Lift Up Your Hearts!

...while I indulge in a bit of nostalgia.

We moved to Central Florida not long after Disney's EPCOT Center opened.  Our children were four and not-quite-two, so that first year we bought special Florida resident annual passes to the Disney World parks (all two of them).  This was a brilliant investment that enabled us to explore at our leisure and allow the kids to determine when it was time to go home.  We wanted to avoid the all too common scene of childish meltdown, caused by parents determined to squeeze every last minute out of their very expensive vacation.

(Very expensive?  Well, it was, though no one will believe that if I mention that I remember when the price of a one-day ticket went up to $17 for an adult.)

Actually, the girls usually held out better than I did, and we frequently stayed to enjoy the closing fireworks.  Their favorite park by far was EPCOT, perhaps because Disney characters and movies took up very little space in our lives, so the Magic Kingdom did not have the appeal it otherwise would have.  Had we not lived in Central Florida, I doubt we would ever have bothered with that all-American dream, a Disney vacation.  But living here has its perks, and between good deals for Florida residents and many opportunities to earn free tickets, Disney World, and especially EPCOT, played a significant role in shaping our children's memories.

So, for them, I present, Walt Dated World!  I found this site, dedicated to Disney World features that are no more, while searching for the original script for the Spaceship Earth ride.  The first ride that greets you as you walk into the park, it was once sponsored by AT&T, and Porter's AT&T ID card sent us to the front of the line, so we enjoyed it frequently, and watched it change over the years.  I think the best version was narrated by Walter Cronkite (1986-1994), but my personal favorite was the original, as I found its language less prosaic.

Where have we come from, where are we going?  The answers begin in our past.  In the dust from which we were formed, answers recorded on the walls of time.  So let us journey into that past, to seek those walls, to know ourselves and to probe the destiny of our Spaceship Earth.

On fine Phoenician ships, we take our scrolls to sea.

North, south, east, and west, all roads lead from Rome, a mighty network reaching across the land, welding far-flung garrisons into a growing empire.  Glorious Rome, until consumed by the flames of excess.  Imperial Rome, lost in the ashes of darkness!  [To this day I cannot smell lapsang souchong tea without recalling this part of the ride.]

In western abbeys, monks toil endlessly transcribing ancient wisdom into hand-penned books of revelation.

Behold, the majesty of the Sistine ceiling!

Poised on the threshold of infinity, we see our world as it truly is: small, silent, fragile, alive, a drifting island in the midnight sky.  It is our spaceship.  Our Spaceship Earth.

Stop by Walt Dated World and see what other treasures you can find.  I'll throw in a dash of childish delight!

Exposure To Two Languages Carries Far-Reaching Benefits  From this article at ScienceDaily, you can follow links to many other articles on bilingualism and language learning, some of which I'll also include below.

People who can speak two languages are more adept at learning a new foreign language than their monolingual counterparts, according to research conducted at Northwestern University. And their bilingual advantage persists even when the new language they study is completely different from the languages they already know. ... And they believe the bilingual advantage is likely to generalize beyond word learning to other kinds of language learning, including learning new words in one's own language and a very basic ability to maintain verbal information. ... Previous research already indicates that individuals who have formally studied two or more languages as adults more easily acquire a new language than monolinguals. New research even indicates that the onset of Alzheimer's disease in bilinguals is, on average, delayed by four years compared to monolinguals. ... The Northwestern researchers chose to study bilinguals who learned a second language at an early age and in a non-classroom study to avoid suggestions that their subjects simply were exceptionally talented or motivated foreign language learners.

Bilingual Babies: The Roots of Bilingualism in Newborns  It's never too early.

Children who hear two languages regularly in utero can not only recognize both languages after birth, but can distinguish one from the other.

Babies Raised In Bilingual Homes Learn New Words Differently Than [sic] Infants Learning One Language

An important part of language development is the ability to pay attention to native speech sounds to guide word learning. For example, English learners expect that the nonsense words "bih" and "dih" refer to different concepts because "b" and "d" are different consonant categories in English.  ...  [B]ilingual infants failed to notice the minimal change in the object's name until 20 months of age, whereas monolingual infants noticed the change at 17 months. ... This later use of relevant language sounds (such as consonants) to direct word learning is due to the increased demands of learning two languages, the researchers suggest. Ignoring the consonant detail in a new word may be an adaptive tool used by bilingual infants in learning new words. Outside the laboratory, there is little cost to overlooking some of the consonant detail in new words, as there are few similar-sounding words in infants' early vocabularies. By paying less attention to the detailed sound information in the word, bilingual infants can devote more cognitive resources to making the links between words and objects. ... Extending this approach to word learning for a few months longer than monolinguals may help bilinguals "keep up" with their peers. Indeed, previous research has shown that bilinguals and monolinguals achieve language-learning milestones (such as speaking their first word) at similar ages and have vocabularies of similar sizes when words from both languages are taken into account.

