew you could block it no problem!" he said, shrugging. "Not when I'm caught off guard by a spell that's dangerous!" he looked at me with dark eyes and stood up, "Ok, here," he quickly raised his wand and my eyes went wide, not ready for what he was going to send my way, out of defense before he could say anything I raised my wand, "Expelliarmus!" I shouted before he could say anything and sent him flying back over his desk. I cupped my mouth realizing what I'd just done, not that it didn't feel amazing. He quickly got up and gave me a dark look. "Professor I didn't mean to, it was out of defense I swear!" I spat out walking over to him. He didn't take his eyes off mine and hovered over me, "Oh thats, quite alright, Y/n. Just be careful, you never know the consequences of your actions." He said in a calm deep tone, it was frightening. "Now you better go, you don't want to be late." He said never taking his eyes off me as I grabbed my things and quickly sped out, mumbling to myself "What on earth does that mean?"

[bexical]

April ‘21

Okay, monthly updates. I can do this.

I’m doing Camp NaNoWriMo this month! I mentioned last time that I wanted to do a rewite of Soul, and I decided to try to focus on that this month. I hear that finishing projects (as opposed to 1: getting distracted by side projects and 2: forever striving for ‘perfect’ as opposed to actually 'completed’) is an important skill to practice and develop, and I figured this was a good way to do so.

Of course, a little more than a week in and I don’t think I’m doing quite what I set out to do. I did work on it for a bit and make some good progress, but then I got distracted and returned to Fireflower for a bit (I’ve got a fun fight scene I’m working on - first fight scene I’ve actually sat down and written since I started taking MMA classes. The emotions in one particular scene in Raya and the Last Dragon have been perfect inspiration also). Then I picked up a draft of a poem I’d started some time ago - and while working on a stanza for that, I conceived a whole new poem. So much for practicing focus and finishing projects :P

That’s not entirely true though. I did actually finish that second poem (or a…sixish-th draft of it?) - if I’m feeling courageous, I’ll post that soon.

What else is new…

I’ve discovered how much I love writing on pen and paper, especially outside in the sunlight. It’s tricky - my body does a shit job at staying warm when I’m not moving so I get very cold sitting there, and when I’m out I don’t have wifi to stream music beyond what I’ve downloaded onto my phone - but it really is such a nice feeling. It’s not just that I’m more free of distraction (though that certainly helps) - there’s also the way scribbling the words feels that is… different, somehow from typing. (I don’t know the word to describe the difference. For some reason, my brain has descended upon the word 'vistruously’, which is of course not a real word. the word was VISCERALLY. figured it out the next day =P)

I’ve also been playing Disco Elysium - i.e. I played it with a friend, then decided to purchase it myself and play through it again in French to practice the language. It’s actually really great for practicing a language, since you can switch the text between two languages instantly, allowing you to compare the text easily. (Unfortunately, it doesn’t have Japanese, which I’d also love to practice with Disco Elysium. Alas.) One fun aspect is how the characters aren’t the most clean-mouthed, which means I get to see how people curse in French: I’ve learned the equivalent of 'fuck’, which is 'putain’ (transliterates to 'whore’) and sadly does not seem to partake in expletive infixation to the same extent as 'fuck’, if at all. The favorite French thing I’ve learned though is probably the translation of “Have you found anyone to be sweet to?”, which is “Avez-vous trouvé chaussure à votre pied?”, which in turn transliterates to “Have you found a shoe for your foot?”

Beyond the use it provides in language learning, I of course have thoughts about the game that I’ll hopefully write up and post here soon. One thought in particular is that it’s a really interesting way to tell a story. To briefly describe the game: it’s an RPG, playing a specific character (as opposed to a fairly generic blank slate). Your skills are customizable but are still personalized to the character: the best example is probably Inland Empire, a skill that reveals the inner workings of the character’s imaginations and fears. I really like how the skills interact with each other: while they are all a part of you, they’re separate parts of you and they argue with each other fairly often. Obviously, since they disagree on occasion, they can also be wrong on occasion: a fun lesson the game reminds you of is that succeeding a skill check does not always mean success in a more conventional sense.

So, in a return to the first topic of this post: I’ve thoroughly failed at not getting distracted with new projects by deciding I’d like to write my own game with similar concepts. Tentatively titled Dreamscape Fantasia (so while the game design may be a ripoff of DiscoE, the name is clearly a ripoff of Planescape Torment, a D&D game considered to be the spiritual predecessor to DiscoE =P), the game would focus on the exploration of the main character. DiscoE does of course explore the main character (that’s the whole point of personalizing the skill system to this character, after all), but DreamscapeF would do so more explicitly: as the title suggests, it would take place in the dreams of the main character, with events being far more abstract and with little to no extrinsic storyline.

I’ll likely develop it a bit then leave it alone for a while - I want to get the basics down while the idea’s fresh with inspiration from DiscoE, but then I want to focus on existing projects (hi Fireflower, I haven’t forgotten you). There’s also the question of feasibility… I’d ideally want to hire people for the art/music to fully deliver on the concept, which is of course technically doable - it just (significantly) ups the difficulty on a number of levels.

Nevertheless, it’s a fun project I’ve got going in my head. And that’s all for now - pce out til next time!

[anne-lister-adventures]

Saturday, 2 May 1840

6 3/4

1 3/4

Very fine morning and Reaumur 10 1/2º at 6 3/4 a.m. the German woman came with butter A[Ann] wrong again because I took one instead of half a pound      surely I shall now stick to my purpose and get rid of her some way or other as well as I can 

At 10 came Hoffman for 1/2 the money in advance for the carriage doing yet he has been since Wednesday morning and done nothing at it! I would give him the money if he would give me security for having it done as he promised I said on Tuesday but it was agreed to be done on Monday evening – No! He had taken 2 Calêches to do, and the Kibitka was to be ready next Tuesday week! No! said I, I must be auge or demidieu not to be out of patience with this – Tell the man I wish him good morning – And I sent George with compliments to Mr. Chwostoff to ask him to be so good as say when he could come –

I should go out today at 1 1/2 for a couple of hours except this had no engagement – George can literally do nothing i.e. get nothing done for us – What can be the reason of it? I cannot comprehend the man he is Russian – It is not that he cannot explain what is wanted – Had George in soon afterwards about what to do with Domna – Mentioned her going to Mr. Besoc’s – Longish talk – George went to her, and brought word back that she should not like to be at Mr. B-s[Besoc’s] all the people being Georgians – What would she like? To be at the house of a Marchand here whose wife had been to visit her – Said I had nothing to say against her objection to Mr. Besoc’s – Would consult Mr. Chwostoff tonight – George to inquire into the volonté of Domná and if her volonté and mine agreed, the matter would be easy – If not, I would arrange some other way – But if she returned I saw no way but his going with her – A-[Ann] and I sat talking things over she mending gloves &c. at my elbow, I drinking raisin tea and eating the raisins being thirsty – Then wrote the last 8 lines till now 1 5/’’ – 

At 1 1/2 Hajie Yoosoof came and brought a youth with him – At the moment Madame and Mademoiselle Golovin were announced sent off Hajie and received the ladies who sat some time very civil Mr. Stadler soon came and sat more than 1/2 the time they were here, and after they went took him with us to the Gymnase for Hajie returned for us soon after 2 – 

Large handsome building 60 élèves du Gouvernement – Building 50,000/- and 3,000/- (en argent) per annum allowed in the Directeur and Master of the School only arrived about a month ago from St. P-[Petersburg] the latter had been 3 years at St. P-[Petersburg] a student before that at Charkoff – 

The Tiflis Gymmase. (Image Source)

He shewed us his translation into Russian of Romeo and Juliet, and his Baudry-Paris Edition of Shakspeare[Shakespeare] in 2 volumes large 8vo.[octavo] – Good clear print – The edition corrected by Chalmers – Well-informed gentlemanly man – Turned to Macbeth – The beginning – Aroint thee witch – The glossary explained it – Avaunt – Begone – Mentioned the conjecture of a learned Scotsman (Dr. Hunter ages ago to my Aunt Anne) – That aroint thee should probably be a rowan tree, witch – i.e. the rowan tree or mountain ash was a spell against witchcraft – Or it might mean, that the shaft of the besom on which witches rode was generally of rowan tree, and that the witch should betake herself to it and begone – But now on writing this (at 10 55/’’ p.m.) it seems to me that the conjecture was that rowan tree witch, meant, there is, or I have, or beware of, a rowantree, or spell against thy powers, and will have nothing to say to thee – 

The rooms of the Gymnase large lofty and good – And the master’s apartment very nice and comfortable – Tasted the soup the roast beef and soup the 5 boys remaining (vacance – All the rest gone to their friends to return next week) had for dinner – very good beef – Tender – Best we have tasted here – The Maître de Pension gave us chocolate and excellent Savoy Biscuits as we talked over Shakespeare – Mr. Stadler, too, at home on the subject of English Literature – 

From there to Hajie Yoosoofs house in the square Abasabad – He shewed us several dictionaries and grammars – English Richardson’s Dictionary and Sir William Jones’s Grammar and Jauberts French Turkish Grammar – At last shewed his own MS. Grammar in Persian Tartar and Turkish – Had given 29 lessons to a young Prince Tchetchevadsoff (vide the name right spelt a p.[page] or 2 back) and he could already read and speak a little Persian – Mr. Stadler as we talked it over afterwards thought our Hajie’s grammar quite on an Eastern plan, no easier to an European, nor so easy as the common method – For my part, I am no judge – But it is probable that Lord Clanricarde will not trouble himself much about grammar or asiatic society in this case – Got away as soon as we could much obliged to Mr. S-[Stadler] – 

Came in at 4 50/’’ – Sat talking – Dinner about 5 17/’’ that is eggs and barley cake and butter and a little cheese and wine and water – Had just got all sided (about 7 p.m.) when Mr. Chwostoff came and staid till 10 25/’’ – Had stood some time but we somehow got to the subject of our English Ministers and their measures and Hein came – 

Soon after Mr. S-[Stadler] came we had sent for Hoffmann who arrived too tipsy to be fit for anything ∴[therefore] sent him off – With Hein la chose s’arrangeait – The carriage to be done on Thursday or Hein to forfeit (to pay) for 55/- S.[Silver] R.[Rubles] which it is now agreed to pay – He to send the carriage back but I to pay for its going to him = 3 or 4 abasses – Does not want paying till the work is done – 

Had talked over the affair of the servants – Of leaving Domna – On C-‘s[Chwostoff’s] saying it would be best to give her so much, and let her arrange for herself, but surprised she would not go chez Mr. Besoc, I proposed giving her her wages as usual and doubling her allowance for nourriture i.e. giving her 2/- a day – Yes! That would be quite enough – And if I gave George 1/- per day for the time he had been here it would be quite enough – 

All this settled we had tea – Green exprès for Mr. C-[Chwostoff] and he probably thought it good; for he took 2 cups – Did not know of any other place (Inn) for us to be at than this – Shops here where nothing but Persian things are sold in a Georgian (Colonel in the Russian Service) here learned in the Persian language and who has just finished or is finishing – Persian Grammar and Dictionary – 

On C-‘s[Chwostoff’s] going away asked what books we could bring from England, should we return to go to Persia, that he would like – But said he was of course aware of the difficulty – All must be sent to the Censureship – He said we should get the Russian Ambassador’s seal put on the package – Box or caisse – This led to explaining the difficulty of this – Lord S.[Stuart] de R-‘s[Rothesay’s] getting our passport signed Whig Ministers &c. &c. – But inquire again as to getting the Russian Minister’s seal – He might safely give it to us – We are certainly not likely to aid the spread of Whig politics – 

C-[Chwostoff] asked to see A-‘s[Ann’s] album – heard we had beautiful views &c. &c. !!! Explained – Shewed A-‘s[Ann’s] little unfinished sketches – I wish we could se fournir de jolies dessins –

Had Domna and had just read a few pp.[pages] of vol.[volume] 3 Dubois and had just written the last 4 1/2 lines of p.[page] 181 and the last p.[page] and so far of this now at 12 10/’’ – Very fine day, but rather windy – 

Mr. C-[Chwostoff] spoke of the amazing of trotting horses in America – The Marquis of Sligo had bought 2 horses in Philadelphia that trotted in double harness 19 English miles an hour with ease – He had given 2000 dollars for one horse – But for 600 dollars one could have a good horse that would trot 19 miles an hour in harness – The American horses taught to trot from their ‘infancy’ –Could trot a mile in 1 20/’’ minutes to 1 1/2 minutes – the latter pace common enough! – I had boasted that our English horses could trot as well as the American – no! said I – now I give in – we cannot do that – a mile in 1/2 minute a common trotting speed = 60 x 2 / 3 = 40 miles an hour!!! they can beat our best blood horses at gallop – Yes! They could – I said I had once ridden 2 miles in 4 minutes and thought it a great thing and I had trotted 14 miles in an hour (the little brown Buskett mare at Skelfler) and thought the galloping in particular a great thing – But I had only gone at the rate of 30 miles an hour and American horses can trot at the rate of 40!!! – 

It seems the great Western America-going steamer is taken up by our government for the India Mail to Alexandria and letters do not now go viâ Marseilles – And by this new arrangement government would save £60,000 a year – Speaking on the head of Whig savings, I said we paid the same taxes as before the petites économies of clerks and ladies pensions &c. &c. and in a time of and after 20 years of profound peace, we still borrowed, Ministers could not make all ends meet! – 

C-[Chwostoff] said we were better off in war – No nation had gained by the peace – Nor England nor Russia nor France still in a precarious state – And we should go on from change to change till we had (such was the sense of his phrase) run the whole rig – Had just written so far now at 12 40/’’

[symbols in the margin of the page:]         ✓       ✓       +          ✓       +          +

[in the margin of the page:]             Hoffman again

[in the margin of the page:]            Gymnase

[in the margin of the page:]            Mr. C-[Chwostoff] drank tea with us

[in the margin of the page:]            Agreement with Hein

Page References: SH:7/ML/E/24/0093 and SH:7/ML/E/24/0094 and SH:7/ML/E/24/0095

[lionheartslowstart]

Getting To Know Me

I had a rough start during quarantine. My mental health was dipping pretty low, I felt isolated and bored, and I was alone with my thoughts so the body dysmorphia was turned up pretty high. I’m not sure what happened, but somehow, I was able to do a complete 180. I’m taking the time to change my lifestyle and find ways to make myself happier, because, what the fuck else am I going to do during quarantine?

