Healthy Eating

Most of us can agree that fresh fruits and veggies are a good thing. Here's a neat post I stumbled across today that gives even more incentive to indulge in natural goodness, as well as clue us in on how to remember the specific benefits of each.

The picture and explanation about figs made me giggle.

That is all.

Strength

Deep rumbles of thunder tear across the flat gray sky before burying themselves into the foundations of the house. Rain begins its determined assault against the windows, splattering and pattering with an insistence that cannot be ignored. I follow the siren's call and gaze out at the storm raging outside.

And then I am blinded. The sun pierces the clouds and all becomes unbearably bright, raindrops transformed into drops of iridescence against the glass. Through pained eyes I see shards of sunlight fall and form auras around trees and grass. The shards fall harder even as, by force of sheer will, the sun burns away the gloom. Clouds part, and suddenly all is blue. And wet. And the rain no longer falls on the west side of the house, but on the east instead in a slow, steady march. It cannot bear the face of the sun for long.

How strange. I can actually hear the storm moving off into the distance. How strange, that it was here at all, I think, as I turn back to gaze at the sky.

It seems impossible. But the glistening moisture saturating the land says otherwise. And I'm reminded that being caught in the rain is always more bearable, even joyous, when blue skies and the sun are present.

Hmm...

I'm beginning to think that I need a "Baby" label on my email account. The good news and subsequent updates just continue to pour in :)

Reviewing the Kanji

For the past couple of weeks I've been trying to do something related to Japanese for at least an hour every day. My activities bounce around from Rosetta Stone and shadowing to laughable attempts at writing and watching J-dorama (for the listening and comprehension practice, I swear!). And to be honest, I really enjoy each aspect.

Lately though, I've had an itch to practice reading... which means assessing my love-hate relationship with kanji. On the one hand, it's absolutely fascinating and rather fun to gather and convey meaning through the use of symbols. On the other, who in their right mind isn't intimidated by memorizing over 3,000 symbols and trying to make sense of them? Thus, finding the right approach is crucial... along with finding a way to push these little bundles of lines over to the love side.

The method I'd found a while ago: James Heisig's "Remembering the Kanji". Associating images with the correct kanji seemed like an instant win for someone who would much rather concoct stories to memorize than sit down for endless repetition with pen and paper that provide no context and thus get lost to the wind the next day.

But there was a slight problem. How to efficiently review the kanji and their stories once I'd gone to the trouble of memorizing them. Hand flashcards became unwieldy at the 50 mark,
and because of the way stories build on themselves, it was impossible to find the card that held the kanji I needed a refresher on to build another kanji 150 cards later. And let's face it, organization for study and randomness for testing's sake are not very friendly bedfellows.

So my attention drifted off at around the 300 mark... until I made a very important discovery. A website dedicated to those of us following Mr. Heisig's method. Not only can you imput your own stories, you can find them. Easily. Before a randomized review session and after. Instantly. Even better, the review system is set up to help get those kanji into your long-term memory, assigning cards to a scheduled review time that get progressively longer. Provided you're successful at recalling them, of course. Otherwise, back to the front of the line they go, for more study. And finally, if you're having trouble coming up with a story that works for you, you can look at stories that other users have posted to spark some ideas. Brilliant.

As for the ease of reviewing on the move... well, stacks of flashcards are your only choice if you're not that into technology. For the rest of us, having a mobile device that can take advantage of wireless connection means the site is only a click away.

Kanji has become fun again. Now it's a matter of not neglecting the other elements of my studies :)

Snow caps...

snow hats
snow peaks
snow dust
snow blush
snow shine
snow struck
snow covered
snow blanketed
snow shrouded
snow touched
snow wrapped
snow strangled
snow embraced
snow whipped
snow blown

Quick Gratification, In 3-D, Done and Done!

1. Frothy hot chocolate springs to life with instant hot water.

2. The mountains seem gruff today, shaking off their cloaks of haze to reveal their immensity with earth tones and depth-defining shadow.

3. Checking off all the tasks on today's To Do list! Huzzah!

The Earth & The Heavens

The sky shines colorlessly, bright against the lavender hues fading and darkening along the eastern horizon. To the west the mountains absorb ambient light, becoming blue and purple shadows. They are hazy in the distance and appear to have been painted by a young artist still caught in the thralls of the flat, 2-dimensional realm of his canvas.

The colors of the Colorado landscape are so very different than those of Japan. Not nearly as deep and rich, but possessing a more ethereal quality.

And the space... it always seems so much more vast and overwhelming after having spent some time on an island that doesn't have much.

Somehow, I love both.