Words Influence Infants' Cognition from First Months of Life

Northwestern University researchers have found that even before infants begin to speak, words play an important role in their cognition. For 3-month-old infants, words influence performance in a cognitive task in a way that goes beyond the influence of other kinds of sounds, including musical tones. ... Three-month-old infants were shown a series of pictures of fish that were paired with words or beeps. ... Then infants were shown a picture of a new fish and a dinosaur side-by-side as the researchers measured how long they looked at each picture. If the infants formed the category, they would look longer at one picture than the other.  The results, say the authors, were striking. The researchers found that although infants who heard in the word and tone groups saw exactly the same pictures for exactly the same amount of time, those who heard words formed the category fish; those who heard tones did not.

Use It Or Lose It? Study Suggests The Brain Can Remember A 'Forgotten' Language  Give your child the gift of multiple language exposure, even if you think he'll never use it.

Many of us learn a foreign language when we are young, but in some cases, exposure to that language is brief and we never get to hear or practice it subsequently. Our subjective impression is often that the neglected language completely fades away from our memory. But does “use it or lose it” apply to foreign languages? Although it may seem we have absolutely no memory of the neglected language, new research suggests this “forgotten” language may be more deeply engraved in our minds than we realize. ... [E]xposing young children to foreign languages, even if they do not continue to speak them, can have a lasting impact on speech perception. The authors conclude, “Even if the language is forgotten (or feels this way) after many years of disuse, leftover traces of the early exposure can manifest themselves as an improved ability to relearn the language.”

Bilingual Children More Likely To Stutter  The news isn't all good.

Children who are bilingual before the age of 5 are significantly more likely to stutter and to find it harder to lose their impediment, than children who speak only one language before this age, suggests new research.

There's much more at that site, which I found more addictive than YouTube.  For example, Russian Readers Learn To Read More Accurately And Faster.  Must...Stop...Now....

With all the fuss lately about illness caused by salmonella in eggs from factory farms with highly dubious practices, it was especially delightful to take a trip—farther than the grocery store, but closer than our church—to Lake Meadow Naturals farm.  They have a pick-your-own program on Saturday mornings, and we did just that, reaching under the hens to retrieve a dozen warm-from-the-hen eggs, at a price of $3.50.

Unlike many of that designation, these hens really are free-range:  they were ranging all over the yard when we arrived, along with several other types of fowl, including guinea hens, which are the pest control service, being voracious eaters of ticks and other nasty bugs.

I really liked the look of the place, and the friendliness, and hope to return many times for wonderful, fresh eggs.  I'm a little disappointed that the yolks are not the deep orange color of the eggs Heather gets from her farming friends, and of the eggs we ate at the bed and breakfast in the Ticino part of Switzerland.  But there's no doubt these chickens are healthy, free-range, and lovingly cared for, so I'll be happy with that.  Maybe when their less-common breeds are laying I'll notice more of a difference.

We also bought two duck eggs, which were good, but not sufficiently discernable from chicken eggs to encourage a wholesale switch, since we paid $1 each for them.  Maybe next time we'll try the guinea hen eggs.  :)

I'm attacking my dauntingly long backblog again, applying the delete key ruthlessly on articles that are merely interesting.  Whatever the inverse of to decimate is, that's what I've done, killing off nine of every 10, and putting Li'l Writer Guy to work on what remains.  Casting the Net—which I'm reviving after a layoff long enough to have taken a baby from conception to the time most obstetricians would insist on induction—will pick up the ones of heightened interest that aren't compelling enough to demand a full post.

The good news?  It's getting a lot easier to look good in school:  Be on time, dress neatly, look interested, interact with the professor, do the homework—and the professor will love you, if you don't shock him into a heart attack.

Blunting the American Edge  Kara Miller, who teaches at Babson College in Massachusetts, reports that, as a rule (there are always exceptions), her foreign students are far more knowledgeable, engaged, and ambitious than her American students.

Apology for homeschooling  No, not an "I'm sorry" apology, though there are some elements of adolescent shyness in this new homeschooling father's essay, but apology in the old sense of a defense.  Despite a slightly annoying "we're not that kind of homeschooler" attitude, it's an amusing presentation of "the best way to answer a curious stranger's questions" versus "the whole truth."