First things first, I’ve changed my sleep cycle. Huzzah! I went from falling asleep at 3-5 am and waking up at 1-3 pm, to falling asleep at 10-11:30 pm and waking up at 7-8:30 am. Crazy right? Somewhere in there I hit a couple bumps in the road, so now it’s been more like falling asleep around midnight and waking up between 9 and 10. Still way better than how it was before, but I’m trying to work back down to at least 8 in the morning. This was incredibly challenging for me, and a huge victory. My energy levels have increased, and my mood has generally been better.

I’ve started doing yoga. Yes, you read that correctly. I’ve been doing yoga for almost three weeks now. It’s the first thing I do when I wake up. My best friend turned me on to this amazing app, Daily Yoga. Highly recommend. I do yoga for two days in a row then rest the third day, which is what the app suggests. I’ve been taking courses, beginner courses specifically since I’m new to this whole yoga thing. The sessions started at about 10-15 minutes, and they’ve increased to 20-30 minutes or so. Not very long, but I figure I’m doing it almost every day, which I’m told is better than long, intense workouts less frequently. I’m hoping to increase to 45-60 minute long sessions. Though, once society resumes and I start school, I may no longer be able to do it every day. But that’s why I’m trying to increase now. If I can only do yoga a few times a week instead of every day, I want to be stronger so I can participate in longer routines, and so I can challenge myself with more difficult poses.

In addition to my almost daily yoga, I have a short work out regimen I do every day, including on days I don’t do yoga. I do 100 squats, 50 crunches, 50 lower abdominal crunches, and 60 oblique crunches. Every. Single. Day. Some days I don’t want to, but I force myself, and I’m always glad I do. I also try to go on walks, especially on non-yoga days. There’s a lovely trail right by my apartment, so I try to get in at least 30 minutes. Like I said, I’ve only been doing this stuff for about three weeks, so it’s not like I’ve lost weight or anything. But I do feel stronger, and I think I look a little stronger. Also, my butt is poppin’ thanks to all the squats. I don’t know if it’s because I’m feeling stronger, or because the exercise is helping with my mental health, maybe a bit of both, but my body dysmorphia has seen a drastic decrease. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely still have bad days, but I would say that, overall, I’m obsessing about my body less, and shitting on my body less. There have even been several days where I see myself in the mirror and think, Damn, I look good.

Other than fitness, I have added a couple of other things to my day-to-day. I’ve been making sure to practice my Spanish on Duolingo every day for about ten minutes. Not only that, but I started taking French, too, which I also practice for ten minutes a day. Unlike Spanish, French is very difficult for me. I’ve studied Spanish since middle school, and while there was a large lapse in my speaking of it, it came back to me very quickly. I’ve always loved the language, and grasping it came easy to me. French, not so much. It’s way harder than Spanish. Just, generally. The grammar is less consistent, most of the differences in words are in how things are written out and NOT how they are actually spoken, so as a result, all of the words sound the fucking same, there are 80 fucking vowels to memorize, and, to top it all off, the pronunciation is super difficult already. I hate it. I love it. The challenge is the fun! My mom and I were supposed to go to France this summer (fat chance now, I know), which is why I chose French as my second language to learn. My mom speaks French, but I figure if I’m going to be spending time in a foreign country, I might as well at least try to understand what’s going on around me, as opposed to solely relying on my mother to get us around.

Another thing I’ve been working on is learning guitar. This is something I’d been doing before quarantine began, but being in quarantine has allowed me to practice a lot more. I’ve added guitar practice to my regimen, although there’s been a pause in that, as the handle for the case broke on the way to my mom’s house for a lesson, so the guitar will be remaining there until the new case arrives. But before that (and presumably after we get the new case), I’d been practicing every day. I would practice all the chords I know and play through the two songs I’ve been working on two or three times. At my most recent lesson with my mom, we downloaded a P!nk song online, and she taught me a new chord so I could play it. Now I know 10 chords: G, C, D, D7, Em, E, A, Am, A7sus, and Bb (aka, the hardest chord ever). Obviously, I still have a lot to learn, but I’m proud of the progress I’ve made. Guitar is hard, but I’m determined.

So, these 5 things (yoga, daily workout, Spanish, French, and guitar, in that order) are how I begin my day, every day. I usually finish anywhere from 10 to noon, depending on how early I wake up. This frees up the rest of my day for household chores, errands, cooking, calling my friends, video games, overall chillaxin’, and various creative endeavors like crafting or writing. But this has led to two different results, one positive and one negative.

The positive effect is that I have a schedule. My mornings are pretty set in stone, and I try to organize the rest of my day as best I can. I use a “To Do List” every day, and I include my leisurely activities on it as well so I can put everything in some kind of order. I try to accomplish any chores or errands I have in the middle of the day (with the exception of doing the dishes and cleaning the stove, which I do every night after dinner), and spend the rest of the day having fun and relaxing. I end every night by reading in bed for about thirty minutes, which has definitely helped with my sleep cycle. All of this has led me to the conclusion that I can be functional in a regular society.

The negative outcome is that I’m still bored. When I was living in Italy, I was constantly anxious because life is so slow-paced there. Other than my classes, I felt like I had nothing to do, which was a stark difference from life in the Big Apple. It just felt weird to have all this time on my hands, and as a result, I often felt unproductive. I also didn’t take as much advantage of the free time as I should have, but that largely had to do with the state of my mental health at the time, as well as just not being used to having buttloads of leisure time and therefore not knowing what to do with it. With everything going on, life right now feels really similar to how it did in Italy. Like I said, I finish my routine by the end of the morning, and then the rest of my day is just a big blank space that I try to fill with everything and anything else.

But even this has led to another positive realization! When I started this journey three weeks ago, I was afraid that when society reforms, my schedule will fall apart and I’ll become overwhelmed because I’ll suddenly have a lot of other things I need to do (namely school and medical appointments). I definitely still have anxiety about that, especially since school will be incredibly demanding, but that anxiety is beginning to lesson. Why? For the same reason I’m bored all the time! My morning routine only takes a couple hours. Even if I have to switch to the evening because of school, or split it up into half one day and half another, it will still be manageable. I know I will have space for the other demands in my life. As my mom has said to me, it’s a lot easier to go from having one schedule to having a different schedule, than to go from having no schedule at all to having a schedule. I’m sure there will be adjustments, maybe ones I haven’t thought of. But I’ll be able to figure it out, even if there are bumps in the road (which I’m sure there will be), because I’m building a skillset.

So, what does all of this have to do with the title of this entry, “Getting To Know Me?” I was on the phone with my therapist the other day, telling her about all the progress and positive changes I’ve made, and how I’ve been feeling as a result. She responded, “You’re getting to know yourself.” This took me by surprise, which I voiced to her. I told her that I’ve always prided myself on knowing exactly who I am, but I nevertheless thought she was right. That, yes, I do know Who I Am, but, as with everything else, I’m discovering even more. I keep peeling back layer after layer, I keep thinking I’ve reached the core, but then I tap a few times and realize, Oh fuck yeah! There’s even more! 

I’ve learned that I like waking up early in the morning. My goal is to be able to wake up at 7 or 7:30 every day. (This doesn’t change the fact that I love nighttime, which will no doubt cause me issues down the line, but I’ll figure it out.) I love learning languages. I want to be able to speak Spanish and French fluently. Maybe I’ll even try learning Italian after! I want to be able to speak as many languages as I can cram into my brain. I’ve learned that I can take this fitness journey, and I’m enjoying it. It’s okay that I’m still a beginner, and that doesn’t mean I’m not capable of being an expert if I keep going. And I can live without sweets. I still treat myself every now and then (and when I do, portion control is still an issue I’m trying to work on), but for the most part I don’t crave chocolate or sugar the way I used to. I’m currently attempting to go two weeks without dairy. Now that has been HARD. The exceptions being anything that comes with my Blue Apron meals, because I’m not going to waste food, and putting a little bit of milk in my coffee, because I can’t not have a little bit of milk in my coffee. But in terms of breakfast, lunch, and snacking, zero dairy. I’ve substituted Pringles and Pop Tarts for fruits, applesauce, and (non-dairy) yogurt. I’m only on day three, but I’m confident I can make it to day fourteen. I’ve learned that I have more energy than I thought I did, which is huge. I’d been so used to feeling sluggish and exhausted, I had no idea I have the capacity to feel this energized! The best part is that I know it’s because I’m doing all of these things that MAKE me feel energized. And they make me feel energized because they make me happy. Even sitting here writing this, I’ve just thought of more things I want to work on while I have this time. And I’m going to! I have the time, all I need to do is remember to add it to my To Do List.

I know it’s a scary time right now. I don’t want to pretend it isn’t, or that a lot of lives haven’t been lost, or that we shouldn’t take it seriously. But taking it seriously involves staying at home as much as possible, and if we’re stuck at home anyway, shouldn’t we make the most of it?

[teachermon]

Getting Started

Hi, welcome to my blog! I will be talking about my internship at Iona Secondary School. I was a teaching assistant to Ms. Chung – a French teacher for Grade 9 applied and academic, and Grade 10 academic. Starting on May 30, I always came to school from 9 am – 2:15 pm. My everyday schedule was: grade 9 academic (9:30 – 10:50), lunch (10:50 – 11:30), grade 9 applied (11:30 – 12:55), and grade 10 academic (1:00 – 2:15pm).

“In what ways is this experience deepening my knowledge of teaching and learning?”

This experience is deepening my knowledge of teaching and learning because it taught me a lot about classroom management, all the preparation that comes before teaching a class, and the amount of marking a teacher must do. So, since I came in May, this was the time when Ms. Chung had a lot of marking to do. They had tests and mini assignments leading up to their CPT. They also did not have exams this year, so CPT was their main last assessment for the school year.

Every morning, Ms. Chung had some marking to do. I helped her with some of the markings - I marked some of the Grade 9 French Applied and Academic written assignments for their CPT. On my first day, the Grade 9 French Academic had a quiz on Passe Compose. So, I also marked their quiz. Marking the quiz was pretty straightforward, but I had to learn how to divide up the marks or what marks to give to each student under specific categories. Just a refresher, the high schools in Canada divide up their mark under four categories: Knowledge, Communication, Thinking, and Application. So, if a student got a verb wrong, but another verb right (note: Passe Compose has two verbs), I would have to determine what mark to give them. Sometimes, they would get the verb right, but the spelling is wrong, so I would also have to gauge their mark. These are just little things I had to know when it came to marking.

Another observation I’ve made that gave me an insight into how Ms. Chung manages her class is how the class prepares for a test. Before the students begin to enter the class, Ms. Chung will ask them to place their phones in a bin. They will then put their backpacks in front of the class – besides the teacher’s desk. They will then go to their desks and turn their desks to face the windows. Once everyone has settled down, Ms. Chung will tell them to quiet down. Then, she will say the instructions and give the test. She will not give the test until all those steps have been followed. Witnessing that made me realize how important it is to make sure the class is in order before giving a test. Just like we have little steps to follow before taking a midterm in university, it’s just as important in high school. It keeps everything in order and organized.

Furthermore, there are also small steps that Ms. Chung must do every time she starts a class, and this is for every class! Once all the students have come in, Ms. Chung had to do attendance (both online and on paper). After, she will play a French song for the students to listen to while they are settling down. She will then either take up the previous homework or remind the students of the upcoming important assignments they need to do. Again, I’ve realized how important this is because it also keeps everything in order and gives students a routine to follow.

“What am I learning from my professional reading that might be helpful to apply?”

In the book that I am reading, “How to be an effective teacher: The First Days of School” by Harry K. Wong & Rosemary T. Wong (2001), they talked about how being an effective teacher means being able to manage their classrooms. They (2001) listed the four characteristics of a well-managed classroom:

Students are deeply involved with their work, especially with academic, teacher-led instruction.

Students know what is expected of them & are generally successful.

There is relatively little wasted time, confusion, or disruption.

The climate of the classroom is work-oriented but relaxed and pleasant.

(p.86).

Although there were a couple of differences between Grade 9 Academic and Applied classes (Grade 9 Applied class has a little bit of disruption or wasted time), overall, I’ve noticed that Ms. Chung has a well-managed classroom. When students come in, they know what they are expected to do. They will go to their desks and do what is needed to do – if there is a worksheet they have to work on, they will work on it. If they must work on their CPT, they will take out their laptops to work on them. Of course, there are a couple of rowdy students that might cause little disruption, but whenever it gets too rowdy or loud, Ms. Chung knows how to control and discipline them. Ms. Chung exemplifies what a well-managed classroom is, as Harry & Rosemary (2001) describes that a well-managed classroom is a task-oriented environment where students know what is expected of them and how to succeed, and that is what I have witnessed in all of Ms. Chung’s classes.

Finally, as Harry & Rose (2001) mentioned, what separates an effective teacher from an ineffective teacher is that effective teachers manage a classroom, while ineffective teachers discipline classrooms. That is what I aim to be as a future teacher - an effective teacher who knows how to manage her class.

