Sound in mind and body, or something
One of the benefits of telecommuting is that I have a flexible workday, which means lately that I've been going to the gym every (almost every) morning and then working in the afternoon and evening. Today I cut my workout short to get home in time for a phone/internet meeting, only to find that the meeting was canceled (canceled ten minutes after it was supposed to start). I missed part of my workout for this!
I'm not going to get much sympathy, am I? *grin*
Since I got back from Costa Rica I've been working on two things fairly consistently, fitness and language. I got a gym membership the day after I got home because it was getting too cold to bicycle regularly and last spring I really noticed the fall-off in my fitness after a largely inactive winter. I've been doing moderate weight-lifting on the machines and 60 minutes on a mix of treadmill and recumbent bike. (Today I only got 50 minutes, alas.) Even in only three weeks I've seen some improvements. Now I just have to keep it up!
The other thing I'm working on is learning Spanish. I have a book, Spanish for Reading, that I like a lot. It assumes 1) that you're intelligent and literate in English, and 2) that you're not a high school student. The first means that it starts out teaching vocabulary by context and recognition of Latin-derived cognates, including showing the typical word endings for different parts of speech (it mentions some "false cognates," words that don't mean what you'd expect them to mean, but if you know obscure/archaic English words, you can still usually see the relationship). Each chapter explains several points of grammar, giving you some sentences to practice on after each point, then gives you a longer piece to read through with reading comprehension questions.
The second bit, not being a high school student, means that the answer key for all questions is on the same page as the questions, saving you from having to search the back of the book to check your answers. The reading passages are also geared more for adults, with history and culture--and later even poetry and literature!--instead of "Pablo and Jorge go to class." Much more interesting, and much more like what I'm likely to be reading. How many Spanish 101 classes teach you the word for "drug trafficking"?
After six chapters, I was able to read an article in Mexico's El Universal newspaper on shopping malls, with good comprehension and no translation dictionary. Or at least good comprehension after I remembered a key cultural difference, namely Mexico's violent crime rate (and/or perception of the same). I have a trial subscription to El Universal on my Kindle, and I may decide to keep it. I also found that I can buy a Spanish-English dictionary for the Kindle and replace the default dictionary with it, which would mean that any time I'm reading Spanish on the Kindle I can just highlight a word to get the translation. The other option for a newspaper would be reading Costa Rica's La Nacion (pretend there's an accent mark over the O in Nacion, would you?) on the Kindle's web browser, which would have the advantage of free and Costa Rican.
It's probably time to start writing in Spanish as well as reading.
I'm not going to get much sympathy, am I? *grin*
Since I got back from Costa Rica I've been working on two things fairly consistently, fitness and language. I got a gym membership the day after I got home because it was getting too cold to bicycle regularly and last spring I really noticed the fall-off in my fitness after a largely inactive winter. I've been doing moderate weight-lifting on the machines and 60 minutes on a mix of treadmill and recumbent bike. (Today I only got 50 minutes, alas.) Even in only three weeks I've seen some improvements. Now I just have to keep it up!
The other thing I'm working on is learning Spanish. I have a book, Spanish for Reading, that I like a lot. It assumes 1) that you're intelligent and literate in English, and 2) that you're not a high school student. The first means that it starts out teaching vocabulary by context and recognition of Latin-derived cognates, including showing the typical word endings for different parts of speech (it mentions some "false cognates," words that don't mean what you'd expect them to mean, but if you know obscure/archaic English words, you can still usually see the relationship). Each chapter explains several points of grammar, giving you some sentences to practice on after each point, then gives you a longer piece to read through with reading comprehension questions.
The second bit, not being a high school student, means that the answer key for all questions is on the same page as the questions, saving you from having to search the back of the book to check your answers. The reading passages are also geared more for adults, with history and culture--and later even poetry and literature!--instead of "Pablo and Jorge go to class." Much more interesting, and much more like what I'm likely to be reading. How many Spanish 101 classes teach you the word for "drug trafficking"?
After six chapters, I was able to read an article in Mexico's El Universal newspaper on shopping malls, with good comprehension and no translation dictionary. Or at least good comprehension after I remembered a key cultural difference, namely Mexico's violent crime rate (and/or perception of the same). I have a trial subscription to El Universal on my Kindle, and I may decide to keep it. I also found that I can buy a Spanish-English dictionary for the Kindle and replace the default dictionary with it, which would mean that any time I'm reading Spanish on the Kindle I can just highlight a word to get the translation. The other option for a newspaper would be reading Costa Rica's La Nacion (pretend there's an accent mark over the O in Nacion, would you?) on the Kindle's web browser, which would have the advantage of free and Costa Rican.
It's probably time to start writing in Spanish as well as reading.