Mrs. GSP: Do you use a curriculum?
Me: Oh, sure! Absolutely.
Real answer: Give me a break! These kids are 5 years old. ... That said, you could argue that Leslie has developed a fairly demanding curriculum. But that word comes with certain expectations that don't fit here. It isn't written down, it doesn't run on a set schedule, and it isn't based on lesson plans, piles of worksheets or a fixed rotation from subject to subject....

Mrs. GSP: What do you do about socialization?
Me: Oh, we've got a nice support network. They have a circle of friends. They do lots of classes and activities. They go to birthday parties and stuff.
Real answer: My public answer is OK, as far as it goes. But hang on a minute, lady: What do you mean by "socialization"? ... Ordinary schools tend to socialize children by way of enclosed, age-homogeneous pods, while home schooling tends to socialize children through a wide range of interactions with older kids, younger kids and adults, as well as peers. ... Do we regret not exposing our kids to the intense cultural melting pot of New York's school system? Sometimes, sure. But we're also not exposing them to bullying, arbitrary systems of order and discipline, age-inappropriate standards of behavior, and the hegemony of corporatized kid culture. Desmond and Nini have never heard of "Transformers," and we're OK with that.

The follow-up article is better, a hilarious, yet serious look at the results of their homemade curriculum based on myths and other stories of the ancient world.

[The children] were playing on the floor with a random assemblage of building blocks, figurines and toy vehicles, like a zillion other 5-year-olds around the world. ... I made some wry dad comment: Hindu gods at a Greek temple, ha ha ha. Literally jumping up and down with excitement, Desmond set me straight: "We're playing ancient times, Daddy, when there was trade between Greece and India! They traded stuff, and they traded ideas!"  Now, I'm not vouching for the soundness of Desmond's scholarship. Ancient contact between Greek and Indian civilization is plausible, according to historians, but entirely hypothetical. Furthermore, if it did happen it almost certainly did not involve motor vehicles. See, the way elephant-headed Ganesh and blue-skinned Vishnu are incarnated in Nini and Desmond's game, they look an awful lot like little die-cast metal cars. ...

Like many kids their age, Desmond and Nini had developed a fascination with the world of the Piston Cup and Radiator Springs [from the movie Cars]. They had an encyclopedic knowledge of the movie's characters and personal histories ... Well, I thought, if they can have this complex connection to Lightning McQueen, Doc Hudson, and Tow Mater, why not to Isis, Osiris, and Anubis? Or Zeus, Athena, and Aphrodite? At a time when they were so clearly eager to learn about the world around them, might it be possible to introduce them to its history in an age-appropriate and systematic way? ...

Right now, I have to go watch the story of how Ganesh got his elephant head (after losing his human one in an unfortunate misunderstanding), acted out by a couple of little kids with toy cars.

One thing I find attractive about Christianity is the balance it achieves between the physical and the spiritual:  when the heart of one's belief is that God became fully human while remaining fully God, it's hard to pretend that the spiritual and the physical are not both of supreme importance—and perhaps less separable than we would like them to be.  Psychologists are finding this truth in a surprising form.

Researchers have sought to determine whether the temperature of an object in someone’s hands determines how “warm” or “cold” he considers a person he meets, whether the heft of a held object affects how “weighty” people consider topics they are presented with, or whether people think of the powerful as physically more elevated than the less powerful.  What they have found is that, in fact, we do.

[S]ubjects were casually asked to hold a cup of either iced or hot coffee ... then a few minutes later asked to rate the personality of a person who was described to them. The hot coffee group, it turned out, consistently described a warmer person—rating them as happier, more generous, more sociable, good-natured, and more caring—than the iced coffee group. ...[S]ubjects were given clipboards [of two different weights, and] were asked to estimate the value of several foreign currencies.... [T]he subjects who took the questionnaire on the heavier clipboards...not only judged the foreign currencies to be more valuable, they gave more careful, considered answers to the questions they were asked. ... [S]ubjects who were asked to recall an unethical act, then given the choice between a pencil and an antiseptic wipe, were far more likely to choose the cleansing wipe than people who had been asked to recall an ethical act.

Ever wonder why British and American spellings are different if we theoretically speak the same language?  Color vs. colour, traveling vs. travelling, center vs. centre, aluminum vs. aluminium—are these inconsistencies merely some sadist's design to torment the multicultural child?^*  If so, Noah Webster was the man, but he thought he was making things easier.