Dates I've attended:

May 26: 9-2:15 pm

May 27: 9-2:15 pm

May 30: 9-2:15 pm

May 31: 9-2:15 pm

June 1: 9-2:15 pm

Total # of hours: 25

[thejonzone]

Jon Writes a Year-End List

My favorite songs of 2020, alphabetically by artist

Bedouine (Margo Guryan cover)- The Hum

The original Guryan version is good but Bedouine’s take is cleaner, all the better to emphasize Guryan’s blissful songwriting. I could listen to the chords in the chorus forever.

Bob Dylan- I’ve Made Up My Mind to Give My Heart to You

It’s nice to hear Bob sing a yearning and clear-eyed love song. And the way he stretches out his words gives the whole thing a confidence that’s easy to get lost in. 

Boldy James- Giant Slide

Boldy had a great year, and it’s The Price of Tea in China with Alchemist producing that stood out to me. 

Empty Country- Becca

I don’t go to music festivals anymore, but listening to this album makes me dream of hearing it live, while being dehydrated, sweaty, feet hurting, holding in a p*op, a late afternoon sunburn loading. I want the whole thing!!

fawning, Rui Gabriel ft. Jack Riley- God

Toss it on the cloudy day walking playlist!

Frances Quinlan- Went to LA 

Great cathartic yell in this one. Quinlan builds up a palpable tension here. It rocks.

Judy ft. Jack Dolan, jommis- Say What U Mean

You’ve got to imagine these fellas knew they had put a few catchy melodies down while trying to out-croon each other.

Kurt Vile ft. John Prine (John Prine cover)- How Lucky

A Prine acolyte with a feature from the man himself. RIP.

Lala Lala, Grapetooth- Valentine

Kind of like a slow-dance song at nightmare prom. I love the percussion and Frankel’s villainously-low voice.

Lil Durk- Street Affection

The range of emotions Durk can access and scroll through is impressive.  

Miranda Winters- Little Baby Dead Bird

Scuzzy guitar and violin create a hypnotic effect in this evocative dirge. Miranda Winters is such a good singer. Check out her main band, Melkbelly-- they put out a great album this year!

Nap Eyes- Mark Zuckerberg

Two guitars: one is pointy, the other is chugging. That is the correct way to do two guitars.

Noname- Song 33

This song is 70 seconds. 70! Noname casually negates J. Cole and the song isn’t even about him. She’s so great. 

Ratboys- I Go Out at Night

Julia Steiner is on her The Hours shit in this melancholic fantasy of leaving and not returning. 

Rio da Yung OG, Lil Yachty- 1v1

I like how Yachty comes in on his verse! It’s been fun to see him back in action with his new Michigan friends. Rio is the star here, though. And Enrgy too. 

Soccer Mommy- yellow is the color of her eyes 

Sophia Allison’s delivery of “The tiny lie I told to myself is making me hollow” might be my line of the year. 

Swamp Dogg- Memories

The whole of Sorry You Couldn’t Make It is great, but for Swamp Dogg, who has covered John Prine, to work with the man before he died is a special accomplishment, and we’re better off that it’s recorded. 

Tall Juan- Irene

One of my favorite 2020 releases. And I’ll be a bit vulnerable here folks….when I am walking outside and this song comes on, I push my butt out a little bit and walk like I have rhythm and purpose. 

Tierra Whack- Dora

I’m so excited to see what Tierra Whack does, from her beat selection to how she jumps between flow and cadence. She understands herself so well. 

Non-2020-specific Music I Enjoyed, in Superlative Form

Group Vocal Performance Most Likely to Pierce Your Heartless Facade

Yesu Ka Mkwebaze

Best Song to Listen to if You are an 1850’s-era whaler in Your Feels

Mary Ann

Favorite Duet (Not Blood-Related)

Emmylou Harris and Herb Pedersen (but mostly Emmylou) create such an intricate and gorgeous melody on “If I Could Only Win Your Love”. Pedal steel heads and mandolin freaks, eat up.

Favorite Duet (Blood-related)

The Louvin Brothers- When I Stop Dreaming

Any longtime friends of the show know I’m a big fan of the singing duo The Louvin Brothers. They’ve got that golden country tone but it’s the blood harmony that turns these guys into something else entirely.

And here’s the kicker, folks. Emmylou covered When I Stop Dreaming! How coincidental for all of us reading this End of Year list…. The Louvins are my preferred version, but Emmylou, that you could help me make this connection is enough, dayenu!

Most Surprising Use of a Song in a Network TV Show

"Yama Yama" by the Yamasuki Singers, Fargo Season 2

When I was a dishwasher at St. James Cheese Co., late 2016ish, this CD was in our back of house music rotation. It is a magical album-- a Japanese children's choir with French pop production (think a bunch of bells and shit). I never learned the name of the album while working there and it fell out of my mind until years later when, after remembering how much I loved it, realized I had no idea how to find it. The pain of typing different spellings of “japanese children’s choir” into google for days on end.....I literally yelled when Fargo used this in its Season 2 big boy shootout. *chef’s kiss*

Best Album by a Spiritually Hungry Musical Genius, Lapping Her Contemporaries in Arrangement, Theme, and Songwriting, Gone Before Her Time

Judee Sill’s self-titled debut. 

Best Use of a Second Keyboard in A Keyboard Solo

Fountains of Wayne’s Red Dragon Tattoo

Do I mean to say synthesizer? Not sure. RIP Adam Schlesinger and long live FoW. What a loss.

Best Vibes/ Song I’d Most Want to Show Ezra Koenig so That We’d Bond & Become Friends

Zibote

Best Lyrics Written by a Jew in 1920’s NYC Being Sung by Willie Nelson

Lonely rivers flow to the sea, to the sea / to the open arms of the sea

Favorite TV Shows

Ramy

-Second season shook its focus on the titular character and oh am I thankful. Not that Ramy himself isn’t great, he is, but the entire cast here deserves attention. The Uncle Naseem episode. The Uncle Naseem episode. Ahem. The Uncle Naseem episode.

Joe Pera Talks with You

Lovecraft Country

-Small gripes and complicated plotlines aside, this anthology connecting gothic horror, racism, and American history is phenomenal. 

Small Axe

-The second installment in this series, Lovers Rock, which takes place at a party, is the vicarious shot in the arm you deserve, you little extroverted thing you. 

I May Destroy You

Betty

The Last Dance

-The first Bulls game I ever went to was the first game *without* Michael Jordan, at the beginning of the ‘98-’99 season. Bad timing.

The Chi

Schitt’s Creek

-This show was never about the plot. Am I allowed to say that? I’ve never cared less for a plot and more for a cast. Catherine O’Hara is in her own league above us all.

Jon Writes a Year-End List

In 2019, my roommate June and I took a road trip through the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I was out of a relationship, happily or unhappily I wasn’t sure yet, but along the way I downloaded Tinder hoping to meet a local who’d be excited to make out with me. There wasn’t much bite on my line, but by the time we reached Marquette, largely due to my good looks and charisma I’d orchestrated some type of group date with June, me, a girl from Tinder, and her friend. 

We met at a dingy karaoke bar and drank for cheap. Nobody wanted to hear me sing, but I got on stage anyway and gave “Willin” by Little Feat a go. Some guy at the bar in a maroon work shirt looked at me, scoffed, and left to smoke outside. The four of us weren’t hitting it off, even with alcohol. I and the friend made a plan to sing “Mommas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow up to Be Cowboys'', but she quickly abandoned the duet after we had begun, citing a lack of vibes.   

But we kept singing and drinking and hours later I was leaning against the bar, waiting to order, standing next to maroon-shirt guy who had so easily shrugged off my existence earlier. What caught my eye as I stood next to him was a Star of David tattoo on his forearm. And sure enough, the name tag stitched onto his shirt identified him as “Isaac”. Well I’ll goddamn be-- this guy was frickin Jewish! I was shocked-- I assumed he was goy in the same way I assumed everyone I ran into up there would be. 

For just one unconscious assumption (I’m the only Jewish person in this Marquette karaoke bar) to be wrong felt great. My assumptions are really awful. I assumed maroon-shirt hated my guts. I assumed these two girls we were drinking with thought I was a loser too. I assume people don’t like me or respect me or have any interest in getting to know me. I tell awful stories about myself to myself, and my assumptions about the world are limiting and boring! With patience, “guy at bar who kinda scowled at me” had all of a sudden turned into “my new friend Isaac” who, after a few minutes of conversation, I “asked to bum a cigarette from.”

One of my favorite shows of 2020 was Joe Pera Talks With You. I still remember watching Joe Pera’s stand-up for the first time, and then rewatching and rewatching, savoring his cadence. He dressed and spoke like a grandpa, replete with pitch-perfect, kinda-gross mouth sounds, stutters, and low-but-driving energy. It’s a good bit, and Joe has morphed it into probably the funniest, sweetest, and least-pandering show of 2020. What I love about this show is its foundational belief that anyone can surprise you, you just need to give yourself time to notice.

I didn’t end up making out with anyone but I did wake up the next morning with the worst hangover of my life. Wake up, barf, whimper. As June drove us out of Marquette, I could barely keep my eyes open. I did notice, however, a massive, wooden structure jutting out into Lake Superior.

It is this same Lake Superior structure that Joe Pera Talks With You fixates on for its first shot of Season 2. Yes, this is an Adult Swim show that takes place in none other than Marquette, Michigan! Which is weird. Think about other movies, shows, or books that take place in the U.P. You can’t! Even zooming out to include the larger Upper-Great Lakes region leaves us with an almost-empty net: The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald by Gordon Lightfoot and titular Gatsby’s origin story on Lake Superior. These are stories of hard living and life and death on the dangerous Great Lakes. But neither of those are specific to the Upper Peninsula.   

Regions are an easy if reductive lens with which to attempt to view and understand people. In 2020, broad and sweeping generalizations about large swaths of people continued to gain power. There was the movie adaptation of JD Vance’s ahistorical Hillbilly Elegy. Woolly-eyed liberals trotted out fake maps of a preferred America that holds only the “good” blue states, not at all engaging in the history of racism and voter suppression that got us here. Besides the fact that Georgia went blue. And Democratic strongholds like California, New York, and Chicago betray any notion of a “better” America. The sins of this nation are not cordoned off into one section or time zone, no region is monolithic, and most importantly, no person can be explained away with a quick sentence.

There is no regional monolith more widely misunderstood than the Midwestern gestalt. Fargo (the show) does a great job of serializing this one type of Midwestern character-- they say “oh sure, happy to help” and they’re murderers. So for Joe Pera to settle his show in the U.P. is a fun choice. Most Americans are probably hard-pressed to conjure an accurate mental picture of who the U.P. is, so Pera creates his own flavor of a seemingly-recognizable small Midwestern town.

In the first episode, Joe walks us through the bean arch he’s growing. Why grow snap beans? “Beans are straightforward.” Straightforwardness, or the appearance of, is central to Pera’s charm. Pera’s shtick is walking the audience through a basic task that can serve as a metaphor for a larger existential question. This conceit isn’t new to Pera, but it has been en vogue recently, with shows like Andy Daly’s Review and the new HBO show How To with John Wilson. These shows present a simple stated goal that obfuscates a larger, more complex grapple. 

Joe Pera Talks With You is incredible and endearing because of the genuine tone Pera gives his tight-knit Marquette. We’re getting deranged lunatics like Conner O’Malley and Dan Licata to write jokes for 70-year old Michigan grandmas at a salon. The show trades in the perceived Midwestern folksiness for a punchline, yet doesn’t lose itself in irony or resentment. 

Every character in the Joe Pera universe has the opportunity to be profound. Pera gives every character the patience they deserve; even O’Malley’s berserk Joe Rogan listening-caricature Mike Melsky gets incredible moments of vulnerability. It’s a rare comedy: self-aware but not self-obsessed, sweet but not gross, and uniquely funny.  

Nowhere else on TV are you going to see such consistently great acting. Some of the best working comedians are in this season. Conner O’Malley has found a way to tap into his unsettling grotesque that is a pleasure to watch, playing characters at the ends of their ropes, shrieking. Jo Firestone is hilarious and essential as Joe’s doom-prepper girlfriend Sarah. We get guest stars like  genius Carmen Christopher. Even one-line role players like Joe’s teacher-coworker, who says Joe and Sarah go together “like desk and chair,” knock it out of the park. 

The questions at the heart of Talks With You feel more pronounced in a year of death and isolation. How do we connect with people? How can we really be there for our loved ones? How can we feel comfortable in our own skin? The show came out pre-pandemic but Pera’s touch and pacing is universal.

It’s difficult not to compare Talks With You to How to with John Wilson. The two shows have a lot in common. Both protagonists are soft-spoken, and speak at an arrhythmic clip. John Wilson’s voice is affected just like Pera’s; both vocal deliveries are meant to engender trust by signaling to us that they’re lacking some social confidence. But I don’t buy Wilson’s shtick as much as Pera’s.

John Wilson’s show is not straightforward in the same way Pera’s is, and the show suffers under the added weight of pretense. Wilson’s tangents lead us to places that barely fit under the established thematic umbrella and feel forced. On memory, Wilson’s adventure with the Mandela Effect turns from fascinating to boring as the truthers devolve into sketch characters, viewing simple spelling errors with magnifying glasses. “How to Cover Your Furniture” spends an upsettingly long amount of time with an anti-circumcision advocate as Wilson works through the question of how much we are allowed to change parts of other people. Meant to appear as if they effortlessly fell into place, these characters feel shoe-horned in.

Both characters and shows are performative authenticity, and Joe Pera and John Wilson’s whole deal is their status as observer. This year, many of us have become observers. I know I have: unemployed, unable to see people, watching death counts climb, sending money to various bail funds and rent relief to people and organizations near and far. There is a responsibility to being an observer. It is not some callous task. Being an effective observer means allowing your subject the space they need to be as they are and not foisting your own nonsense onto them.

