Learning Brings on INSTANT HAPPINESS

I have been grumpy over the last couple of days. It's nothing personal, Reader. I was feeling down that my tax situation had changed for 2014 and I didn't know until I went to deliver my 2013 info to my accountant on Monday. What a shocker. Now I have to pay something like a GAZILLION percent more taxes and I have to RE-BILL everyone I have billed this year and have no idea how that is supposed to look. Sigh.

As I seem to be the MOOD BAROMETER in my house, I realized I needed to do something quick to change my outlook this morning. If I am a toad at home, so is everyone else, which quickly becomes unbearable for all of us.

My same accountant who gave me the shocker news on Monday, also gave me a gem of an app to download (Did I tell you that I chose him as my accountant almost exclusively because I knew he was technological? It's true. My last accountant took weeks to answer emails and when he did they were written all in CAPS: AVOID NON-TECHIE ACCOUNTANTS! My accountant now even has his own app where you can calculate IRPEF and everything!). Have you seen it? It's called Memrise. It uses the latest research on learning to help you learn languages. So I downloaded it and decided to choose a language NOT because I thought it would be practical, but because I just liked the idea of it.

And, besides giving me IMMEDIATE JOY the moment I started learning the new language, I found an amazing benefit a few hours afterwards when I was watching an IKEA video about how to decorate extremely small spaces.

The interior decorator ended his talk by saying "Hej då" and I realized that Swedish is indeed practical for me! 

JOY!!!

No Carbs to the Rescue

I am still grain-free and it feels great (as of yesterday I had lost 7kilos in about two weeks, I lost 6 in the first week alone and in the second I lapsed and am getting serious again). I am also limiting my alcohol intake to once or twice a week (I'm off the mandatory glass of wine with dinner kick) and trying to keep going off the diet wagon for the weekend.

Today I started the Robin Sharma 30-day diet of doing one thing per day that you have been putting off. Last night I made a list of about 50 things I should be doing but keep finding excuses for putting on the backburner.

This morning I woke up at 5am, I ran, I wrote for pleasure, I updated my résumé, I am blogging.

And it's only 6:10. I think it's going to be a productive day. It is incredible how sometimes just writing things down can get you a lot closer to getting things done than simply worrying about them in your head.

Plus I'm Trying a Wacky Diet

Which I believe I have identified is the Paleo diet, vegetarian version. This means you eat ONLY things that were available to our early ancestors, the Hunters and Gatherers.

No bread. No grains in general. Plants and fruit and nuts. Meat, too if you can hunt it down (I do not). Dairy is not a good idea.

I have been on it for a week and have lost 6 Kilos (13.2 pounds). Which, by the way, is a LOT of weight in a week and makes you feel GORGEOUS and THIN and LIKE A SUPER MODEL.

Now the SKEPTICS in my midst HATE THIS and say things like:

"It's all WATER WEIGHT, you know!"

They DO NOT say this, of course, when I GAIN 6 Kilos. Because when it GOES ON it is just plain LARD on your ass.

When it comes off, it is WATER. Hmmph.

I put a name on this wondrous thing when I found THIS 

I cannot resist a diet site that uses Lego people in such a masterful way.

I am a convert. Let's hope it lasts and I don't go back to crack, bread.

If this doesn't work for you, try reading WHEAT BELLY by William Davis. My brother (a doctor) recommended it and I tried it last summer. He chalks most of the evil in the world to Wheat and puts forth some really good arguments about it.

Conclusions after one week.

Going off Bread makes you hate the world for three whole days, which means it is an addiction.
Once you are effectively OFF bread, you stop hallucinating about pizza and breadsticks and, magically, STOP BEING HUNGRY. (just kidding, I still hallucinate about pizza, but that is a CHEESE problem more than a Bread issue).

Let me just put some emphasis on the fact that I no longer feel ravenous hunger 24 hours a day. This is a breakthrough.

Yeah, and I can fit into my jeans again. Hooray for water weight.

Let's All Learn to Code TOGETHER!

I was lucky enough to grow up in a family that had a computer from the time they became affordable. Yes, we had a Timex computer first (Mmmm Hmmm, they made computers), then the Commodore 64, the Apple Macintosh and finally the Apple II (sweet upgrade) before going to a hand-me-down 386 when my dad upgraded to a 486IBM clone.

