One funky foot at a time

First off – if you haven’t, go over to my friend Bobby’s blog: “The Great Ab Race“. He’s chronicling a journey through his body and mind, sculpting both into pieces of grandeur. Definitely worth the read as I know tons of us never give a thought to staying in shape other than eating a banana and a low-fat yogurt for breakfast on the drive to work.

Second off – I’m currently listening to the album Funky Dick compiled by Dick Vivian. It’s a compilation of some heavy, funky, groooooovy, rare gems. I’m talking 25 tracks by female voices only. If you know music, you will definitely swing by Rooky Ricardo’s Records on haight (between fillmore and webster) and get this cd. Dick gave it to me to check out for free (this man is one of the nicest, most music knowledgeable people I know). I go into his shop to check out them good-old-funky-45s and he’s always finding rare gems for me. I love his shop. Every time I go in there I walk out a few hours later with a bag full of goodies and the world’s dustiest fingers. First thing I do when I get home? Well, I wash my hands and see the damage that time has done on those records just swirl down the sink hole.

Third off – I just learned 100+ new kanji in a matter of 2 weeks or so. By my own account, that is very slow. Snail’s pace man. But it’s faster than nothing at all. In these 2 weeks I learned more Kanji than the two months prior… combined. Which brings me to another discovery I made after meeting Little Actions.

Small progress >> no progress

If you’ve never taken calculus in high school, or you have and had enough sense to forget most of it then “>>” probably doesn’t mean much to you. But you probably got its meaning from the context, and your own common sense. Small progress is better (read: much greater) than no progress. I wrote this motto on my board at home and then under it I wrote:

• read one page
• learn one kanji
• write one word

(Damn! I’m listening to “Sure is Something” by Micki Lynn on the Funky Dick album! Shi* just doesn’t get better than that.)

Anyways, where was I? Ah yes. Small progress. It’s simple really. Say you want to build a record collection. You can either save money, wait a long time, and buy in bulk, or you can buy one record a week. I guarantee you will have a much greater appreciation for your collection if you build it up brick by brick. You will know the labels, artists, songs, production dates, COLORS, and smells of each of your records if you do it piece by piece. Of course, if you go to the record shop and pick up one album, most likely Little Actions will be right there watching you. And you might just walk out with 5, 6 or 23 different records – 2 of which might be the only ones available in the city.

Point in a nutshell? Break everything down into smaller bites, then do it and make small progress. Sooner or later, you’ll be making such amazing progress that the “little” bites will get bigger and bigger with time.

daaaaaaaaaamn son, “You got to be a man” – Helene Smith. Can’t wait to get back to Rooky’s this weekend.

 

306: Pit

When I was in 3rd grade, a classmate asked me what my name is and I said “Banana”. That was within the first month of moi being in these United States. I was a snotty nosed brat. Actually, I wasn’t. I was a skinny kid that didn’t like trouble and wanted to fit in, although not badly. And my name was Banana. Or, to state it more accurately, Banana, along with cold, hot, one, two and three were the only words I knew coming into this country. And I was tossed into the middle of the metaphorical ocean that is the English Language and all I had with me was some a pair of shorts and a book title: “How to Swim for Dummies”.

Too bad it was in English.

So what did I do? I did what any other tail-less, sentient primate in my situation would do. I survived. I learned English in a few months, becoming as fluent as the kids around me. In the mornings before school started, I would listen eagerly to conversations about how Kane tombstoned the Undertaker on a steel chair, and about how the 76ers did something with this thing called “ball”. (Sidenote: for months I was disgusted by the kids in my 3rd grade class because they loved talking about this “ball”. “Why?” you ask. Well, in arabic ball (or boal really) means piss, urine, that liquid some people have trouble passing. And I was very innocent back then). I would then wait until recess to repeat what I heard in the morning to a different group of kids. It was only a year later that my friend Eric deduced that I never had cable.

And thank god I didn’t. I would stay up watching episodes of Mr. Roger’s neighborhood, Lamb Chop’s Sing Along, and NOVA. These were my friends. And they took care of me, teaching me useful phrases and life lessons like how to be a neighbor, and that the sun is a giant ball of gas, and that John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt’s name was my name too. And although I spent the first few months in my class acing my math quizzes and failing my spelling tests (the teacher stopped writing “F” and started writing “0″ because she thought I wasn’t getting it), I did catch on quickly. It was a good age for it. No bills, no projects, just play and survive. By the time I was in 4th grade, I was speaking circles around the cats in my grade and they started asking me for homework help.

What’s my point? My point is, I’ve learned 306 kanji as of this moment. And I’ve been listening to Japanese cartoons, movies, and music (thanks Ronny and Foxx) for at least 8 hours each day. And it’s crazy fun. It’s amazing how I feel after I learn a few new kanji. It makes me want to learn more. I haven’t been looking at this project as if there’s an end in sight. The book I’m using has 2000+ kanji but I’m not counting down. I’m counting up. A week ago it was 200: frame. Today it’s 306: pit. Tomorrow? Who knows and who cares, as long as it’s something.

Another side note – I was giving a presentation at Monell and in my intro I talked about my first lab experience and i said: “I worked under a guy whose name was Kussell Reast, at the time…” And then I caught my mistake and followed that up with: “well… his name is still Kussell Reast…”

And I chuckled to myself. I’ve come a long way from being a banana. And although this blog entry may be full of speeling errors and the like, I take solace in the idea that they are the product of laziness negligence and not ignorance.

200: Frame

AHHHH!! I wrote an entire entry which got completely erased because wordpress is an idiot!

I guess it wasn’t meant to be published. I’ll write again… I spent 30 minutes on that!! sigh…

“Are you pondering what I’m pondering blog reader?”

“Uh I think so Sama, but this time you massage the cow”

…

200: Frame.

What does that mean you ask? Well I’m glad you asked imaginary reader! It is about time I reveal my new secret project life goal. It has been 3-4 weeks and I have been studying and learning Japanese on a daily basis. As of today, I have learned 200 kanji (日本語 characters), the last of which is the kanji for the word “frame”. I now know such useful words such as fire, water, carp, and gall bladder!

Why did I wait so long to publicly declare that I am learning Japanese? Well I want to say it’s thanks to Ron Konopka’s advice. He discovered the first mutant fly with an internal clock defect in his 200th fly vial that he checked, and said that if you don’t find what you’re looking for in the first 200 attempts then you should stop. Or something to that effect. I want to say that I waited until I learned 200 kanji to emulate him. But I’d be lying, precisely because I did not remember that story until about a paragraph ago. In truth, I like to get my feet wet before I declare my intent to jump in the water. And Twain said a genius throws his rock first before declaring his target. And I didn’t know how serious I was about leaning Japanese until recently. After a few weeks of actually trying it out. It’s been so much fun that I can’t stop. I look for Japanese everywhere. It feels amazing to see a sign and know that somehow or another it has the word “complete” or “open” in it. The idea that a few weeks before then this same sign would have been gibberish to me. It still mostly is, but it won’t be soon.

And now? To sleep… I have not been treating my body well.. which affects my brain… which is part of my body… more dots are needed at the end of this… sentence….

さよなら boys and girls