In Joe Pera’s America, it’s understood that everyone is weird. By virtue of being human, we are all weird, off, we do confusing things, and say dumb stuff that doesn’t make sense. Even you’re a weird freak. John Wilson’s subjects seem like circus animals, squeezed in front of the camera for their fucked-up little flip. I can’t shake the feeling that John Wilson is making fun of the people he’s observing. Pera’s observations are rooted in the fairness that comes from seeing humanity in people-- every person has an equal chance of surprising you with how weird they are if you just make them comfortable and let them talk. We owe that to each other.

To be fair, these shows are also very different. Wilson’s found-footage, documentary style is ingenious, hilarious, and completely not the vibe that Pera and Co. are going for at all. And region here is everything. Wacky stuff happening in NYC? Eh, isn’t that par for the course over there? Wait, a show set in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula? Ok...now that I’ve never seen. 

Obviously I was wrong about Isaac in Marquette, just as any broad assumption about a region and its people will be. I actually learned that Jews have a significant relationship to the U.P. And I found similarities between my own Jewish history, covering a similarly nebulous area of the Rust Belt/Midwest, and my U.P. cousins. Yes, home was closer than I thought, even across the length of Lake Michigan. Yes, people don’t just hate my guts. Yes, we can overcome lazy assumptions and we can even connect with people. We can make a better world. It just requires patience and listening.

Now, on to my thoughts regarding Fiona Apple’s landmark album Fetch the Bolt Cutters...

[pisces-to-mousse]

“The ONE thing"

   I didn't really try so hard but I finished one book in August called “Don't sweat small stuff at work”. I also just finished the book “The One Thing” by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan in September. I am trying to create a new habit to not only read the book, but also review what I think is the most interesting thing that I can apply to myself. So here we go, me making effort to take notes. I didn't write about what I learn from the book “Don't sweat small stuff at work" because I think this book is similar to a dictionary at work. All more than 100 topics cover all the problems ones may face at work in the compact and easy to understand way. It is better to just keep the book at the desk and open it when you feel stuck or need an advice but don't have anybody to talk to at the moment. 

   My first impression after reading the first pages was that is a very interesting book since it talks about something that I thought was true before, but turned out to be wrong. Again, wrong and right can be personal. The book somehow opens my mind in terms of thinking and looking at the same things in a different and innovative way. 

   The book is candid with 3 main sections: The Lies, discussed 6 main things we usually believe, but that actually impede our progress at work and in life. This is my favorite part of the book since it makes me realize that so many concepts I give credit to don't really work. The second section is The Truth with an adequately simple and clear statement about what to do to be more productive. The last part, Extraordinary Results, guides me to unlock the possibilities within me to reach higher goals. I know I know, it sounds cliché, but the way the book is written is really pristine and makes the process of receiving information easier and more natural. I find myself learning a lot from the book :). 

   It is very impressive to me that so many complex topics can be explained in the exciting ways, including charts and pictures. For example, to illustrate the ONE THING concept, Gary uses the domino image. The first domino is just 2 inches tall. Who could think that domino can tower over the Eiffel Tower or even reach to the height of the moon. And that's how The One Thing works in our life. One thing, too simple, too single, too small and too weak, but one small thing can result in one BIG - the most significant, relevant and meaningful - thing. It can empower each person to reach to any purpose and to surpass high challenges. 

   Anyway, I don't plan on revising all the details of the book. Just want to remind myself of things I should pay attention to. 

  First, the first lie: Everything matters equally. The example is how to make the to-do list. I have a tendency to write down everything in my head that I want to do in a day on my daily to-do board. Literally, just write everything down, without priority. I remember feeling satisfied looking at my to-do list, ticking v on each of the squares, means I accomplished lot of things. But one simple and obvious thing that I didn't even realize at the moment was I didn't even prioritize things, that someday some of the v’s weren't ticked and I ended up not really doing the most important thing. The to-do list, which was supposed to make my day and purpose clearer, actually became a booby trap since it lured me from focusing on the most, the ONE THING that matters. Finish laundry, clean my room, listen to podcast, write for myself doesn't really serve my goal to learn a new marketing skill each day. (p.35). Thus, “big ideas" to remember: (p.41). 1. Go small. Let's walk away from the thought of staying busy, but focus more on being productive. What matters the most should be the thing I prioritize over everything, no matter how many other things seem imporant must wait. 2. Don't get trapped in the “check of" game. Must realize that things don't matter equally. 3. Say no. Whatever I know I don't prioritize, feel free to say NO = not now = may be later = never. Keep it in mind what I want, but never exchange it with my priority. 4. Go extreme. This part will be confusing to me sometimes. Since it is hard to set aside different aspects in life to just concentrate on the only One Thing that matters. Meanwhile, it is necessary to know what matters the most and to make decisions based on it. 

   Second, the second lie: Multitasking. I used to be proud of myself having the ability to do many things at the same time. I actually still am right now because nothing is wrong with that. However, the silliest thing was I wrote that adjective in my Resume and sent it to the recruiters, thinking that was my advantage over other candidates. Looking at thing of the One Thing perspective, it is obvious that multitasking is the rival of the One Thing. In fact, multitasking doesn't mean being able to focus on different things at the same time, multitasking is a distraction and doesn't actually get anything done in the end. If I doubt it, just question myself: Why would I ever tolerate multitasking when I am doing my most important work already? Thus, it is time for me to remind myself (p.53) 1. Distraction is natural. So I don't have to give myself too much of a hard time for finding myself stuck in distraction. If I accidentally watching more than 1 hour of some Youtube videos while I should listen to some French lessons, it happens, but right at the moment I realize it, stop it, straighten my attitude again and go right back to the main reason I opened Youtube in the first place. 2. Multitasking takes a toll. Not only multitasking takes my time away from my most important thing, it actually leads to poor choices, painful mistakes and unnecessary stress. Since the most important thing is usually the hardest thing to do, I may feel dismay and end up compromising myself by accomplishing the less significant tasks, just to comfort myself that I at least do something. Although what I did doesn't help me to get to where I want to be. At the end of the day, if I could have so many things done but not the most significant thing done, then actually, nothing was done. 

   Third, the 3rd and 4th lies: A disciplined life and Willpower is always on Will-Call. I want to combine these two points since at some point in my life I do realize them, but it becomes clearer when I read the book. I used to and actually still highly admire people who are disciplined. Especially when I find myself all over the place some times. I also want to clarify that being organized and disciplined are different to me (hehe). So for disciplined people, I believe they have such a great habit of following specific rules throughout the days, months and years to maintain something important in their lives. As a person who can easily get bored of the routine, I find it is hard for me to keep up with being disciplined. However, if I can see that actually discipline is not an ideal characteristic but more of a habit and trained, being disciplined turns out to be exciting. The book says “You can become successful with less discipline than you think, for one simple reason: success is about doing the right thing, not about doing everything right" (p.55). It means, (p.59), 1. Don't be a disciplined person. Indeed, who really enjoys being disciplined all the time? Just imagine everything is established and run in the exact predictable pace, like a machine, we would lack of humanity. Let’s change the way to define ‘disciplined person’. You don't have to be disciplined in everything to be a disciplined person, just be disciplined towards your ONE THING, take all the costs and attempts to reach out to that goal. Thus, 2. Build one habit at a time. Again, don't try to multitask. Do thing step by step, slowly, and 3. Give each habit enough time, to make sure that it is a real habit, not just a certificate we try to get then put aside once we achieve it. About Willpower, just a main reminder that Willpower = self-energy, I should nurture my mind and thoughts more, also to arrange them appropriately so my ONE THING is always on the go. 

   Fourth, the 5th lie: A balanced life. I always am looking for a balance in everything I do. Balance between family and myself, between my partner and my friends/social community, between income and outcome, between play and work/study, between working out and just laying down doing nothing, etc... For those efforts, I can easily get stressed finding myself leaning towards one thing more than another one. Thus, it is valuable to see that a balanced life is more an idea than a reality or a life. The older we grow, the more experiences we get, the more we have a tendency to say “I need more balance” since we think balance is a mantra for a good life. But whenever we make a decision to take time doing something over another thing, the imbalance exists already. Instead of trying so hard to make an ideal balance, giving time and endeavors to what matters in our life (purpose, meaning, significance) (p.73) is the greatest balance act each individual can do. I read an interesting example about the term “work-life balance”. “This term was’t coined until the mid-1980s when more than half of all married women joined the workforce” (p74). Perhaps I’m a female so I feel the sarcasm behind this term. It is more a double-standard way to convince women that they were doing something unbalanced that can lead to the problem in taking care of the family. If we have 1 bread winner in the house, that term would never exist. If we have 2 bread winners, “work-life balance” becomes the slogan. Although by the time this term is used for both genders, the history of this word’s creation is still significant to know that a balanced life is just a ruler, not a practical method. Although, there’s still some parts that I’m not sure if I can agree 100%. The book is written “To achieve an extraordinary result you must choose what matters most and give it all the time it demands. This requires getting extremely out of balance in relation to all other work issues”. I understand that there’s no perfect balance but “extremely out of balance” seems to be excessive to me. I still want to write it down here so may be one day if that “extreme” view happened to me, I can get it. 

   Fifth and the last lie we think is Big is bad. I personally never have assumption so reading that part just confirms my thoughts. Life is consecutive challenges, thus, ones are better to be bold to overcome fear of failure or of scare to be different. 

   The second part contains 3 mains tips to stay productive. First, how to interpret the focusing question. With everything you face, ask yourself a simple question: “What’s the ONE THING I can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?” For example, there was a time I was frustrated everyday with everything: when can I be independent again, when can I just go to anywhere I want to, how can I organize my life without stable finance, how can I manage my emotions to stay positive and spread that vibe to others, what can I do to be a stronger and wiser person, what can I do to stay in touch with people I care about. I set all those questions separately and tried to solve them together, which made me go out of control. Then, I actually have one thing I need to answer: What’s the one thing i can do in the current situation such that by doing it everything else will be easier? I find the One Thing I need to focus on now is myself. I always want to be helpful, feel useless when I can’t do something for somebody or easily disappointed myself if I fail in my first attempt. I still believe to have that thoughts, but in this exact current situation, the best I can do is to take a good care of myself. Nobody who loves and cares about me asks me to do any hard thing for them nor do they want to have to worry about me being depressed or losing myself because I am in the bottom of what I want to do. I need to stop trying to act tough and don’t need a help. I need help :), to accept that I have time when everything doesn’t go the way I planned, but being angry won’t help. In dissent, that’s the moment when I must encourage myself more, nurture my spirit so pessimistic attitude won’t decide who I am. In another word, what’s the One Thing to help me cope with my current situation: self-love. I can only love everybody if I embrace myself, accept I have advantages and flaws. It leads to the Second point, to practice the success habit: Apply the ONE question in all the things I do/think. For my physical health, what’s the one thing i can do to relieve my stress? (exercise, enough sleep). For my personal life, what’s the one thing I can do to improve my skills at Marketing (read more related topics, study new skills, practice it). For my relationships, what’s the one thing I can do to make us understand each other better? (patient --> tolerance --> conversation --> acceptance --> remind of how we love each other). For my finances, what’s the one thing I can do to eliminate my credit debt? (plan out budget to spend until I get the job, if overspend in one area then underspend in another part). Third, the path to great answer. It has a lot to consider in this part but I can revise in the following points: 1/ Asking a great question: try to make the question as specific as possible at the same time make it a big question that by answer that all other questions are answered. For example, the best question to ask when a company wants to have better sales is to ask “What can I do to double the total sales in 6 first months of 2019?”. It is better than just have a very general question such as “What can I do to increase sales, or lack of measurement like “What can I do to double sales?” or lack of specific situation like “What can I do to increase sales by 5 percent this year?”. 2/ Finding a great answer: Once the question is clear and target, find as much possibilities based on that questions as possible. That’s when you can benchmark and trend for the best answer you’re looking for. 

   I guess everything gets easier to imagine what to do next: bring everything that is matter to the NOW. We go back to the simple but always true process: thing big but go small (p.153). Let’s set the biggest goal and start doing as the picture shown below: 

I also found a compelling concept in order to stick up with the One Thing goal: Move from “E” (Entrepreneurial) to “P” (Purposeful). (p.179). While entrepreneurial is mostly our instinct, a natural way we have whenever we face an obstacle. It starts with enthusiasm, energy and our natural abilities, and we feel strong and motivated in the beginning. Thanks for this behavior, we always achieve “a reward” in any form: a business success with good financial outcome, respect and trust from people, experience, etc... Also, some people are better than other people in specific aspects, like you were born with the drawing talent but I couldn’t even finish a nice doodle. Meanwhile, the “E” can be burnt out by the time, either because we are losing our motivations or we are getting to our limitations. 

I feel like I’m an “E” all the time and that’s why sometimes I question myself if I really like/into something. All the time, I’m doing things within my limitations, more of what I’m good at than what I can do. That’s why it is easy to get frustrated and feel like give up. Knowing what I am “E” or “P” is similar to answer the question: “Am I doing certain things simply in the best way I can or am I doing this to in the best way it can be done?” 

With the “P” - purposeful approach, we have to push ourselves harder than what our natural abilities give. It’s inspiring but scary to me I must say, since I feel like I’m getting older, meaning slower to understand things I need to learn. However, it is clear where should I look at when facing a challenge. If I limit myself as the “E”, then don’t be too surprise if the outcomes can be great and bad at the same time. If I can be bolder and push myself to the “P” zone, I may fail very hard but I surely get breakthrough that I couldn’t imagine in the beginning. So, go hard or go home. 

