back to posting again
Over the last few months, I've fallen out of the habit of keeping this journal. I tend to think that this may be due to a few reasons ... for one, I've never been one to use this place as a record for mundane affairs. It's not that I don't think that such things are unworthy of being recorded; I just don't feel the need on a daily basis. I think, in many ways, for me, this journal has been a place to work out ideas that I've been mulling over, to be contemplative and to record these thoughts as stories. Perhaps it's an aspect of age that one's experiences don't require as much contemplation because the balance between new and familiar tips ever so slightly towards the familiar. Though, perhaps that sense of having seen it all before is just one of the new bits of foolishness that one adopts as they grow older.
Speaking of adoptions, I still try to select a resolution with every New Year. I try to escape the dreary variety of resolutions that are of the "here's something I don't like doing that I'll try to do more often because it's good for me" sort and instead go with the "out of the 100 things that really interest right now, I want to focus on this one this year." One year it was trying all of the sushi restaurants in Brookline and another year it was resolving to ride PBP. Last year's resolution was calling my parents more often (which for some, I guess, is more of the dreary variety). This year, it's brushing up on Spanish.
Part of the reason for that is because of plans to go to Patagonia. More on that later.
I've realized that I don't have a steady enough work schedule to contemplate taking formal classes, so I've been auditing online courses on LiveMocha and the Foreign Service Institute. The Foreign Service course materials are a fascinating fly-in-amber sample of 1960s educational theory mixed with standard priorities of the professional expatriate. Consider, for example, the conversation scenarios in the Introductory Student Text
White arrives in Surlandia
White meets Molina at the Embassy
White's first day at work
White and Molina have lunch
White and Molina look for an apartment
Molina explains where he sends his laundry
White interviews a maid
... so far, I'm not so sure of the usefulness of these lessons. But I think I'll have fun reading through them anyway.
I mean ... the student proxy's name is 'White'? Like ... seriously?
Speaking of adoptions, I still try to select a resolution with every New Year. I try to escape the dreary variety of resolutions that are of the "here's something I don't like doing that I'll try to do more often because it's good for me" sort and instead go with the "out of the 100 things that really interest right now, I want to focus on this one this year." One year it was trying all of the sushi restaurants in Brookline and another year it was resolving to ride PBP. Last year's resolution was calling my parents more often (which for some, I guess, is more of the dreary variety). This year, it's brushing up on Spanish.
Part of the reason for that is because of plans to go to Patagonia. More on that later.
I've realized that I don't have a steady enough work schedule to contemplate taking formal classes, so I've been auditing online courses on LiveMocha and the Foreign Service Institute. The Foreign Service course materials are a fascinating fly-in-amber sample of 1960s educational theory mixed with standard priorities of the professional expatriate. Consider, for example, the conversation scenarios in the Introductory Student Text
White arrives in Surlandia
White meets Molina at the Embassy
White's first day at work
White and Molina have lunch
White and Molina look for an apartment
Molina explains where he sends his laundry
White interviews a maid
... so far, I'm not so sure of the usefulness of these lessons. But I think I'll have fun reading through them anyway.
I mean ... the student proxy's name is 'White'? Like ... seriously?