So it’s a bit eye opening to realise that I turned 52 yesterday. The body says I’m 52 but in my mind, I’m 25. At least, that’s what I tell myself when I look in the mirror and notice the skin that’s going papery, the wrinkles around my eyes and the random hairs that seem […]
Enjoying the Moment
I think the whole COVID saga has been some kind of blessing in my life. I don’t usually use words like “blessing” as it has some kind of religious connotations. I’m not religious by any stretch of the imagination however, I believe I am spiritual so I’ll go with the word….for now. An alternative word […]
30 Day Learning Challenge
Recently I found a tweet that had a language learning challenge over 30 days that I wanted to try out: I decided to give it a go and see how it all pans out. A few French speaking people have been helping me along – most prefer to give their feedback through Direct Message as […]
What Did You Miss In March?
It’s been an interesting month where I continued with my French but also shared some work-related projects I’ve been doing related to virtual teambuilding activities, learning OBS and also lots of interesting books. Here’s what you may have missed. The Blogs Learning OBS (I had a lot of fun learning this tool and doing some […]
On Self-Critiquing
Yesterday I filmed a short book review about Nassim Nicholas Taleb on his book, Skin in the Game. Although it may look like I create the footage in the one go, usually it involves a lot of stops and starts where I wait until I get into some conversational flow in front of the camera […]
Getting Off the Social Media Grid?
I know a lot of people in my network nowadays have stopped writing, left their blogs by the wayside, have moved to different social networks and online communities. I get that. Life gets in the way and let’s face it, social networks nowadays are not a safe place to be. You can get sucked into […]
Daily Meditation
So I know that this is going to sound a bit new age however, one of the things I started to do this year, aside from focusing on learning a new language to fluency, was a focus on my mental health and wellbeing. Also more of a focus on leisurely pursuits and taking time to […]
Qu’est-ce que j’ai fait cette semaine?
Learning to write French requires practice and lots of feedback. By doing writing a blog post in French and then seeking feedback from my French speaking network, I’m able to correct the written phrases. Here’s what I got up to this week. A BIG Merci to Rotana Ty (@rotanarotana) for this weeks corrections! Cette semaine […]
Working and Learning Out Loud
I have written a lot of transparent work and learning practices on this blog over the years so I thought I’d revisit the theme again. The reason for this was a recent Twitter conversation started by a question asked by Jayne Davids (@Jaynedavids) who is my ‘go to’ expert in my Personal Learning Network on […]
Stop 4: Un Ganais en Lyon
I bid farewell to Vèzelay and my next stop was going to be to Clermont-Ferrand, a city in the Auvergne Rhôbe-Alpes region so that I could climb its dormant volcano Puy de Dôme. It’s a city known as a “tectonic hotspot” but the recent earthquake scare in New Zealand and threat of tsunami, (after all, […]
Update on Social Media
Early this year, I did a massive clean up and decluttering of both physical and online “stuff”. It was a cathartic experience to ditch a lot of things, clean out the garage as well as streamline all documents, files, photos and videos on the cloud. It had to be done and now I can progress […]
Learning OBS
I have finally gotten around to downloading OBS (the free streaming software) on both my Mac and PC. On the Mac, you need to do some extra things because you need to download additional software but it works like a dream on the PC. Some time ago, Darrell (@DarrellaaS) told me about OBS but I […]
What Did You Miss in February?
Thanks to the deletion of social media on my phone, the removal of notifications and a bit of insomnia thrown in, my mojo for writing, creativity and learning has come back! Yay! It’s been a MAD writing month with some creativity thrown in where I am now on a fictional travel adventure around France in […]
Stop 3: Do You Know the Way to Vézelay?
I left Guèdelon with a tinge of sadness as I enjoyed my week learning medieval construction techniques and in particular, how to make traditional ceramic roof tiles. Part of me was disappointed that I learned a skill I would never use again. After all, when will I ever have an opportunity to tile a steep […]
Qu’est-ce que j’ai fait cette semaine?
Big thank you to my friend Céline Schillinger who helped me out with the French corrections this week in purple. Big thank you to Kevin Le Vaillant once again who has helped me out this week in the blue writing. Learning to write French requires practice and lots of feedback. By doing this, I’m learning […]
Day 2: Guèdelon Castle
I’m continuing my discovery of the Burgundy region in France, taking my time to explore the Top 50 places in France on a whim. (See more WHY I’m doing this and where I started the journey here at Virtual Tour of Les Hospices de Beaune) This morning, I checked out of the delightful accomodation and […]
Day 1: Virtual Tour of Les Hospices de Beaune
Last night my husband asks me, “how about a trip to Paris in November?” My reaction? I know that it’s highly unlikely we’ll be travelling anywhere internationally for the next two possibly up to five years, sadly. What he meant to ask me is that we buy a couple of tickets to go see the […]
Baking
One of the things I’ve been doing a lot more with my time is cooking and baking things that I’ve never done before in an effort to try something new. I find I get into a rut sometimes and revert to cooking and preparing dinner that is something tried and tested because it means it […]
Learning Languages Ruined My Life
Phoenix shares his story of how he found a book in a bookstore called, “The Moral Obligation to Be Intelligent” (a book by Lionel Trilling) and how it made him think about how learning languages makes you intelligent BUT it comes at a cost. They are both painful. Painful in the sense that it gives […]
What Did Ya Miss in December?
Here’s my December posts you may have missed out on Nostalgia (a blog post on thinking about the past) Spaced Repetition in Learning (on the importance of repetition in order to learn something new) What I Learned About Myself – and About Learning – While Learning French Reflections of 2020 (2020 was a year where […]