I’m not at liberty to say how this quote applies to me but suffice it to say that it does, and that I love it, and that it has helped me immensely over the past couple of months. Paying it forward…
Happy hump day, people.
Good evening! I write to you from my desk at work, where I am stuck in export hell. Six hours and counting to get five extremely short videos out the door and start my three-day weekend. I had a choice to stare at the Adobe Premiere countdown clock as it rose and fell and froze and rose and fell and froze for fifty-seven minutes at a time, or to write a few words here so as not to renege on my promise to myself to not disappear off the face of the blogging (and real) world.
I chose the latter, but I’m so exhausted that the words in question are not coming out very readily. Good thing it’s Friday when all I do is used to do was post links anyway.
So without further ado, two months’ worth of probably-by-now-obsolete digital clippings:
Decoding the rules of conversation.
Remember that fight over the white & gold / black & blue dress? How your language affects color perception.
The French answer to Eataly, open now.
Top 10 untranslatable French words. (The ninth is my favorite.)
These taste as good as they look. (I know because the day after I read about them I went to try them.)
Tricks and tips for planning your summer vacation.
How to best play the credit card airline miles game.
An American in Paris finds Paris in America.
There’s a dedicated raclette restaurant in New York!
3 research-based ways to speed up your language learning.
An official see-your-own-city campaign in NYC (I’ve been on an unofficial one for years).
And now my exports are finally done and I can be on my merry way to a long weekend of doing a whole lot of nothing. Enjoy yours!
[Photo: Tim Pierce]
So it turns out the longer you take a break from something, the harder it is to get back to doing it. I told myself I’d give myself a week off from blogging to focus on my work transition. One week turned into two and then three and now it’s been almost a month. Especially sad is that I didn’t post anything on April 21, my one year blogiversary. I had been planning to mark the occasion, but on that particular day and in the two weeks since I just felt too overwhelmed with job-related stuff. So my poor blog had to celebrate all on its own, silently and without fanfare. 😦
During my unintended hiatus, I neglected more than just the blog. I stopped doing my Spanish homework and quite frequently looked like this in class:
My last Spanish class was last night and now it’s up to me to carry on with it at home, after a month of slacking. Doesn’t bode well.
I also stopped going to my French conversation Meetups, ignored all emails and texts, and went for about one and a half runs total when in a good month I do two or three a week. In effect, all I’ve done is work, think about work, worry about work, semi-sleep, and over-eat.
Such is my way.
Luckily, my new place of employment’s foreign-ness – in every sense of the word – has been compensating for my lack of attention to all things foreign in my extracurricular life. It’s hands down the most international spot in all of New York – and really, anywhere. I’ve met people from about 20 different countries on six continents. I hear French constantly and I’ve spoken it nearly every day. I feel like I’m both at the world’s doorstep and on the world’s stage every time I walk through the doors.
Now in my third week on the job, I’m feeling a bit more acclimated and I’m starting to pick back up the other pieces of my life. Which, I hope, means I’ll be back to blogging regularly soon. We shall see…