Day 36 (October 3) – Parlez-Vous…?

language cdsYesterday night I didn’t manage to make it to the Team In Training practice – I was just too damned tired. I did, however, make a nice dinner for H and me ;-) What can I say?

Today I met with a business colleague at the Farmer’s Market, and started noodling on my next RVMC article. I am excited about it, and will post it here. It has to do with the fact that doing things that enervate you not only take the time that you are doing them, but the time you are “thinking about” them and that they are “bringing you down,” whereas things that energize you have all sorts of benefits outside of just doing them.

Today also, I found out that Brian and Niamh – my “adopted nephew and nice” – have cross country running meets, and I really would like to go. If I do that, I’m not sure that going to Crossfit this evening is going to work. We’ll see.

Why? What else could I be doing? Funny you should ask . . .

Last night I got the Bright Idea of checking out our public library catalog online, to see if they had any language CDs. My theory is that I could copy the CDs to iTunes, then have them available for car rides, cleaning the house, etc. Not only did I find out that the library had such a thing, but that Tiburon’s library had a whole SECTION of them. I had to go to Mill Valley to pick up some Glutathione and Glutathione Recycler from my nutritionist, and Tiburon is just the next town over, so . . . I packed up my computer, and . . .

Here I am! Right now, I’m sitting in the Tiburon library, downloading language CDs. I left my phone in the car, but I think I am going to go out and get it, to just take a picture. It’s pretty funny. This is what I’m downloading:

In-Flight (Learn Before You Land) CDs – these are single CDs that are designed to be listened to while you are “flying to” whatever the country is that features that language. They do have a small “cheat sheet” of phrases in them, but supposedly each one of the CDs is self-contained (e.g., you don’t have to refer to a book), and they all have the same “chapters”: How to ask directions; How to get places; How to count; etc. The languages I have here are:
*Swedish
*Spanish
*Russian
*Polish
*Turkish
*Korean
*Hungarian
*Thai
*Japanese
*German
*Portuguese
There are others – obviously, just about every language – they just don’t happen to be on the shelves.

I also have 2 Pimsleur “Quick & Simple” ones (4 CDs each) in
*Japanese
*German
*Czech

Then I have “Living Language” in Chinese, Farsi, and both Spanish and French For Travelers (3 CDs for each language – advertised as “No Books Necessary!”); “Learn in your Car” in German; and Berlitz “Rush Hour” CDs in Italian (which looks like 3 CDs).

There was Hebrew, Greek, a few others on the shelves, but they were on audio cassette. The Swedish one just finished copying – time to “pop” the next one in . . .

When R reads this she’s going to think I’m a maniac. LAUGH! Not really – I just realized that I’m in my car, cleaning, cooking, etc. for hours every day. I figure what the heck, if I pick up ONE thing in ONE language that might help us, so much the better!

P.S.: Just went out while the Portuguese CD was copying, got my phone, and took a photo of the “pile,” which I will post at the head of this very silly post ;-)