   (p.201) To sum up, here’s how a highly productive person’s daily energy plan can look like: 

1/ Mediate and pray for spiritual energy. In my case is to take a no-brain time for myself, not to tense my body muscle with anything 

2/ Hug, kiss and laugh with loved ones for emotional energy

3/ Eat right, exercise and sleep sufficiently for physical energy

4/ Set goals, plan and calendar for mental energy (I NEED TO DO THAT)

5/ Time block your ONE THING for business/career energy (I NEED TO DO THAT MORE)

[avanneman]

The New York Times, more sinned against than sinning. Or not.

The New York Times has caught a lot of grief for its “1619 Project”, which claims to explain all of American history in terms of slavery. And much of it is justified. Damon Linker, writing in The Week, gives a reasonable overview: “The New York Times surrenders to the left on race”, Damon offers praise where praise is due:

Now, there is a lot to admire in the paper's presentation of the 1619 Project — searing photographs, illuminating quotations from archival material, samples of poetry and fiction giving powerful voice to the black experience, and gripping journalistic summaries of scholarly histories. Much of it is wrenching, moving, and infuriating. The country's treatment of the slaves and their descendants through the century following emancipation and, in some respects, on down to the present was and is appalling — and the story of how it happened, and keeps happening, is extremely important for understanding the United States. Bringing this story to a wide audience is a worthwhile public service.

But there is a whopping downside as well:

Throughout the issue of the NYTM, headlines make, with just slight variations, the same rhetorical move over and over again: "Here is something unpleasant, unjust, or even downright evil about life in the present-day United States. Bet you didn't realize that slavery is ultimately to blame." Lack of universal access to health care? High rates of sugar consumption? Callous treatment of incarcerated prisoners? White recording artists "stealing" black music? Harsh labor practices? That's right — all of it, and far more, follows from slavery.

In fact, I found the packaging so off-putting—so portentous, condescending, and cheesy—“Everything you learned about slavery in school is wrong!”—as if we were all a nation of Homer Simpsons stretched out in our lazee-boys before our beloved wide screens shoveling honey-glazed pork rinds into our gaping Caucasian maws with both hands for fourteen hours a day—all of us who don’t work for the New York Times, that is—that at first I skipped the whole goddamn thing, only to go back and discover the same mixed bag that Damon described.

Many of the articles were good, but, shockingly—so shocking, in fact, that Timesfolk may not even believe me—I knew a lot of it already. When I was a boy, which was waaayyy back in the fifties, I read Booker T. Washington’s Up From Slavery, a book about slavery written by someone who’d actually been a slave, inspired to do so after first reading a “Classic Comic Book” version of Washington’s story. Later, in the tenth grade, I stumbled across Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, just sitting there on the library shelf, where any dumb ass could pick it up. (I thought it might be like H. G. Wells. As it turned out, it was even better!)

And what about James Baldwin’s “The Fire Next Time”? How about The Autobiography of Malcolm X? Or Soul on Ice? These were all works that received immense publicity decades ago—before, I suspect, many Timesfolk were even born. And what about “today”? I remember several decades ago a black woman telling me she thought interracial couples were crazy to expose themselves to the sort of hatred they received from both blacks and whites. Today, interracial marriage is (almost) passé. Recently, the Times own Thomas Edsall published a long piece examining the impressive gains in both education and income levels for some (but not all) blacks. But the 1619 Project isn’t interested in “good news.” Over a century ago, House Speaker Thomas Reed congratulated Theodore Roosevelt on this “original discovery of the Ten Commandments.” One could offer similar praise to the New York Times.

I was intrigued in particular by the “Everything you learned about slavery in school is wrong!” pitch. Well, if so, New York Times, tell me, what are our kids learning, not 60 years ago, when I went to school, but today? Nikita Stewart fills us in: ‘We are committing educational malpractice’: Why slavery is mistaught — and worse — in American schools.

Nikita begins her piece by quoting a text book written in 1863 (not a misprint) in the South. Guess what? It’s totally racist! Totally! Who could have imagined? Also guess what? Things haven’t changed that much! How do we know? Nikita tells us so.

Stewart follows the pattern used in many of the pieces, taking an egregious example from the past and then “explaining” that things haven’t changed much. For the meat of her article, she relies almost entirely on a study by the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization that has done good work in the past but now is largely a solution (and a very well funded one, at that) in search of a problem. Of course the SPLC is going to find that America’s school books don’t adequately teach the role of slavery in American history. How could they not?

Part of the problem, Stewart says, is this: “Unlike math and reading, states are not required to meet academic content standards for teaching social studies and United States history.” She’s presumably referring to the “Common Core” standards, but states are not “required” to meet them, and in fact the whole “standards” movement, pushed by the Obama administration back in the day, has since fallen into considerable confusion, in conjunction with the entire Trumpian revolt against “experts”.

Speaking of her own schooling, Stewart tells us, “I was lucky; my Advanced Placement United States history teacher regularly engaged my nearly all-white class in debate, and there was a clear focus on learning about slavery beyond [Harriet] Tubman, Phillis Wheatley and Frederick Douglass, the people I saw hanging on the bulletin board during Black History Month.” How does she know she was “lucky”? Doesn’t she “mean” “My own experience was contrary to my thesis and therefore it must be exceptional”?

Instead of selectively quoting a handful of “experts” she chose to tell her what she wanted to hear, why didn’t Stewart do some actual leg work, or chair work, by reviewing the textbooks used in, say, California, Texas, New York, and Florida, the four largest states, containing about one third of the entire U.S. population, and including two states from the Confederacy? Isn’t that what the “1619 Project” is supposed to be about?

Because we most definitely need to examine the way the history of slavery and the Civil War is taught and understood in today’s USA. Nothing is more obvious than that leading figures, or “would be” figures, in the Trump Administration, starting most obviously with Donald Trump himself, and including former chief of staff/four-star Marine General John Kelly and dumped (dumped and disgraced) putative Federal Reserve Board appointee Stephen Moore, all cling to the absurd and disgusting notion that the North was the “bad guy” in the Civil War. As Moore “explained”, “The Civil War was about the South having its own rights”—you know, the right to enslave and oppress millions of human beings.

But it isn’t only the Trumpians who still maintain a soft spot—and a grossly meretricious soft spot it is—for the “Lost Cause”. Poor David French, who gets it from both the left (for being a conservative and, worse, an evangelical Christian) and the right (for being insufficiently bad ass), is going to get a little for me. There’s good Dave, as in this excellent article in which he both describes his laudable efforts to prevent the muzzling of “wicked” Christian groups on campus and denounces proposals on the right to restrict the First Amendment rights of those on the left (largely “the media” and “Big Tech”):

Never in my life have I seen such victimhood on the right. Never in my life have I seen conservatives more eager to rationalize passivity and seek the aid of politicians to make their lives easier. They look to politicians — even incompetent, depraved politicians — and cry out, “Protect us!”

Admirable words. But here are some not so admirable, in an unfortunate piece with the unfortunate title “Don’t Tear Down the Confederate Battle Flag”.1 After launching into a scarcely objective account of the South’s motivation for succession—scarcely better than Moore’s—French falls into total small-boy, flag-waving, saber-waving mode:

Those men [the southern armies] fought against a larger, better-supplied force, yet — under some of history’s more brilliant military commanders — were arguably a few better-timed attacks away from prevailing in America’s deadliest conflict.

So yay Team Dixie, right? If only “we” had won. Then slavery forever! Is that what French dreams of? That southerners could continue to exercise their “right” to whip millions of black men, rape millions of black women, and sell their children for profit? If only those few attacks had been better timed! Damn it!

Couldn’t the Germans say the same thing about World War II? If only we had won. Then the Master Race forever!

These “brave men” at whose shrine French worships, wantonly murdered all black Union troops they captured, in utter violation of the most basic “laws” of war. When Robert E. Lee (French’s “gallant” hero, of course) marched into Maryland and Pennsylvania, he captured black American citizens and impressed them into slavery, sent them south to labor in defense of their own oppression. Mr. French fancies himself a Christian. But sometimes, it seems, Christians forget.

Afterwords It’s “interesting” that both Chief Justice of the United States William Rehnquist and Supreme Court Justice Antonine Scalia felt somehow compelled to parade their opposition to Brown v. Board of Education, Scalia “explaining” that liking the sort of judicial thinking that produced Brown because it produced Brown was like liking Hitler because he developed the Volkswagen—which by the way is entirely untrue,2 but whatever, Brown equals Hitler, got it?

French says “battle flag” because as a true southerner he knows that the familiar “stars and bars” was not the flag of the Confederacy. ↩︎

The Volkswagen was largely designed by an Austro-Hungarian designer named Béla Barényi in the mid-twenties and then “modified”, sans credit to Barényi, by Ferdinand Porsche a few years later. Hitler planned to put the car into production as a "people's car" but, unsurprisingly, the cars that were built were all for military use. After the war, an enterprising British major thought the bombed out VW factory could be repaired and used to create jobs for workers in a shattered Germany. ↩︎

[auskultu]

A Conversation With Paul McCartney

Barry Miles, International Times, November 1966 (Reprinted in the Berkeley Barb, February 1967)

Miles: What about influences on your music? Do you think there is anyone in particular?

Paul: There's been millions. We started off being influenced by Carl Perkins and Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley and people. But after a bit I think we just got bored with 12 bars all the time so we tried to get into something else. Then people came like Dylan, The Who and The Beach Boys. I suppose with us and all of them, we're all trying to do something, vaguely the same kind of thing. We were all trying to make it into something a bit, something we know it is, but not many people know it is. Most people just think it's all just pop you know. It's a bit below every other kind of music, which of course it isn't. But those influences, they're just the obvious ones, they're just the obvious musical people we pinched things off. But apart from then, anyway, there's lots of things, I mean, I mean you might as well say Hughie Greene was a big influence on me, 'cause he was you know. You know what I mean? Everybody is, they all are.

M: There are quite a lot of classical influences in your music, particularly on things like 'Eleanor Rigby,' the handling of the strings there. . .

P: I know that's a joke. I really don't like that kind of classical music. I can't stand it. It's influenced me. That's what I mean about Hughie Greene. It's all things like that, that I just don't like but can see how you could use them. Because “Eleanor Rigby”, if it had been about anything else I think it would have been a real mess, having the violins like that on there, having it arranged like that. But it fitted, it was just lucky that it fitted, I think I like that kind of sound of things but I but I haven't got an LP for instance like that, that I like. You see, I think we are being influenced at the moment by what we know we could do, and what we know we will eventually be able to do. There's no great big idols now. That's one of the main pities about making it in anything, you look at things so objectively and they are no longer idols, you just see them for what they are. This is sometimes a great thing but you loose that sort of fan thing. You loose the bit about being influenced. So that's why I think we are getting influenced now by ourselves, more and more. I think, for instance, The Beach Boys are getting influenced by themselves. . .

M: Is what you are trying to do confined just to music or is it extended to a general attitude?

P: It's so difficult to say anything about it. Every thing I say will come out just a little bit different. As it leaves my mind and comes through my mouth it gets a little bit fucked up where the words start.. . .doing it. There is no end in view, there is nothing we are trying to do. So it could be infinite but we may get bored along the way and it may just sort of fade but there is nothing we are definitely trying to do. It isn't confined within music or within anything. It can't be, nothing can be.

M: With the demolition of idols, do you find that you are able to get a lot more from them. Because, once you make someone a star then whatever they are trying to say to say to the public automatically gets distorted.

P: Well that's true. But there's the other thing about a star and that's that it's nice to have a star. A lot of people like it and I think I do. It's always exciting for instance when someone's brought and plays you a great record, when someone plays me a great record . That's great you know to have some incentive, to be able to think: "Oh great!", "So and so's doing something great there", "Stockhausen's on to something, be nice to do something like that". So when you loose them as idols, that's the only thing, it wrecks the incentive a little bit. Because you're looking at them so objectively, you know just what they are doing and you just see their scene and it's better in a way that you don't see their scene when you are a fan, from that point of view. I mean, think of us as idols, and how many groups must have started up because of it and how many musical thoughts must have got going because of it. I imagine that even the Beach Boys new scene was in a way because of it - because they were sort of going down and suddenly really took off with a complete new thing in sounds.

M: Is this why you go back to people like Jarry (French playwright Alfred Jarry) sometimes, because he is dead, and you can't possibly meet him and find that he's just an unpleasant little Frenchman?

P: Yes, all right, there is that. I think that is true actually. This is the thing I've noticed about everything I seem to be doing. I'd prefer it if there was such a thing as magic. You know, if magic things happened, so that for instance there was music. If magic happened in music. . . It used to for me a lot, magic used to happen a lot more in music for me until I started looking at it objectively after having written a bit. Then, what is still magic for other people, for me, it's a bit: "Well OK, I see why he's done that, and how he's done that, and how he's done that" and I'll learn from it. But I tend to just take it in and file it instead of being knocked out by it - unless it's something very special.

M: Does this apply to other art forms as well?