We've been enjoying tremendously the Teaching Company lectures on the History of the English Language.   I can't recommend it enough:  we've learned many fascinating things about the evolution of our native tongue.  Recently the course touched on American lexicographer Noah Webster.

Dictionary-making has long been a battle between descriptivism and prescriptivism:  Should a dictionary merely reflect the language as it is, or should it be an authoritative recording of the language as it should be?  Noah Webster came down on the side of the prescriptivists, and he had definite ideas of how to clean up and simplify the language bequeathed unto us by those Brits we had so recently sent packing.

So he changed colour to color and centre to center, which he decreed made more sense.  Aluminum vs. aluminium is a more compicated story:  Sir Humphry Davy, who named the element, kept changing his mind, calling it first alumium, then aluminum, then aluminium.  Scientists preferred aluminium, but Noah Webster latched onto aluminum, and as the metal became common enough to enter popular discourse, to what did writers turn for authoritative spelling?  Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language.

I'm working on getting Li'l Writer Guy home from Switzerland, but in the meantime, enjoy this wonderful story of a three-year-old who saved her father's life by walking to a nearby fire station and asking for help.  Note both that young children can be much more competent than we generally expect these days, and that this competence did not arise in a vacuum, but had been nurtured by her parents.  It doesn't have to be, in the words of the reporter, "very un-three-year-old-like."

I can't embed the video, but you can find it on the right of the above-linked page, or here.  (H/T Free-Range Kids.)

The Caller ID number was local; in fact, it was from the town where our church is located, so I answered the phone, fully expecting a recorded message about upcoming parish events.

Instead, it was a live person.  Because she asked to speak with a family member who is currently nearly 5000 miles away, I asked if I could take a message.

"There ain't no message," the caller responded.  "I'll call back."

Well.  There ain't none of our friends who talk like that, so I figured this was a solicitation call of some sort and hung up.  (I'm tempted to tell the next caller that I'm voting in the upcoming election for anyone who does not call to solicit my vote.)  But I wonder.  Who would entrust his message to someone who talked like that to potential customers/voters?

Then again, I shouldn't be so hard on her.  She was probably a minimum-wage hireling, and I've seen worse from official business documents, major newspapers, and professional websites.  I know that language evolves, but "anything goes" cannot be the mark of a higher civilization.

New Year's Resolution #8—in which I detail my renewed attempts at organizing my life—notwithstanding, my dear friend, whose birthday it is today, knows well that it will be a long time before I am half as organized as she was 30 years ago, if not from birth.

Thus it will be a disappointment, perhaps, but no surprise, that my new scheme is not well enough in place for a real, physical birthday card to be arriving at her lovely home in today's mail.  There's hope for next year, but in the meantime, since she is a Faithful Reader and can be counted on to see this post, if not on the day, at least close to it, I offer this substitute:

Happy Birthday, my friend!

You have been an organizational inspiration to me ever since you taught me that laziness is the best motivator.  (And yes, it is easier to have the spices in alphabetical order!)

Just as with #2 Rediscover Feasting, there's a lot more to this resolution than meets the eye.  But if I called this resolution "Get Organized," it would sound boring and not a few of my readers would laugh.

I'm not naturally an organized person, and I've made many attempts to "get my life together."  Some have been more successful than others, but none has stood the Stress Test:  Nearly any system can work when conditions are right, but the only one worth implementing is one that won't fall apart when the floodwaters of life start to rise.   In my case, "floodwaters" is loosely defined to include any disruption in my schedule, bad or good:  from hurricanes and illnesses to vacations and visitors.

That's why I'm so excited about Getting Things Done:  I saw how well Janet's implementation (and she's still tuning it) worked as she made the transition from teacher/graduate student to full-time, first-time mother, a definite stress test, and definitely successful.  I've only just begun to try to implement some of the GTD ideas in my life, and I'm not Janet, but there are promising signs.  If I can avoid any significant stress tests before I get it securely in place, I have great hope.

What does this have to do with enjoying spontaneity?  To paraphrase Winston Churchill:  Organization is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.  It's very difficult for me to relax (see Resolution #3) and enjoy spontaneous activities—or planned activities for that matter—when the thousand-and-one items on my personal to-do list are whispering, nagging, or screaming at me from my subconscious mind.  Whether or not other people would agree with me on the importance or urgency of the items on this list is not the point.