I remember using DOS commands and going to internet chat rooms that were full of college kids around the world (my favorite one was in Brazil and created by students at a University in Sao Paolo). How crazy to think that my first exposure to the internet was BEFORE I knew anything about Windows. I never did figure out how to get my Power Mac on line (1G of memory was so vast. It was the first time I had ever heard that word. I thought that computer would remain THE BEST forever!!). I can still hear the unmistakable Apple "chime" it made when I turned it on (Apple was first to do that -- an instant classic like the original Nokia ringtone).

I am old enough to remember when floppy disks were floppy, I remember having to WRITE a program as homework for Math class (fifth grade: my project? An image of a Peace Sign. Much more creative than your average first and last name repeated on the screen diagonally. Sigh. My brother helped me.)

After college I worked at a web design studio over the summer for my brother who was the art director there. He gave me work to do but made me learn how to do basic html programming. He gave me a pamphet-like book and told me to take it home and read it. He had me doing practical exercises the next morning and helping out with a real site in the afternoon (a hotel in Milwaukee). I am still greatful for that experience.

Here is what I learned from basic programming:

1. Problem-Solving
2. Perseverence.
3. Failing and starting over.
4. Every comma, dot and space count.
5. It is the most useful skill you can have in modern society. Programers are gold. Their hours are billable, their work is measurable. They change the world on a daily basis.

That was my fleeting contact with the world of programming. UNTIL NOW!!

See, I discovered code.org where I am taking a free online course in computer science.

Free online courses rock. Programming rocks. I am on my way to changing the world.

Talk later.

Some thoughts on Language Learning on this fine day

1. There is no such thing as a Useless language. In fact, my advice to young people is to find the language that most people think is useless and learn it, not for proficiency (mediocrity) but for fluency (excellence). Then see how many opportunities pop up because you have what most people do not.

2. You do not choose a language for how practical it is for your current context, but rather how useful YOU WILL BE to serve others once you know it well.

3. If you took two years of foreign language (or 3 or 4) in high school, you did not really have that much contact with the language. Break it down. How many hours was it? If it was at least 450 hours of contact with the language then you can probably function at an okay level. If it was less than that, don't be depressed. You didn't put enough time in. But it's not too late and those hours will not be wasted if you add contact hours NOW.

4. Learn as many languages as you can. Try to cover the different language families so that you can understand as many people as possible from very different cultures.

5. Starting kids on languages will NOT in any way interfere with learning of their native language. It will also not give them an accent. You can only help them by adding languages to their repertoire. The more the merrier.

6. Fluency in a language is a result of daily practice and deliberate immersion experiences created by YOU.

7. You do not get fluent in a language just because you live in a country that speaks that language. Language acquisition is deliberate.

8.  Grammar will not get you fluent, but it will make you a better speaker once you are.

9. Knowing a foreign language can be exhilerating and one of the most satisfying experiences of your life once you get through the heartbreak of learning it.

10. Learning a language is hard and it often makes you feel silly, stupid and inadequate. It can throw you into a deep depression, especially  if you are living abroad. However, it is temporary and you can never become fluent in a new language until you know how this feels.

11. Treat language acquisition like marathon training. Make a plan and kick it up a notch every time you start to feel comfortable-- that is what gets you to the next level.

12. Language learning is not easier for kids. They just practice more, don't get embarassed and have low expectations for themselves. They don't mind making mistakes in front of others.

We did it!

Cristian and Alessandro running Pino.

Last Sunday was the Bavisela and Cristian and I and a team of five others ran it together pushing our friend, Pino, in a wheelchair (we each pushed one kilometer at a time and rotated). He was the technical director of the Bavisela and had a stroke two years ago. His wife helped us plan it all (actually Cristian was the captain of the team and organized it with Pino's wife). We did one practice run before the race and then decided to just wing it on race day.

I was the slowest one on the team, but I didn't care, they let me set the pace, which was good because we all finished together. In the end, Pino crossed the finish line himself with his wife on one side and us on the other. Pretty impressive and moving.

The other moving thing was coming back to the finish line after lunch and waiting for the final person to come in, a woman who finished in 6 hours on crutches after getting lost (!!) somewhere in Aurisina towards the beginning of the race. Sandra (Pino's wife) and I unrolled the ribbon and let her walk through it.

She got the loudest applause of all. That is what is great about running.