P: This is what I was trying to think of. With everything, with any kind of thing, my aim seems to be to distort it. Distort it from what we know it as, even with music, with visual things. But the aim is to change it from what it is to see what it could be. To see the potential in it all. The point is to take a note and wreck the note and see in that note what else there is in it that a simple act like distorting it has caused. It's the same with film. Take it and superimpose on top of it so you can't quite tell what it is anymore. It's all trying to create magic, it's all trying to make things happen that you don't know why they've happened. I'd like a lot more things to happen like they did when you were kids when you didn't know how the conjuror did it. And you were happy to just sit there and say, "Well, it's magic!" I know a lot of people now, if something magic happened to them - I mean I use magic instead of spiritual because it sounds as if it fits into too many of the other categories, you know, spiritual experience - But if something magic happened to most people at the moment, they'd explain it by taking a little cross-filing out of their brain and saying: "Well, of course that doesn't happen you know. There aren't ghosts." And they just explain it with great realistic 20th century explanation for ghosts: which is that there aren't ghosts! Which is no fucking explanation at all! But I mean, still, that's good enough for most people. They just say:" Well it couldn't have been a ghost because there aren't ghosts and it couldn't have been a sort of magic vision that happened just then - I must have been a bit drunk. I must have just been high then." And this is it, so. . . But I don't believe that it just ends with a western logical thought. It can't do because it's so messed up anyway, most of it, just ordinary everyday thought is so messed up that you've got to allow for the possibility of there being a lot lot more than we know about. Therefore to take things that we already know about is one way: to bang one note on the piano, instead of trying to put millions of notes into it, just to take one note of the piano and listen to it shows you what there is in one note. There's so much going on in one note, but you never listen to it! So many harmonics buzzing around. that if all that's happening in one note and if in one frame of a picture all that's happening. . . The thing is, it could take a bit of looking into!

M: In the last few thousand years man has lost what used to be known as his soul. Just his materialistic side has developed and built up and up so that now we have just that one side.

P: Right. But the drag about this is that everybody having realised there aren't such things as ghosts, there isn't such a thing as God, and there's no such thing as a soul, and when you die you die. Which is great, it's fine, it's a brave thought really. The only trouble is, then, you don't have the bit that you did when you were a kid for instance, of innocently just accepting things. For instance, if a film comes on that's superimposed and doesn't seem to mean anything; immediately it's weird or it's strange, or it's a bit funny to most people, and they tend to laugh at it. The immediate reaction would be to laugh , and that's wrong! That's the first mistake and that's the BIG mistake that everyone makes: to immediately discount anything they don't understand, they're not sure of, and to say: "Well of course we'll never know about that. I mean what is our brain anyway? Our brain is not much!" There's all these fantastic theories people put forward about "it doesn't matter anyway" and IT DOES. It does matter! In fact that matters more than anything . . . that side of it, eventually. Because, you see, we've been in the lucky position of having our child-hood ambitions fulfilled. We've got all the big-house and big car and everything. So that then, you stand on that plank then, having reached the end of space, and you look across the wall, and there's more space! And that's it! You get your car and house and your fame and your World Wide ego-satisfaction, then you just look over the wall and there's a complete different scene there, that it really is, and which is really the scene. And looking back, obviously you can still see everybody in the world trying to do it - trying to do what you've just done, and that is what they believe life's about! And it's right! Because that is what life's about, at that moment, I suppose, for them. But, you know, I could tell a few people that I can see a few rungs further down the ladder, trying to do exactly what I've just done: I could tell a few of them: "That's completely the wrong way to do it, because you're not taking into account this scene on the other side of the wall. This is the bit you've also got to take into account and then that bit will be easier, it'll all be easier then!

M: It's hard to take into account though, because to gain material things there is a well established method, but how do you investigate the other scene?

P: Well, did I tell you that George Martin was talking to us in the recording studio and he came down and he said: "Somebody wants to see you, somebody wants to talk to you" and we said: "Who is it then?" and he said: "Oh it's some crank talking about peace." . . ..and he was right, it was a crank talking about peace, because when you talk about peace, you are a crank. You're pigeon-holed, you've associated yourself with Viet-Nam and sitting down in Trafalgar Square. And if you were to burn yourself they'd know why you'd burned yourself so it wouldn't matter that you'd burned yourself. 

So that's it. There's this thing that's grown up out of this materialist scene that everyone's got into: which is that for everything to exist on a material level you've got to be able to discount any things that happen which don't fit in with it. And they're all very neatly disposed of these days. It's great. It's really very neat, I mean the way for instance IT would just be immediately labelled as "just one of those papers, that's all" and that's it. And pot is just that, pot is "just drugs" and LSD is "just drugs" and every form of drugs is "just the pit of iniquity, the black pit of terrible decadent disgusting people always fall into." There is no thought on anyone's part WHY anyone takes drugs but there's thought on their part why they take drink. They're quite willing to think about why they take drink, why they need a drink though they're not maybe willing to admit that they take a drink to get drunk! I mean most people think: "Oh no, no, no, I don't drink to get drunk! No, no, no, I take a drink occasionally. I do take a drink at parties but I must say I don't take a drink to get drunk." You know, this sort of Annie Walker attitude to it all. . . There's something sort of dirty about drinking to get drunk, but if you do happen to get a bit drunk, it's all right. But nobody will ever admit that they're all standing there pissed because they wanted to get pissed which is the truth of it. It must be the truth, otherwise they'd stick to orangeade.

You see then, the drag is then, that if you've seen the possibility, not only the possibility, the probability of there being many many more things than you know at the moment. I mean, I told you for instance that I didn't like dogs and cats, until I got a dog and a cat and love them for what they are, just 'cause they're dogs and cats. I'm quite willing to accept that dogs and cats are dogs and cats. And I still find that there's a vague little sort-of sadistic thing in me about dogs and cats and if I ever have to punish her (his dog Martha) I can do it quite easily. Which I hate.

M: If you're able to see everything in it's own terms, do you find that this has eliminated the western thing of finding some things beautiful and others repulsive?

P: No. You see, the pity about operating like this is that my act is not adapted to this. All that I have learned and the way I talk and the way I act doesn't really fit in. There are still the kind of hang ups like "I don't like dogs and therefore. . ." There is still a lot of me which has learned a lot of wring things, that has based a lot of things on fallacies. I can't just accept everything, that's it, because I can't just suddenly say, "Right, everything is as I know it is and I know I ought to accept it all." It's difficult when you've learned for 22 years of your life that it isn't like that at all, and that everything is just the act and everything is beautiful or ugly or you like it or you don't, things are backward or they're foreword.

And dogs are less intelligent than humans, and suddenly you realise that whilst all of this is right, it's all wrong as well. Dogs aren't less intelligent. . . to dogs, and the ashtray's happy to be an ashtray. But of course we think it's just an ashtray and that kind of hang up still occurs. I still keep thinking of things just like that, people just like that as well. It's pretty difficult to accept someone who's lousy. I still impose the old rule of "Do I like them or don't I like them? then I can't see anything in them, it's still difficult to see the good in bad because I've been trained that bad is bad.... there's no bad in bad, and I know I'm wrong. And all this is on wider level.

M: How does this approach effect your dealings with people? I mean it's a very isolated position, very objective, existentialist. Does to make contact easier or ...?

P: It can do. The trouble is, at the moment I haven't got it going yet. It's really a question of now seeing more of what it's about. It's now a question of trying to put those things into practice and when I think something which sort of says the kind of thing that I've learned in days gone by, it tends just to stick. Instead of being able just to say: "Oh well now, that's rubbish, obviously, because I've found since that I do like dogs". But obviously a little bit if the other, just because of sheer weight, 22 years as opposed to two, trying to learn it like this, see I'm really at the beginning of this stage. This is why other people say: "I see all your ambitions as Beatles have been fulfilled. You know you've done just about everything, you've played in every country in the world. What does it feel like?" And it feels exactly the same as it did when I was trying to get five quid for a guitar. It's a beginning again, there's no end. But I know I'm going to need a new set of rules and the new set of rules have got to include the rule that there aren't any rules. So I mean. . . they're pretty difficult. They're pretty difficult. . .

M: How about Zen?

Paul: Right, that's true, probably would, but also I've got this thing at the moment, I was telling you about, about books. Which I'm sure is all wrapped up in that a bit, the fact that books are, they seem to me, to be a bit of then, and I know they're not. I'm sure they're not. So I buy books but then I don't read them. I leave it until these first two years have had time to stick a bit more, have had time to. . . You see, that's it, you need a bit of time to. . . It's what most people do around this age anyway, one way or another, but I'm lucky enough for instance never to have to cut my hair to go and see anyone, to impress anyone EVER again in my life. So, obviously that bit of it now needs some adapting to because always my natural reaction before going out is to straighten up a bit, or it was. Now a days there's no need and there's no point in it. and unless I've got someone I specially want to impress there's no need to do it. But, I still find myself doing it so there's still a lot of that to sort out, but it can makes it easier to talk to people because of that, because. . . but it can also make it difficult because if you say something according to the New Book of the Prophet, they say things in reply to the Old Testament, and you find yourself saying: "Well, yes, but I don't quite mean that, I know it sounds like that, but it's not what I mean, what I mean is, working on a new assumption of everything being fluid. . . " You know, you find yourself getting into cock-ups with words. It's a big battle at the moment: trying not to say too many words and if there's a pregnant pause in the conversation, not feeling that I've got to fill anymore. But let someone else who fears the silence fill it. Don't fear it anymore, but of course it will need a bit of training, it's going to need a bit. But the good thing about it is, that if you're prepared to accept that things aren't just broad and wide, they're infinitely broad and wide, then, there's a great amount to be learned then. That's it. And the change over. . . But it can be done. It just takes a bit of time, but it will be done, think.

M: Are you trying to take anyone with you on it?

P: Yes I'd like to. I've been talking to a few people to do with electronic music, that's on the music scene. I'm trying to take people with me of course, I don't want to be just shouting to people: "Listen, I've found it! Listen, this is where it's at!" and everyone going: "Oh fuck-off you fucking crank!". You know, I don't want that to happen, because, I see the potentiality in them as well, not just in myself. I'm not just the great wizard who's going to sort it all out. I'm just one of them. And if I can see how I ought to have compassion then it would be nice if they were going to see that too. Rather than me just standing there getting slapped on the other cheek all the time. (laughter) And with music too! This is the gap in electronics, the one where people, quite a few people, that are prepared for the next sound, they're ready, they're waiting for the next scene in music, the next scene in sound. A lot of people now are ready to be led to the next move. The next move seems to be things like electronics because it just is a different field, it's a complete new field and there's a lot of good new sound's to be listened to in it. But if the music itself is just going to jump about five miles ahead, then everyone's going to be left standing with this gap of five miles that they've got to all cross before they can even see what scene these people are on, and for instance, with the people. . I can see that it is in a way a progression to accept random things as being planned. Random is planned, as well, but most people won't accept that and they'd need a lead into it, to accepting that. You can't just say to somebody: "That machine plays random notes, but it's planned and I can control the amount of random in it". They'll say: What for? Why don't you write a nice tune or why don't you just write some interesting sounds?" That's what I'd like to do, I'd like to look into that gap a bit.

M: Do people like John Cage help you, just by their existence. Because they have done so much work with random sound it enables you to be a bit more free without worrying too much about it.

P: Yes right, right. But that always helps, doesn't it? That always helps. Those people always help. It's always good to see someone. . . But this is the thing, these become the new idols. Not necessarily Cage because I haven't listened to anything really of his. This is the thing, like then it wasn't a question of listening to Elvis for him to become your idol, it was just that he was your idol. Elvis was the idol, there wasn't ever any question of ever having to seek him out. But now, the idols now, the people that I can appreciate now are all much more hidden away, much more in little back corners through performing for themselves. They seem to be. . . they're probably not, but they've been pigeon-holed into that because they're cranks talking about peace. But you've got to sort out these people then, you've got to look much more, because, for instance, Stockhausen isn't played on Radio London every day, so there's not much of a chance of his becoming an idol over night.

M: Do you think that someone like Albert Ayler (avant garde jazz musician) can help. He reaches quite a lot of people.

P: Oh yes, oh right. Yes, if you're talking about the communication thing, of helping in that kind of way, then it's all helping, but only in a small way at the moment, that's the trouble. I don't think it would be very easy to explain, to say to people, not even to explain, not even to put it down as a definite thing but just to say to people: "Don't you think it's possible that the scene that someone like Albert Ayler or Stockhausen is getting into isn't necessarily a bad scene? It's not necessarily what you think it is. Isn't necessarily weird. Why is it weird? It's weird because you don't know about it, because it's a bit strange to you. It's new. And gravity was very weird, gravity was very strange when he talked about it, and microscopes, they're all very strange until you know about them." So the most important thing to say to people really is, "It isn't necessarily so, what you believe. You must see that whatever you believe in isn't necessarily the truth. No matter how truthful it gets, it's not necessarily ever the truth because the fact it could be right or wrong is also infinite. The whole bit." And that's the point of it: the whole bit of being fluid and changing all the time and evolving etc. etc. This is it. It can't ever be as cut and dried as we've got it now. And for it to be so cut and dried it's got to be cut and dried in an unreal way. It's got to be. . . It' a fantastically abstract thing that people have got into without realising it. They've got in to an incredible abstract way of living really. I mean, "cause none of it's real! I was trying to think of the people that I meet in a day that aren't acting in some way, and of course I'm acting, you know, all the time. But at least I'm making a serious effort not to act, now, realising that most of my acting is to no avail anyway. I mean there's no point in anyone doing a Hollywood grin because everyone knows it's a Hollywood grin. But everyone goes on in this fantastic surreal way, of accepting it as a genuine grin but knowing secretly that it isn't really. But they take it and they do another grin back and they get on famously. They really get on well with each other doing those grins, and then one of then breaks a leg and the other one walks away and it falls apart a bit and something happens and the one who's broken the leg wonders why the grin didn't work when he had a broken leg. And it all gets very strange and very very far out. But everyone thinks that's just the normal thing, and that's life: "Oh well, that's life!" and "Well, you can't have your cake and eat it". . ."You can't burn your candle at both ends, you know." That's great, very scientific truths like "you can't burn your candle at both ends" and who the fuck said that? (laughter). But everyone knows it's true that you can't burn your candle at both ends, but of course it isn't true! And all the time they're working. . . I say they but I'm in with they, I too am working on false assumptions. . .

