To be fair, I don’t do my best thinking at 2am. This morning, tossing and turning and trying to get back to sleep, my mind started to wander. Sometimes I get up at this time and read a book before sleep overcomes me again. Other times I lay there thinking. I noticed my thinking at […]
University of the Third Age (U3A)
Today I went around to my parents as is my usual weekly routine to catch with their news over a cup of coffee or a wander in their garden. My father asked me about the University of the Third Age and how it was set up. I knew that it was an international not-for-profit organisation […]
Short Story….Submitted
Well today I finally submitted my short story (2363 words) for our local council’s My Brother Jack Creative Writing Award. It’s taken a long time to come up with the story and the character. However, I found the setting quite easily. I imagined what my street would have been like in 1942 and back then, […]
Top Tools for Learning 2022
It’s that time of the year again to submit for Jane Hart’s Top Tools for Learning. I’ve been doing this every year since 2012 she created this annual program which has now become a record of how the tools for my personal learning have changed over the years. This year has been a complete flip […]
My French Learning Update
I’ve written many posts here in my blog about how I’ve been learning French then integrating this language into my life as much as possible. It’s immersion by stealth. If you can’t visit or travel overseas to the country, we are spoiled for choice using technology and other ways to ensure we are surrounded by […]
Jouer Au Golf et Apprendre Le Francais Ensemble
What do you do if you feel you lack time when it comes to learning all the things you want to learn? Do it all in the one go. Find things that build upon each other. For example, I’m new to golf. And I’m a left handed golfer at that. Golf is a backwards sport. […]
Learning to Crochet
This week I’ve been learning a new skill (thanks to YouTube) and I fell in love with it. My friend Renee who lives in Spain and is a fluent French speaker (we chat in French every week), recommended Yolanda Figueroa’s YouTube channel where she runs crochet tutorials of tops that she’s created. The garments are […]
I Don’t Need No Education
Yesterday my friend Fiona, @White_Owly tweeted about a shift in education and it being more responsive to business needs. It started a conversation about further study. It got me thinking for a while because I’m at a point in my life where I’m thinking, “is this it?” Have I reached the nexus of my career […]
My French Learning Journey…What’s Next?
I can’t believe that when I started on my learning journey to become fluent in French, two years ago have passed. Since then, I have had my life enriched with new people I have met around the world who are French native speakers or francophiles who have helped and supported me along the way. I […]
The Debrief Funnel of Experiences
Yesterday I finished watching the recording of the last episode of SAS Australia which so happens to be one of my favourite shows on television. I wrote my reasons why in this post titled: Survival Training. In the last episode, they brought all the contestants back again for the debrief and it reminded me of […]
Your Alternate Life
This week a couple of people connected with me to tell me that they were taking up university studies to requalify into new potential new careers. I was happy for them as is always the case when people do something like this for themselves that sets them off on a new path of learning, a […]
Building my Aural Skills
One of the new things I’ve been trying to learn 220+ days into lockdown, is morse code. I wrote this in my last blog post Learning About the Secret Code Breakers of World War II. You have to understand that being close to two years and for much of it under the roof of my […]
Writing French Stories
I am writing short stories using a French picture dictionary for inspiration. For exercise, I flip open the dictionary and look at the pictures and definitions (there’s no English) so then I concoct a story in French using those words. It’s a way to contextualise the vocabulary I’m learning and in my mind’s eye, I […]
On Reading & Writing
I had to save this excerpt from Barry Lopez, About This Life which was shared by Robert McFarlane on Twitter recently. Just read it, it’s beautiful.
What Did You Miss in July?
It’s been a relatively quiet month because methinks it was the lockdown that really got me down….again. So I wasn’t my usual chirpy self. Most of the time, I just wanted to throttle stupidity I saw on Twitter and on television so I decided to vent my anger by starting a Covid Art Diary where […]
A Way To Improve Vocabulary in Language Learning
Many years ago, a girlfriend gave me an old French picture dictionary and I’ve wondered how I could use it as all the definitions of the words are in French too. She had bought it thinking that it would help her learn the language but as she was a complete beginner, the definitions weren’t much […]
Learning a Language Through Coursera
About a few weeks ago, I found the Etudier en France course on Coursera that is at a B1-B2 level. I hadn’t completed a Coursera course for many years and when I saw this, I thought it was time to get back into it again. If you do a search on MOOCs (massive open online […]
What Did You Miss in June?
A busy month of learning in June. Here’s what I wrote about: Separation & Flow – the importance of setting boundaries between work and play Levelling Up Your Skills through Mini Challenges Lockdown Lament A BS Mantra: Fake It Until You Make It When Subscriber Numbers Get Scary Books vs. Cigarettes Ways to Follow This […]
Updating my YouTube Channel
For the last week or so, I’ve been trying to put some semblance of order on my YouTube channel and in frustration, I’ve realised it’s a MASSIVE job. There are over 400 videos on the site and as it’s a channel that is used as a record of work and learning, a portfolio if you […]
The Immersive Language Experience At Home
I’ve been writing about my language learning journey with French (click on the Search box above and type in ‘French’ to see the list of blog posts) over the last 18 or so months and one of the things that I’ve been deliberating is whether “language immersion” works and whether we need to be IN […]