Best rainy night. Ever.

Status: irrelevant but glorious

I really can't tie this to any of my 101, but it's too good not to post about. It's rainy and cold. And here I need to defend myself. It may be a toasty 12 degrees centigrade, but my little terrace house has no radiators, no central heating, no fireplace... Basically no source of heating better than my doona (duvet for the non-Australians) - it feels cold. So I went to the supermarket for a new hot water bottle, decked out in an outfit to match the calibre of my night. The black opaques and merino sweater stayed on from this morning but then I dug up my oldest, daggiest track pants, traded my ugg boots for gumboots and topped it off with the BF's hoodie and a green umbrella. Picked up dinner supplies that were heavy on cheese, as well as the hot water bottle, and splashed in every puddle on the way there and the way back, via the bottle shop for red wine - bien sur. Arrived home to discover my flatmate's completely forgotten, completely unwatched season of Gossip Girl. Five episodes, half a bottle, and a mini magnum ice cream later, I can still hear the rain outside. 

Musings from the airline lounge

I have so many homes these days - Brisbane, Sydney, New York, M House at #42, My other House at #44, my Sydney bookstore, my NY bookstore, and... the various homogeneous airline lounges of the world's international airport. Current home = BA Terrace Lounge, San Francisco, awaiting flight to Sydney. Upside: we have the cute, painted-all-over, Aborignal-design jumbo. Downside: awaiting a flight to Sydney. Ugh. Laptop is charging, but will clearly last nowhere near the whole way home, even if it is my beloved macbook. Need second G&T.

Now that we've sorted out my whereabouts, a quick update.

Kiva (#4 new): received my first loan repayment of $2.50 yesterday. I was so pleased - I'd sort of forgotten about it being a loan and great to realise the woman I lent to has things progressing smoothly with her business and is on track with repayments. On my side, I'm finishing up my application to spend a few months with them - fingers crossed.

Project365 (#41 new): still going. Had a very uninspired week a couple of weeks ago, with plenty of 11pm photos, but am back on track now - even if I'm really starting to struggle with airplane photos (though really mustn't complain)

Galleries (#71 new): three weeks in NY and only one gallery visit - shocking really - but it was a good one - The Frick Collection - loved it

Spanish (#76 new): going well - putting in a couple of hours a day of study and starting to understand the signs on the subway - though was much confused by the signs on the bathroom doors in the airport today - caballeros y damas? what happened to hombres y mujeres?? Apparently it's a bathroom thing.

Feeling like my old tasks are getting a bit neglected, but I haven't forgotten them. Some aren't super-relevant in my Lady of Leisure mode, but I trust they will be again before too long.

Adios!

Estudio Espanol (no, I don't know how to do the squiggly thing over the n yet)

Status: In progress

As I mentioned, it took me some courage to convince myself that language software was really worth USD500, but I got there. And it is. Worth every cent. 

My previous experience studying spanish was as a 4th year engineering student with one elective: SPAN1000 - Introduction to Spanish. The class was great. 6-8pm, twice a week for a semester. Our engineering classes usually finished at 3 or 4, so my engineering buddy and I would hit the student bar for a few hours of v cheap cocktails to get us in the mood. Our earnest first-year-arts classmates gave us v disapproving looks at the start of every class, but we didn't mind, we were much more fluent than they were. Or happily thought we were, which is just as good, right?

So, how is rosetta different? The booze is easily replicated, though now it's just a civilised glass of shiraz on the sofa. I feel like rosetta is a slightly stricter teacher. Back in SPAN1000, I usually got away with speaking some form of "spanish-sounding French," using 7 years of French study as a comfortable crutch. And it worked (High Distinction, just in case you were wondering....) Now I get a very unhappy gameshow-wrong-answer noise when I'm lazy with pronunciation or grammar. There's also no tuning out while the other 11 students have a go at saying Hola. It's one-on-one, 100% - perfect for a Gen-Y attention-seeker. 

Despite the required concentration and strictness, it's fun and satisfying. I'm up to past and future tenses now, which is opening up a whole new world of possibilities. There's really only so far you can go with: I'm from Australia, I like swimming, I am sleeping, it is morning, it is sunny. It's a strange way of learning. I felt a bit panicky without any verb tables to hang onto, but you really do just sort of figure it all out.

A few other points to note: unlike blogging, this activity is not entirely transferrable to a cafe or plane environment. Four repetitions of "A-par-ta-men-to" will eventually garner some strange looks from fellow diners/travelers. There is an option to turn off the speech-recognition function, but it's only feasible for about an hour before you feel like you should go home and catch up on the speaking parts. Or maybe that's just me - diligent student that I am.

I also think rosetta (I feel that, 60 hours in, we're on first name terms) could profitably market the program as a weight loss aid. I frequently snack while learning, talking, reading, doing most things really, but have given up even trying while using rosetta. The instant you pop that piece of chocolate in your mouth, you're prompted to repeat "The book is under the bed" and it KNOWS if you're eating and will make lots of gameshow-wrong-answer noises until you swallow and speak clearly. Equally, when you reach for a handful of chips, you'll be asked to choose between "The man has 3 red apples" or "The woman has 3 green apples" and scramble to manipulate the macbook touchpad with an elbow or wrist.

The course has come at just the right time. There was only ever going to be so much full-time "Lady of Leisure-ing" I could take - turns out about a month. The day before the rosetta package arrived I found myself cleaning out the bottom drawer in the bathroom, cooking a roast dinner for 2 friends and thoroughly defrosting the freezer. I have never before felt compelled to defrost a freezer - it was a low point. Now, I spend a few hours a day learning Spanish and have a renewed sense of purpose. Fun.

Apologies for rambling.

Hasta manana (again, can't type the squiggle and don't know how to say later, rather than tomorrow - so guess I'll be posting tomorrow)

Another month, another mosaic

Status: In progress

I like that April has 30 days: it fits better into a mosaic. Admittedly, my original April had 32 days, but after much head-scratching I found the culprit doubles - continually crossing the dateline can really mess with Project365. In reverse order, but am too lazy to correct it.

#New 4. Lend $100 on Kiva

Status: Complete

My goal to lend $100 on Kiva was super-easy to complete. I found 4 very worthy recipients and look forward to re-lending the money as it is repaid. I was actually so impressed with the Kiva concept that I'm seriously looking into applying for a 3 month fellowship with them in Central America at the end of the year. I've got some unexpected time to spare in this economic downturn, and have no inclination to jump straight back into the very flat world of finance. Not profitably, at any rate. The Central America part has led to goal (New) #76 - Learn Spanish. More on that soon. With any luck, the last few months of this blog may very well come to you from Nicaragua...