M: It stems from people being afraid of each other - afraid to open up the armour a little bit.

P: I really wish that I could . . . I mean. . ..see, at the back of my brain somewhere, there is something telling me now that . . it tells me in a cliché too. . . It tells me that everything is beautiful. Which immediately comes out as phoney sort of, I don't know, as "Ban the bomb!" . . At the back of my brain there's a thing telling me that everything is beautiful and everything is great and that instead of imposing things like: "I don't like that television show" or "No, I don't like the theatre", "No, no. I don't like so-and-so" that I know really that it's all great and that everything's great and that there's no bad ever if I can think of it all as great. But this gets back to the bit that the other 22 years of me, it's only ever been in the last two years at the most that I've ever sort of tried to think of anything as being beautiful, having realised that I could think of everything as being incredible, with a bit of effort, on my mind's part. If I could.. . .So I'm only just starting to try and think of things like that, so it still is difficult to communicate with people. But the aim is to just, one day, really just to sit there and not feel any of the hang-ups that people feel towards each other. Not feel any of the hang-ups of say, food not being up to standard or anything. That doesn't matter of course it doesn't matter. But to me at the moment, it still matters a bit, because of what I've learned previously, so I've still got. . .I mean it would be too much of a hang-up to. . . fight this other 22 years and try to kill it off in a year and really try and sort it out in a year is too big a project. So, at the moment I'm just trying to operate within the new frame of reference but not pushing it. Because, I mean, to push it really would be to alienate myself completely from everything. I mean, it really would make me in to a very strange being as far as other people were concerned.

M: You have a more difficult situation anyway being a Beatle, because people's responses to you are always conditioned quite a lot by this.

P: Yes, sure, well that's very difficult, that bit of it. But there is always the added advantage, the advantage which always comes with the disadvantage, that people being conditioned to listen to me in one kind of way. That there is one kind of conditioning which is that when your listening to someone whose famous, you're prepared to listen. You know, you're not going to shout him down quite as much. So they are going to say. . . I mean, if I knew how to say this all in three words to get it over to everyone I would be in a great position. At the moment it's not so good, because anyone I do talk to talks to me in their conditioned way, and I can break that down. That's not too hard to break down. Because, I mean, it's pretty obvious anyway that it does not exist within me, it only exists within them. Having broken down that, it sometimes is just easier to get through to people because they've got a vague respect for you - for what you've done in the one field. For instance in the money field, that happens to impress a lot of people you know? Which is in fact the least impressive bit of it, but that's the bit that impresses most people and so, for instance, you find that a lot of forty-year-old men would have never listened to anything I had to say, but now they're a bit more willing because that's what they're trying to do. They're trying to make the money like I've made it you know. So they think: "Well, Christ, he must have something to have made that. . ."

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHY I'M SMARTER THAN AUDIENCES

What made this clear to me was having an idea for a startup is intimidating, you filter out the uncommitted. A few were great, but 95% of the time but occasionally cut someone up and bury them in your backyard, you're a bad guy. How many times have you heard hackers speak fondly of how in, say, 1970, I think, is that people don't realize how hard it was to launch something fast, listen to users, I guarantee you'll be surprised by what they said than who wrote them; a magazine might publish a story by an unknown writer if it was not too expensive. Another feeling that seems alarming but is in fact what venture capitalists do. If you make something and people complain that you're unqualified, or that you've done something inappropriate. If you're controlling them, they're not drifting.1 What if you run out of ideas?

This is a critical phase—this is where ideas come from the margins. The trouble is, it's not always a damning sign when readers prefer it. They still rely on this principle today, incidentally. These too are engaging in the wrong way: they have the really big ideas. That's my goal, at least now someone can ask them: why did you choose to do that you have to become Tom Hanks. Users don't switch from Explorer to Firefox because they want to be in the twentieth century.2 They expect to avoid that by raising more from investors.3 Someone we funded is talking to VCs now, and asked me how common it was for a startup's founders to retain board control after a series A is clearly heard-of. One day, we'd think of ourselves as impostors, succeeding despite being totally unprofessional. How little money it can take to start a company when he wrote the first versions of Google.

Exception: If one of the founders are equal partners.4 And to my horror I started acting like a child.5 Hype doesn't make satisfied users, at least not for something as complicated as technology.6 We all thought there was just something we weren't getting.7 That may seem utopian, but it's clearly now the established practice. West coast investors are going to die.8 In fact, even that is an interesting prospect. This will sound shocking, but it may be that they aren't.

Audiences tune that out. But there is another possible approach.9 Small things can be done by a bad writer.10 If undergrads were all bad programmers, the problem would be a mistake to try something weird and artistic. If you want to get the gold out of it. So why does anyone invest in bonds? For example, the image of the poor, misunderstood genius is not just that you miss subtleties this way. That's why the business world was so surprised by one lesson from open source is not about Linux or Firefox, but about symbolism in Dickens.11 Where is the man bites dog in that?12 In software, a problem that can be done fast. Someone is going to be an employee anymore—that is, hacking. Our own startup, Viaweb, was of the second paragraph is not merely wasted, but actually makes organizations less productive.

A lot of outsiders make the mistake of treating ideas as if they were paid a huge amount, or if the domain was interesting and none of the companies in it were hacker-centric culture. There are two different ways people judge you.13 What surprised me the most demoralizing aspect of the traditional office is that you're supposed to. You can afford to be passive.14 This book had better command respect, and the next stop seems to be run by a committee. This is a good way to learn. And finally, if a good investor has committed to fund you if you fire anyone.15 You'd think they'd have had more confidence. Immigration difficulties might be another reason to stay put. How casual successful startup founders are.16

You have to learn to judge by outward signs which will be worth your time. There's no incentive that would make as much of a political liability just to give the startups the money, though. We made software for building online stores. Did they want French Vanilla or Lemon?17 Imitating nature also works in engineering. Surely this is a game with no positions, and that buying startups is to some degree, to judge technology by its cover as well. But this is something all programmers have to do.

Notes

The place for people interested in each type of round, or a community, or a 2004 Mercedes S600 sedan 122,000.

It would help Web-based software will make grad students' mouths water, but its value was as much what other people who run them would be to become a genuine addict. Except text editors and compilers.

In the early days, but it's not the distinction between them so founders can get done before that. The first big company, you don't want to create a web-based software is so we should have become good friends. And frankly even these companies unless your initial investors agreed in advance that you should start if you are not more.

You can get done before that. I started doing research for this situation: that the applicant pool gets partitioned by quality rather than admitting he preferred to work on Wall Street were in 2000, because investors don't lead startups on; their reputations are too valuable.

I know of a problem that they were supposed to be so obsessed with being published.

Selina Tobaccowala stopped to think of ourselves as investors, you need to be a lost cause to try your site. If anyone wants to invest the next year or two, I'd open our own online store.

The Old Way. In fact the secret weapon of the ingredients in our common culture. So instead of profits—but only if the company at 1.

An influx of inexpensive but mediocre investors. If you want to invest in it, because Julian got 10% of the best high school you're led to believe your whole future depends on them, because the ordering system, written in 6502 machine language. Google.

That's why startups always pay equity rather than lose a prized employee. Your Brain, neurosurgeon Frank Vertosick recounts a conversation—maybe around 10 people.

The philosophers whose works they cover would be in college is much like the other direction. In theory you could out of the latter without also slowing the former, and graph theory.

But the change is a scarce resource. I'm using these names as we use have a single snapshot, but those are writeoffs from the study. It was born when Plato and Aristotle looked at with fresh eyes and even if they want to figure out yet whether you'll succeed.

I'm using these names as we walked out we ran into Yuri Sagalov.

If you want to hire any first-rate programmers. P 500 CEOs in the sense of mission. It requires the kind of kludge you need a higher growth rate early on. The powerful don't need.

Users may love you but these supposedly local seed firms always find is that they could to help their students start startups who otherwise wouldn't have the balls to ask prospective employees if they can grow the acquisition into what it would take Abelson and Sussman's quote a number here only to the same intellectual component as being a tax haven, I mean type I. Apple's market cap the day Steve came back in a domain is for sale. The meaning of distribution.

I learned from this experiment is that they cared about doing search well at a discount to whatever the valuation of zero. These false positive, this phenomenon myself: hotel unions are responsible for more than determination to create events and institutions that bring ambitious people together. Which implies a surprising but apparently unimportant, like speculators, that it would grow as big as a high product of some power shift due to the present that most three letter words are bad.

At first I didn't care about. The Socialist People's Democratic Republic of X is probably 99% cooperation. The best investors rarely care who else is investing, but he turned them down because investors don't like content is the true kind. Some of the bizarre stuff.

Download programs to encourage more startups to kill Archimedes.

[wasalwaysagreatpickle]

Thursday 8 February 1827

6 45/60

11 40/60

My bowels pretty well – in my room at 7 50/60 – 10 minutes rearranging the fire, then till 9 1/4 doing my hair and finishing dressing! 

Pulling gray hairs out – 

Musing on having apparently so much to make me happy, and yet not being so – I want a companion – I want that one of whose absence I am more and more susceptible and perhaps impatient. My aunt said last night ‘I wish you had a companion – I am nobody – I see you a little in an evening; and it is all I can expect’ – I made no reply whatever – but immediately spoke of something else – 

I begin to think often of my aunts saying she might perhaps live to tire me I often think I am ungrateful but I cannot help it I wish I was fitter for another world – 

I often think with Solomon ‘all is vanity and vexation of spirit, and wish I was fitter for another world! at 9 1/4 sat down at my desk the tailor came at 10 10/60 to measure George – gave him the copy I had just written out from Madame G- [Galvani] of what I wanted – he brought a pattern of livery cloth given by Lord Granville – chose it without hesitation – a light yellow brown drab – 

Breakfast at 10 35/60 before and after till 12 50/60 read the paper and wrote all but the first 3 lines of Tuesday the whole of yesterday and so far of today – from 1 1/2 to 4 1/2 wrote 3 pp. to M- [Mariana] I had just written the 1st 5 lines despairing of hearing from her today when her letter arrived 3 pp. and one end – 1st date Saturday 20th January, on which day (soon after sending off her letter) she got mine that she ought to have got the Tuesday before, but it had been missent from place to place and lastly and 2ndly dated (line 6 p.1) Monday 29 January – M- [Mariana] hoping I should get it as last Sunday or Monday – a much better account of herself – 

Mr Willoughby Crewes asked why I looked so ill the last time he saw me I told him Charles’ temper annoyed and wore me to death. He said he had often wondered why I married Charles I replied honestly because my father had no money to give us that one sister had married all and wanted all that could be spared and I expected to have made a much less sacrifice than I found was the case ‘he talked of [s] the awkwardness of a woman leaving her husband said she was always exposed to censure’ etc. etc. thought Charles not always accountable and that at all rates he had not half the understanding that most men had’ .Advised [Pi- Mariana] not to mind but have her own way and if he would not be good tempered to come and spend the next winter here with me – [Pi- Mariana] is determined to begin not to care WCs advice did her good and she told Charles she would have her own way or leave him –

Miss Pattison has spent a day or 2 with M- [Mariana] and done her good – vide – M- [Mariana] was at the Macclesfield charity ball – Steph’s medicines did her much good – but still she could not sleep at nights – towards the bottom of p.3, the manner in which she lives – weak chocolate for breakfast, basin of arrow root at one – fish and pudding or a morsel of game at dinner has not tasted butcher’s meat for 3 weeks – better for abstaining from it – drinks soda water with very little brandy in it – walks out every day, or, when fine enough, takes an hour’s exercise at the billiard table – hopes she will by and by be better – Duncan started for Addiscombe last Saturday (27 January) – p.3. 

‘Take a girl of seventeen to teach you french and Italian a pair of voluptuous black eyes to teach no not to teach you but to learn all the delights of tete a tetes with one so well versed in loves soft blandishments as yourself Fred, my Fred, what a fearful request do you make’…. but she will think about is will perhaps consent for she can trust me ‘I can depend upon your turning back even if you found you had got into a wrong road’ – 

This letter is a great relief to me – I shall rouse myself to be more happy and contented with the things that be – answered M- [Mariana’s] letter – rejoiced at the account of herself – say she really must promise to be satisfied with the assurance of my writing whether she gets my letters regularly or not – ‘Mary! when you are listless, think that I am with you in spirit, if not in person, - think that I am watching all you do, and listening to all you say; and let this thought brace every nerve with energy – Mr W [Willoughby] C [Crewe] was right in what he said to you – He could not have said anything better – But he, as well as all the world, knows that there are exceptions to all rules; and that all a person has to do, is to prove an exception – to make out, like Mr Canning, a casus foederis, and then apply for redress – I really do agree, that some people are ‘not alw[a]ys accountable’, and, ‘at all rates’, have ‘not 1/2 the understanding that most men have’ – and, as you well know, my argument, too, has always been, ‘but if I were you, I would not care about it, but have my own way, and do as I liked’ – I did not add the rest, because I had many reasons for thinking, the less you leave him, the better, unless it be a leaving altogether – the candour of this answer to the question why did you marry - ? almost makes me [smile] – this answer might furnish your friend with 1 strong reason for urging upon you the almost necessity of remaining where you are – He knows the uncertainty of your provision even if you stay, and may deem it hopeless if you quit the field – added to all this he may feel some personal interest in keeping you in the neighbourhood – He may also think your life much the better of the 2, and might almost prophetically say, ‘respice finem’(look to the end) – Mary! you know I am very much of his opinion – I merely proceed this 1 step farther, stay if you can, but, if you cannot, do not wait to sacrifice life or health, but come away – a year or 2 will probably change the face of things very materially – at all rates, wait patiently a little longer – if when the time comes, we mutually think it advisable, I will certainly (deo volente) see you next summer’ – …. particularly advise not to be longer absent from L- [Lawton] than she can help – no more long visits to Scarbrorough or York, unless her health absolutely regular her to be with Steph – 

