A Current Project

I am currently learning Spanish. I resolved to learn this language at the beginning of 2008 because we were planning a trip to Buenos Aires. The version of Spanish that is spoken there is somewhat different from what I am learning.

Yesterday, on the plane, while we returned from Washington D.C., I studied my notes for the duration of the flight. I find that planes are an excellent place to study because you are literally trapped at your seat, pretty much. Sometimes you have to ignore a crying baby. I can do that.

I had taken notes on some vocabulary from Spanish books I had been reading. Also, notes on one of the tenses.

I am using a book called: 501 Spanish Verbs, by Barron's.

Today, I used a computer program called Before You Know It Delux. I type phrases and verb conjugations into it. I usually study from a stack of a little over 100 cards that I have typed. The software creates a BFYKI file. It is good to make a back up.

I spent 4 hours on drilling my flash cards today. I look at the Spanish or English side of the card and type in what the meaning is in the alternate language. The program keeps track of your score, adding or deducting according to the accuracy of my answer. All the cards in the stack have to be at a certain score level before you advance to the next stage, a variation on drilling.

Also, I am using a very good text book on the Spanish language called: Ultimate Spanish, published by Living Language. It's the Beginner-Intermediate level. I am very happy with this text book. I ordered it over the internet. Although I am only up to chapter 10, I am not discouraged.

Also, I listen to audio books in Spanish.

The Project

Plymouth is a town in New Hampshire through which run the railroad and Pemigewasset River. It has a small-town square with a doughnut shop on one end and a diner right out of the 30s on the other. There is a jewelry store and a white church with steeple.

Nestled in the foothills of the White Mountains, the town is adorned by gorgeous colored leaves in the Fall. It has steep hills to challenge bicyclists and joggers. And it is graced by the presence of Plymouth State University.

When I was attending it was still just a College. I majored in Applied Computer Science so that I could get a good-paying job. And I minored in Music, which was my first passion.

I graduated with good SAT scores from a Catholic High School, also in New Hampshire. So, I had my pick of colleges. But, Plymouth had the best music department I had seen of all the colleges I went to in person to check out. The best. And over the four-and-a-half years I was there, I made quite a contribution to the department though my performances. The musicianship classes were quite rewarding. And I spent a lot of time in the Music and Theater Departments, across the street from that 30's diner, in a town where at least one of the professors had a big, tall hairdo like the fashion from the 50's and she didn't look out of place.

In order to graduate I had to finish my Senior Programming Project. I majored in Applied Computer Science. I had to get an "A" in order to graduate with a degree due to the low grades I had earned in my other classes in my Major.

Considering my G.P.A., this, in the words of the Computer Science department chair, would be "...by the skin of my teeth." I designed an ambitious project related to my Minor.

It was a program written in PASCAL, a language designed to teach students the concepts necessary to be good programmers. The program was designed to drill musicians on musical intervals, which relates to music theory.

I remember spending the days and sometimes nights on the computer debugging and typing in code for my Senior Project.

In the words of the Department Chair, who was my mentor on the project: "You knew you had to receive an 'A,' and that's what you did."

I did graduate on a wonderful and sunny day on May 20th, 1989. This ceremony was attended by my parents. One of my classmates said I looked goofy walking across the stage.

I am careful to keep my diploma where ever I go. Every time we move I pack it carefully, having just barely earned it.

Conversations on the Bus

When I was living in San Francisco I had a conversation with a man who was obviously successful in business. This was during the early 90s when the job market was really tough and there was a recession. He said that the generation that came of age and entered the job market during that period would never be big spenders. Also, he cautioned that the rise in power of the corporation would ultimately diminish the freedoms I took for granted.

I Shot Andy Warhol

I found myself empathizing with the main character, the one who shot Andy Warhol. It is quite a confession. Come to think of it, the movie title is a confession!

"I Shot Andy Warhol!"

Valerie Solanas acts paranoid and anti-social throughout the movie. But, I had to listen to the things she said. They made sense.

SCUM: Society to Cut Up Men! Valerie writes this manifesto. She repeatedly points out in the movie, which was directed and researched by Mary Harron, that men are defective due to the "Y" chromosome which is an imperfect copy of an "X." She is driven by the goal to reshape society to reflect the fact that men are redundant, and inferior to women.

To an impressive degree Valerie succeeds in realizing her goals, which causes one to rethink the judgement that she is merely paranoid. If someone obviously crazy succeeds in realizing their goals through acting out their own plans born of lunacy are they really insane?

At the end of the movie I had to conclude that she had some very compelling points both about society in general, and, about her situation in particular. Although, yes, she was paranoid.

You can be correct for the wrong reasons.

That Computer Called Brain

I remember reading somewhere about learning a foreign language. Sometimes what's important is the location the information is stored in. Where is it filed?

When I memorize a piano piece I experience some of the different kinds of memory, such as touch: tactile, or sight: visual. I know there is audio memory. Also, some people have very good photographic memories; the music score appears in front of them. I have never experienced that.

Finally, music, and certainly languages make sense. I don't think I could memorize anything that didn't make any sense. What would you call that? Logical memory?

Recent Trip to SF

In early October I visited some friends and family in San Francisco. I came with my partner and we met my sister at the Oakland Airport.

During our stay, we saw many of the sites filmed in Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo; The Legion of Honor, Fort Point at the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge, and I drove through Nob Hill where Madeleine's apartment was.

We got a chance to see the fog's silent velvet advance over the Golden Gate Bridge while driving through the Marina. We had breakfast in Sausalito.

We also wine-tasted in Sonoma, visited the De Young in Golden Gate Park, and shopped at used book stores in the Mission District after dining at a wonderful Spanish tapa restaurant.

I think the book store was called Lost Planet.

Also, I got a chance to buy a couple of books at City Lights bookstore. We saw Jack Kerouac Alley, and shopped in China Town.

San Francisco is a very walkable city. We had to park the car in a garage in China Town, though.

I had lived in San Francisco for nine years before moving to Seattle with my partner.

Life Goals

I recently heard it said that if its not in writing it doesn't exist. This was in the context of political campaigning. I will take a page from anyone's book.

I play the piano. But not professionally. That's just too hard. I like having creative carte-blanche.

In high school I took Spanish and French classes both at the same time. This would be attempting to learn foreign languages relatively late in life for the first time. I did not do well, but, I think my teachers passed me because, usually, I kept trying.

Another page from campaigning falls to the floor to be read, finally.

When I was living in San Francisco, during the 90s, I took Japanese language classes at the City Community College. I listened to tapes, learned the reading and writing, and, got high marks.

After the year 2000, while I was living in Seattle with my partner, I started studying French on my own. I am not going to say I made much headway.

At the beginning of 2008, I switched my efforts to Spanish. I do emphasize reading books in the Spanish language, using the flash-card computer program from Transparent Language, and listening to audio books in Spanish.

The goal, as is in Music, is to go as far as I can in learning and comprehending this language of Spanish. I think I may not be as handicapped as people may assume with my not being bilingual from an early age (before the all-important period when one's brain changes forever.)

Music is considered by some to be a language. I showed an aptitude for that. Perhaps I will for this.