How do you manage screen time for yourself?
Many ways, really: e.g. Go for a walk or otherwise move. Forget it exists. When the WiFi goes down, take it as a sign from the universe. Juggle. Do something productive.
PROMPT: Screentime
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Tag Archives: learning
PROMPT: Hardest
To be an ever-better version of myself. It is relentless, requires engaging fears and weaknesses, and it is worth it.
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PROMPT: Grown Up
Daily writing prompt
When was the first time you really felt like a grown up (if ever)?
In retrospect, I’d say it was when I was on an airplane headed to Basic Military Training. I left a few days after completing high school classes, and a week or so before our graduation ceremony. That would definitely have been the point at which I had to realize whatever transpired, I was on my own. My problems were no longer distributed between myself and parents or myself and teachers, but it was all on me.
That said, I suspect that as a teenager I would have reported moments long before then, like my first solo out-of-state road-trip. I think a general feature of the adolescent condition is feeling grown up before one actually is in any real sense.
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BOOKS: “The Story of Chinese Characters” by Fang Zeng
Languages – The Story Of Chinese Characters: 汉字的故事 (Bilingual Chinese with Pinyin and English – Simplified Chinese Version) – Preschool, Kindergarten by Elite Panda bookMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Publisher’s YouTube Channel
This story book is apparently perfect for preschoolers and definitely is for someone newly learning Chinese. It is the tale of a man who goes hunting and his mild trials and successes. It’s not a gripping tale, but that’s perfect for those new to the language as it allows simple language and concepts. The language is grammatically and semantically straightforward. This bilingual book presents Chinese characters, pinyin with tone markers, and the English translation all on the same page.
The story teaches a few rudimentary Chinese characters (person, mountain, boat, bird, etc.,) particularly ones that are either pictographic or lend themselves to pictographic memory tricks. (For those unfamiliar with Chinese, it is a common misconception that all the characters are pictographic. In fact, about eighty percent of characters appear as they do because of their spoken sound quality [i.e. they appear similar to another character with the same sound, but often with an entirely unrelated meaning.]) The illustrations not only tell the story but invokes the shape of the character that is under study.
I found this book useful for learning to read in Chinese. A little more separation of the pinyin and characters might be nice so one could cover it up to focus on reading characters, but I was clearly not the intended demographic. I don’t see any reason why the book couldn’t work either way, i.e. for English learning Chinese speakers as well as English speaking Chinese learners.
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PROMPT: Lose Track of Time
Reading, thinking, and learning.
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Note to Self [Lyric Poem]
Allow me to make a
Socratic suggestion:
That you pursue the lowly
Art of the question.
Showing you love knowing
More than you love learning
Shows only that you're not
Discerning, and lack requisite
Yearning to find the Truth.
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BOOKS: “Fluent Forever” by Gabriel Wyner
Fluent Forever: How to Learn Any Language Fast and Never Forget It by Gabriel WynerMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Website
This is one of the most useful books I’ve read in some time. Wyner proposes a method to learn a new language that both removes some of the drudgery while improving retention. Anticipating the skepticism that I would have myself at this point: no, it is not one of those books that makes ridiculous and unfounded claims such as that you can learn a language entirely in your sleep or that you can develop native fluency in seven days. Instead, Wyner’s method is based on sound scientific ideas.
So, what does this method consist of? A few of the key points are: first, one doesn’t skip straight to basic conversational phrases as many books and courses do, but rather places great emphasis on learning how to hear and say the sounds of the target language. This phase is often given short shrift, presumably assuming that this skill will be picked up automatically in the process, but Wyner’s argument is that not being able to hear what’s correct or not great slows progress in the long run. Second, memorization tasks use the “spaced repetition system” (SRS) method whereby you increase the time between exposure to new knowledge as you learn it until it is firmly entrenched in one’s mind. Third, one seeks to build a more visceral connection to the new vocabulary and phrases, and this makes learning more fun while improving retention. This is principally done by making flash cards that tell a story relevant to one’s personal experience (and / or which uses subject matter such as sex [which tends to produce more indelibility of memories.])
Beyond the method presented by the book, one is also presented with a great number of resources that can be helpful. Some of these resources are a part of the author’s own website, but many are external resources (from Anki [an app that allows one to build flashcards and study them on a SRS schedule] to courses of the State Department’s Foreign Service Institute.)
I’ve started to learn Mandarin and have begun employing a number of ideas from this book. I would highly recommend the book for anyone who is interested in learning another language, no matter what said language might be. (This is a book of “how to” learn, not “what to” learn.)
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“Beginning My Studies” by Walt Whitman [w/ Audio]
Beginning my studies, the first step pleas'd me so much,
The mere fact, consciousness -- these forms -- the power of motion,
The least insect or animal -- the senses -- eyesight -- love;
The first step, I say, aw'd me and pleas'd me so much,
I have hardly gone, and hardly wish'd to go, any further,
But stop and loiter all the time, to sing it in ecstatic songs.
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BOOKS: “Play” by Stuart Brown
Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul by Stuart M. Brown Jr.My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Amazon.in Page
Why does biology encourage play? Why does it stop encouraging play at some point? Should play end, or should one maintain a dedication to play throughout life? These are principal questions addressed by this book.
Brown explores the advantages of leading a playful life, and he doesn’t restrict himself to childhood play. In fact, the book doesn’t restrict itself entirely to human play, but also presents insights derived from the study of other playful species. One of the most profound lessons from the book comes from a story about a sled dog that has repeated playful interactions with a polar bear — a hungry polar bear, at that.
The book is presented more like an essay or a collection of essays than the usual popular science or pop psychology book. That is to say, it is not annotated and lacks a bibliography. The author sites the occasional book or study in the text, but it’s in the manner one would see in journalism or essays. This approach has its advantages, but the flipside of those advantages are the disadvantages. On the positive side, the author is able to communicate more freely, including the ability to discuss more speculative possibilities than one would expect from scientific reporting (with its usual “just the facts” approach.) Of course, the extensive speculation will be frustrating to readers who want to know what evidence has been produced for the proposed benefits. Furthermore, it often feels like the speculation in question is of the “when you’re a hammer every problem is a nail” nature — i.e. when one is a play researcher, one may be inclined to see play as a panacea for all the ills facing humanity (it surely is for some, but probably not all.) [To be fair, the book is almost fifteen years old, and I suspect it was / is probably harder than pulling teeth to get academic funding for play research outside of early childhood development, and so part of what the book was probably trying to do was build enthusiasm for supporting this kind of research, which necessitated talking about possibilities that were outside the known.]
The book does have a chapter on “the dark side of play.” It deals with compulsive behaviors like gambling and video game playing addiction (i.e. not people who like playing video games once in a while, but those who go 48 hours without sleep and who live in cave-like darkness to limit screen glare.) Much of the chapter argues that, while those problems are real and of concern, the activities aren’t play, not as per the definition presented early in the book.
This book does make a sound case for a number of benefits of play and for not abandoning play in one’s youth. If you’re interested in how play can help one to cope in a world of uncertainty, to keep one’s mind and body healthy, and to maintain or grow one’s capacity for imagination, this book is well worth reading.
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The Circle of Play [Lyric Poem]
Sometime not too distant,
There will come a day
When you will return to
A frequent state of play.
When that day comes around,
You'll have lost all concern
For the adults' belief that
Frivolity must be spurned.
You'll take to tossing balls
And climbing up the walls,
Just like you used to do
When you were one or two --
Before that human zoo
Got its hooks in you.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 