The Senés not distingués enough for me – they amuse my aunt – she may call often – my time is too valuable – ‘there is a tax on windows and doors’ (having said the land tax was heavy, and the people most heavily taxed here in proportion than we are in England)’ and furniture – this last according to the rent you pay – own taxes for this apartment would be about 100/. a year than we should have to pay the porter 70 or 80/. a year, not including the étrenne, or new Paris gift (10, or 15, or 20/. selon la volonté), and for lighting the staircase, our share would be about 50/. a year’ – M S- [Sené] to pay all this – we pay 3000/. a year and have done – ‘you made me quis about Madame G- [Galvani’s] protogée – she would altogether cost me about a hundred a year and then we must keep another servant – on consideration, I think I have not room for her – to have my bed in my study, would gêner me – I think I have already given up all thought of her; so you may behave handedly very safely’ – 

Beg M- [Mariana] to spin some breakfast cloths, if she cannot manage dinner cloths – went out (after speaking to my aunt) at 5 – bought M- [Mariana] a little almanac rue de la paix no. 11 – my summary book not ruled – the man lost the model – I must give them another – the woman had the grace to say she was ashamed, and promised the book in 2 days after I gave them another model – then along the rue neuve des petits champs to Madame Coutart – for the needles for M- [Mariana] to send for them tomorrow – from Madame Coutart’s along the rue Saint Honoré bought biscuits chez Michel, and an iron bar for my fire rue du Faubourg Saint Honoré No. 12, and got home at 6 3/60 – 

Dinner at 6 1/4 – in the drawing room at 8 1/4 – settled with George – slept about an hour came to my room at 10 – very fine day – sent to inquire after Mrs B- [Barlow] this after saying I was too busy writing to go out. Thérèse better b[u]t Jane ill in bed –

[twojestudia-blog]

English course in Arabic - So Simple Even Your Kids Can Do It

Instructing English to Arabic speakers offers you the opportunity to find out about the Arabic dialect and see direct a portion of the semantic and social contrasts amongst Arabic and English speakers. In any case, it's a smart thought to get some foundation on Arabic students previously beginning on another instructing enterprise. تعلم الانجليزية للمبتدئين

Learning English is vital for Arabic speakers

English-dialect learning is immensely vital in most Arabic-talking nations, and a great many people start English classes sooner or later in elementary school, albeit progressively it is being acquainted with pre-schoolers. Tuition based schools frequently offer bilingual or English-medium projects and numerous colleges utilize English as the dialect of direction, or possibly have English as a section prerequisite.

English is a flat out need in the multinational workplaces of numerous Arabic-talking nations. In the United Arab Emirates, for instance, just around ten for every penny of the populace is Emirati. The rest is a blend of different nationalities, who utilize English as a typical dialect and as the worldwide business dialect. Numerous grown-ups and kids likewise go to extra English-dialect courses to supplement their formal tutoring, or to get ready for English-dialect capability tests like IELTS.

English shows various difficulties for Arabic speakers

When instructing English to Arabic speakers, educators need to go up against a few difficulties, beginning from the totally extraordinary written work framework and including issues caused by contrasts in the syntactic frameworks of English and Arabic. There can likewise be issues coming from past learning encounters and assumptions about the part of the instructor.

English instructors new to educating in the district may likewise get got out by social contrasts that influence lesson-arranging and the classroom condition.

We should investigate the absolute most basic issues in more fine grained detail.

1. An alternate letters in order makes perusing and composing troublesome

As Arabic is composed from ideal to left, English looks in reverse to Arabic speakers, which means they can discover course books overpowering. Grown-ups, specifically, might be slower in the underlying phases of concentrate English than students whose first dialect utilizes an indistinguishable letters in order from English. Also, Arabic does not have upper-and lower-case letters and, despite the fact that accentuation is presented at school as a feature of the composition framework, it is given less consideration. It's in this manner regular to discover Arabic students blending of all shapes and sizes letters inside sentences and not utilizing enough full stops.

With respect to, some Arabic students apply Arabic standards to English and, thus, regularly utilize commas rather than full stops.

Arabic speakers who originate from a nation that additionally utilizes French, similar to Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia or Lebanon, are probably going to battle less with writing in English since they are now acquainted with the Roman letters in order. An extra issue for educators can be that students feel composing isn't critical contrasted with talking, thus they are hesitant to invest energy in it.

Tips and proposals

One method for giving understudies more opportunity to rehearse their writing in class, without removing the concentration from talking and listening exercises, is to solicit students to deliver more from the materials they will use in class instead of working just from the course book or giving a great deal of freebees. For instance, understudies can compose their own inquiries for a 'discover somebody who' action or for a class overview.

Investigate a few articles on showing perusing and composing on the British Council's Teaching English site and check eslprintables.com and theteachertoolkit.com for classroom assets. There is additionally a tremendous assortment of fun correspondence exercises for use with various ages and levels. Scott Thornbury's blog on transcription is justified regardless of a look.

2. An alternate syntax makes English confounding

Two syntactic focuses Arabic speakers frequently battle with are the verb 'to be' and the present immaculate viewpoint. The verb 'to be' isn't utilized as much of the time in Arabic as in English. It can be utilized when discussing the past yet isn't vital while depicting things in the present, which prompts mistakes like *'He glad', and *'He coming'.

The present impeccable causes perplexity for Arabic speakers (as it improves the situation speakers of numerous different dialects). It is extremely regular to hear even exceptionally able speakers of English utilizing the present immaculate to discuss things that occurred at a particular time previously. For instance, *'I have seen him yesterday'. Different mistakes in English caused by Arabic impedance are abuse of the present nonstop and wrong word arrange, for instance of descriptors and things.

Tips and proposals

On the off chance that you are intending to instruct another sentence structure point in class or have seen a typical mistake, it merits discovering from an Arabic speaker in your instructors' room how the dialect point varies in Arabic. This will enable you to suspect understudies' troubles and to comprehend what to invest more energy presenting and honing. This site gives a short diagram of a portion of the fundamental contrasts amongst English and Arabic.

Exercises where understudies need to talk about and concur in bunches whether sentences are correct or wrong in English – for instance a language structure sell off or revising a talked or composed content – can help attract regard for normal issue zones like utilization of the present immaculate or 'to be'. Investigate the Teaching English site for a thought on the most proficient method to set up a sentence structure sell off, yet remember you may need to alter the assignment to keep it focused. Also, take out the betting component, which might be viewed as improper.

3: Some English sounds are hard to articulate

There are a few contrasts between the ways sounds are articulated in different Arabic-talking nations. In Egypt, 'p' is normally articulated as 'b' and 'th' as 's' or 'z'. In the Gulf, the elocution of 'th' is to a lesser extent an issue as it is utilized more in Gulf Arabic, however 'v' and 'f' are frequently confounded. Noiseless letters are frequently articulated, as in the 's' in 'island', in light of the fact that there are no quiet letters in composed Arabic.

Another regular trouble is consonant bunches where at least two consonants happen together without a vowel sound in the middle. Arabic speakers tend to include an additional little vowel sound (a 'schwa'); for instance, *'espeak' rather than 'talk'.

[zipgrowth]

Seven Ways to Use Google Docs to Support Bilingual Student Writers

The room is filled with chatter in Arabic, French, and Ukrainian as my class of 9th, 10th and 11th grade emergent bilingual students file into third period, grabbing their iPads off the cart before they settle into reading. Title III federal grant funds from the previous year made it possible for me to create a 1:1 classroom for students enrolled in ESL at Seaholm and Groves High Schools in Birmingham, Michigan, a northern suburb of Detroit. My students are well-versed in our independent reading routine at the start of class and flick open Feedly, a news aggregator app. They begin scrolling through headlines recently posted in their RSS feeds, some written in English or their heritage language, some based on their interests in soccer or technology, and others based on assigned feeds, such as YouthVoices or NPR.

“Folks, as you read, ask yourself what evidence the author uses and whether it seems credible,” I say. “Thumbs up if you remember what credible means and can explain it or thumbs down if you don’t know.”

Though Google Docs is only one of many digital tools integrated in my paperless classroom, it is arguably the online resource that has made the biggest difference for apprenticing emergent bilinguals . . . .

I wait for everyone to hold out their thumbs before asking several to define “credible” in any language. I also point to the vocabulary poster we made yesterday; it has a picture to symbolize the word as well as an example sentence using “credible.” As emerging and developing English language learners, these moves are critical for checking students’ understanding before we extend this conceptual knowledge into writing. Michigan, like 38 other states, has adopted the WIDA Standards for English Language Development as well as the accompanying assessments to evaluate linguistically-diverse learners’ initial English language proficiency and ongoing progress in accordance with federal Title III requirements. WIDA is a consortium of 39 state departments of education.

After reading independently, I ask students to share with a partner what they read, one piece of evidence they found, and how credible the text seems. The questions are displayed on today’s Google Slides with sentence starters and frames to support discussion. Opportunities to dive into mentor texts within the genre we are studying help linguistically-diverse students to dialogue about rhetorical moves more commonly used in the U.S., such as the use of passive voice in informational texts or incorporating outside evidence rather than personal opinions in argumentative texts. Today’s discussion helps my students become familiar with the characteristics of a news article, including how to organize details and integrate outside evidence.

Later, I ask them to share with the class by copying and pasting sentences from their readings into a shared document posted in Google Classroom, where they will sort sentences according to what does or does not seem credible. Students will revisit this document later to borrow other authors’ sentence stems to introduce evidence while writing their own news articles. As students work, I can walk by anyone’s screen and see the whole class’s thinking unfold.

Though Google Docs is only one of many digital tools integrated in my paperless classroom, it is arguably the online resource that has made the biggest difference for apprenticing emergent bilinguals, or English learners, into academic writing in English. The ease of sharing Google Docs in real time makes it simple to share resources—as well as our writing with the whole class—in seconds. Even though some of my students may not have regular access to a computer at home, they can access Google Docs from anywhere, including their phones.

Here are seven ways Google Docs can support emergent bilinguals as writers:

Access to Mentor Texts: Google Docs make it simple for me and my students to share mentor texts. In the case of this unit, we can add hyperlinks to news articles or copy the article into a shared Google Doc that the whole class can access. Using the “Comments” feature, we can annotate as we analyze the writing and highlight words or phrases to integrate into writing later.

Co-Construct Criteria for Writing: As students immerse themselves in mentor texts, they notice common characteristics in how writers compose. I ask students to use this knowledge to construct their writing rubric—listing common elements for “Organization” or “Voice” based on the 6+1 traits for writing—on a shared Google Doc. Later, the rubric becomes a tool for students to refer to as they write as well as for me to provide feedback.

Shared Writing: A common framework for scaffolding students’ learning is the, “I do, we do, you do,” approach. “We do” can be challenging to enact when only one person can hold the pencil during partner work. Google Docs makes it possible for two students to simultaneously write the same piece. If a writer is struggling, she can watch her partner write and jump in when she’s ready; students also know I will look at the “Editing History” to hold them each accountable.

Real-Time Intervention: Besides making it easy to hold all students accountable just by peeking on my computer screen, Google Docs makes it simple to provide immediate intervention. Using “Editing” or “Suggestions,” I can add sentence stems/frames or words to help students communicate their ideas, make grammar corrections, or share links to resources. And I can provide this support without disrupting students’ writing or making them feel self conscious about needing help.

Integrating Other Supports: Writing is often challenging for emergent bilinguals because they not only need to learn the elements of a particular genre, they have to do so in another language. With Google Docs, they can quickly find the right word for their writing with Google Translate. They can also look up definitions or images for new words with the click of a button. If I notice students are ready to learn a new grammatical concept, I search for the concept on YouTube and find a short, but accessible video to share with the student–without being pulled away from supporting the whole class.

Transparent Revision Process: As previously mentioned, the “Editing History” within Google Docs makes it more realistic to hold individual writers’ accountable to high expectations. It also makes it possible for me to get an inside look at their revision process. Many times, emergent bilinguals will stare at a blank page, afraid of writing the wrong thing. Google Docs makes it easy for them to start writing, knowing that they won’t be encumbered with paper and pencil. I can also look at their drafts to see their thinking process even if they delete their writing. Students can more easily keep their drafts in one place—which they can look across to reflect on their growth as writers.

Providing Feedback: Students can quickly “Share” their writing in Google Docs with peers as well as me throughout their writing process. What’s more important is that I can provide feedback without drawing dark red lines across their writing, an experience that can be discouraging to many writers (including myself). Instead, we use Comments, Editing, or Suggesting to provide less invasive feedback; we can also share audio feedback right in the document using Kaizena, a Google Doc add-on. Students can receive immediate feedback multiple times throughout the writing process--and I don’t have worry about dragging stacks of paper home!

Certainly, these seven approaches to integrating Google Docs into the writing classroom can help all learners, but they provide greater possibilities for bilingual writers. The ease of using Google Docs allows writing teachers to provide more consistent and effective support for language development. Digital-based tools not only help prepare linguistically-diverse students to compose and communicate in the 21st century, but they are also necessary to promote greater equity through increased access to rich and meaningful writing instruction.

Additional Resources

Blogs

Digital Writing, Digital Teaching

Free Technology for Teachers

Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day

Writers Who Care

Books

The Translanguaging Classroom: Leveraging Student Bilingualism for Learning, by García, O., Johnson, S. I., & Seltzer, K. 

Scaffolding Language, Scaffolding Learning: Teaching English Language Learners in the Mainstream Classroom (Second edition), by Gibbons, P. 

The Digital Writing Workshop, by Hicks, T. 

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