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jenettSeveral years ago, I ran a series of weekly salon posts, where I'd post a topic to get us started, people would show up in the comments, and conversation would ensue. Now seems a good time to try them again!
(You should not feel restrained to keep on this topic! Start other topics! Encourage topic drift! That's part of the point. Feel free to ask random questions, there's a chance someone might know about the thing.)
What are you learning right now that you're really interested by? (That might be a project for work, for personal stuff, a gaming geekery thing, a book you're reading, a podcast you're listening to, the fact you're learning a lot about Dreamwidth and how it works this week, or anything else.)
What do you like about it? What are you finding more challenging?
I'm currently reading Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic by Sam Quinones, which is well-researched and has a really interesting structure where he's looking at different pieces of it through small slices (individual people, towns, situations) and tracing back to the origins as much as possible. I really like books where the information part is well done, but the structure creates connections between pieces of information in helpful and new ways.
* Consider this a conversation in my living room, only with a lot more seating. I reserve the right to redirect, screen, and otherwise moderate stuff, but would vastly prefer not to have to.
* If this works this week, I'll do an updated FAQ and continue.
* If you don't have a DW account or want to post anonymously, please include a name we can call you in this particular post. (You can say AnonymousOne or your favourite colour or whatever. Just something to help keep conversations clear.)
* If you've got a question or concern, feel free to PM me.
(You should not feel restrained to keep on this topic! Start other topics! Encourage topic drift! That's part of the point. Feel free to ask random questions, there's a chance someone might know about the thing.)
This week's question
What are you learning right now that you're really interested by? (That might be a project for work, for personal stuff, a gaming geekery thing, a book you're reading, a podcast you're listening to, the fact you're learning a lot about Dreamwidth and how it works this week, or anything else.)
What do you like about it? What are you finding more challenging?
Things currently contemplating
I'm currently reading Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic by Sam Quinones, which is well-researched and has a really interesting structure where he's looking at different pieces of it through small slices (individual people, towns, situations) and tracing back to the origins as much as possible. I really like books where the information part is well done, but the structure creates connections between pieces of information in helpful and new ways.
Notes:
* Consider this a conversation in my living room, only with a lot more seating. I reserve the right to redirect, screen, and otherwise moderate stuff, but would vastly prefer not to have to.
* If this works this week, I'll do an updated FAQ and continue.
* If you don't have a DW account or want to post anonymously, please include a name we can call you in this particular post. (You can say AnonymousOne or your favourite colour or whatever. Just something to help keep conversations clear.)
* If you've got a question or concern, feel free to PM me.
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Date: 2017-04-13 05:17 am (UTC)So she and my Oma basically elided a lot of our Dutch heritage and now I spend time thinking about what I lost because I wasn't able to ask Oma questions in Dutch about her life in Holland. She spoke English very well but often when it came to talking about her life in Holland she would default back to Dutch without realizing it, meaning I didn't get as much info as I wanted.
There are very few traditions that were passed down to me, so learning Dutch is one way of rebuilding what was lost (and as time goes on I'll be finding out about other traditions as much as I can, either by researching Dutch culture more or asking mom if there's anything she can remember).
Anyway, I'm enjoying it a lot, even when it's frustrating, and finding a lot of the sentence examples very silly and/or animist. Such as Goedendag, sap, which translates to Good day, juice. Also I can't stop laughing over the fact that thanks is bedankt.
Eventually I'll be doing a similar project with my Native side and the lost heritage there, but I'm guessing it will need to include some trips to the States, which are...not really something I'm wanting to do a lot of right now. Also pretty sure Duolingo doesn't have Cherokee on it.
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Date: 2017-04-13 12:57 pm (UTC)(No Welsh heritage, but it's where my mother mostly considers she's "from", as much as anywhere, because WWII refugee life is complicated.)
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Date: 2017-04-17 06:49 am (UTC)I'm not really sure Oma and Opa ever really felt at home again anywhere after the war.