In order to hang out with friends or take a long, aimless walk and truly have nothing on your mind, you’ve got to know where all your actionable items are located, what they are, and that they will wait.  And you need to be able to do that in a few seconds, not days. (GTD)

GTD is not, first and foremost, about getting things done.  It's a consolidation loan for the disorganized:  all your activity debts—everything you must do, should do, or might want to do—are gathered into one system, with a plan for paying them off in small, easy, but consistent steps.  In the process, mental health improves, creativity is unleashed, and ... Things Get Done.  That's the theory:  we'll see if I will soon be able to say, as Janet did: 

[GTD] turned my life around from always feeling overwhelmed and behind to feeling like I knew where I stood and how to get where I wanted to go.  This freed my mind up to enjoy time relaxing with people rather than always worrying about the known and unknown things I had to do.

Then I will have a chance of being able to enjoy spontaneity.

Progress Report

#1  Read More Books  Now that's more like it!  I'm back on track with six books in July.  I was partly inspired by knowing I had only one month to enjoy Janet and Stephan's library, and partly because it's easy do what the people around you are doing, and Janet and Stephan are often to be found book-in-hand.  Even when they are also baby-in-hand.

#2  Rediscover Feasting  In the land of fabulous bread, cheese, and chocolate, how can you not feast?  The trick is in returning to "ordinary time" at home.  I'm still working on it.

#3  Learn to Relax  I bought a book on Alexander Technique from Janet's teacher, though I only read half of it this month—when I remembered that I would be taking it home with me, I switched my attention to books I would be leaving behind.  I've been trying to increase my awareness of my muscles and trying to learn to relax them.  I also hope to learn something from observing Stephan's way of reacting slowly and calmly to situations, instead of with my normal adrenaline surge....

#4  Like More Things  For progress on this resolution I highly recommend spending six weeks in a foreign country.  Make that living six weeks in a foreign country.  There's something about living daily life that transforms the new from strange to comfortable—or even delightful.

#5  Pay Attention  I keep forgetting about this one.  I got distracted during a critical turn on a walk in Bern and didn't realize what I had missed until I was required to retrace my steps on my own—but I eventually figured it out.  In other areas of life—such as my inveterate multi-tasking—I need to work harder even to think about this resolution, let alone make progress.

#6  Cast Away Fear  Solo travel, living in a foreign country, and childbirth provide good opportunities for practicing Philippians 4:6.  If my victories are baby steps, they are steps nonetheless, and I'm happy about them.

#7 Talk Less, Listen More Whether or not it was visible to those around me, I made some progress here.  It's easier when the conversation is in a foreign language.  :)

... When you're doing a crossword puzzle, the clue is "big name in chips," and you immediately think "Intel."

The answer was "Wise."

I've mentioned Steph Shaw before, when I wrote about Kevin Michael Johnson's Kickstarter campaign (successfully completed; The Raid is moving forward). 

Now Steph has her own Kickstarter project:  creating a full-length album of her new songs.

I've teamed up with producer Sean McClowry here in NYC & we've narrowed down our fav songs for my record. I'm excited to be bringing you all some new music.

The songs are all written.
Producer is on board.
What next?

Well, the cool thing about this project is that, since I'm an independent artist, I basically have total creative freedom -- no record label peeking over my shoulder. However, that also means that it's up to me to come up with the funds to take this on.

Go Steph!

Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen (Penguin, New York, 2001)

For now, I can't do any better than to refer you to Janet's review of Getting Things Done.  I found it a difficult book to read, even unpleasant, because it's not well written, and makes my mind feel like a hamster on a wheel:  running a lot but not getting anywhere.

But if Allen's book is disappointing, his ideas still inspire me—even if I did have to come at the ideas the wrong way around, from what other people have said about them.  Most inspirational was seeing Janet's version of the system in action, though I know I would have gotten more out of her explanations—and maybe out of the book—if I'd attempted to implement some of the ideas myself, first.

The book wasn't nearly as much fun to read as Don Aslett's books on controlling clutter, but I think they have a lot in common.  Getting Things Done is a lot about controlling the clutter in our minds.

"What's the next action?"  The answer to Allen's favorite question is, "Implementation."  But that's not really an answer, since "implementation" isn't a discrete action, but a mammoth project.  I hope to accomplish some baby steps this week, and—eventually—report back on the results.

Catching up a bit, since I missed July 4:

Happy Independence Day

to my country, and

Happy Schweizer Bundesfeier

(Fête nationale Suisse, Festa nazionale svizzera, and Fiasta naziunala Svizra)

to my country-in-law!