skip to main |
skip to sidebar
BOSTON - I’ve decided I’m going to dedicate this week to updating some older posts in part because circumstances and opinions have changed, and also because it is becoming increasingly difficult to be creative enough to think of new posts. (Did I really post images of keratatic eyes on Saturday? I must have been really tired. Sorry)
Today, I need to go back and talk about learning Spanish and Rosetta Stone because now that I’m seeing a bunch of former colleagues, after they realize I’m not in Mexico yet, they are curious about what I’m doing with my down time and the proceed to recommend I try the Stone.
I’ve talked a little about the Stone back in the early days when I was a little more naïve and thought I would spend hours every day sitting in front of this laptop practicing my Spanish.
That is what I should be doing, but things come up, I procrastinate some, and frankly, the Stone program isn’t that great or user friendly, which makes it easy to put off.
Before proceeding any further, I need to state that 99.9% of my Spanish failures are my fault alone. I haven’t taken it seriously enough, and I can blame only myself. But I don’t want to use the rest of this space making fun of myself, so I’m fixating my angst at the Stone.
What I’ve realized is that what the Stone does best is market itself. When I tell people I’m on the Stone and have been a bit underwhelmed, they all express shock because they’ve heard it is the greatest thing language teaching device ever derived. “How could the Stone, with its extensive marketing campaign, not work miracles?”
This disbelief reflects the genius of the Stone’s marketing campaign. Everyone wants to believe that learning a foreign language can be done easily. “So all I have to do is shell out $1,000 (or whatever exorbitant amount the Stone charges), insert the CD, and I’ll know Spanish? Sign me up!”
This point was driven home a bit during Easter weekend when I was talking about learning Spanish with Natalie’s aunt. She said when she was in high school, they were promoting the subliminal, sleeping tapes to learn Spanish. Another miracle-based, no-work-involved Spanish lesson.
For the Stone to be successful, you need to dedicate a couple of hours per day, every day. Guess what. With that kind of time commitment, you could probably pick up a Spanish lesson book out of your local library and learn and retain the same amount of knowledge.
OK, so you say you are willing to put in the time. Great start, but I find the second big problem with the Stone is that it isn’t really user friendly. You buy the Spanish Stone, and all you get is Spanish. No English instructions. I think the reasoning here is that they can sell the same Spanish Stone in Europe, Asia, Africa, North America, etc. These Stone people are pretty clever like that.
Also during Easter weekend, I showed my mom the Stone, and has a teacher, she simply said, “I can see why you don’t like using this.” It should be added that I never said I didn’t like the Stone, but during weekly phone calls, when asked about Spanish, I would say it is coming slowly and that I’m not really putting in the time
And during Snowstorm 4.0, Natalie decided to try it out to make sure she wasn’t forgetting what she had learned before the GREATEST SNOWFALL HUMAN EYE’S HAVE EVER WITNESSED. She, too, complained a bit and became more sympathetic about my plight, which has since worn out.
The problem is that you don’t really learn the language. You learn expressions and vocabulary. You don’t learn grammar rules or culture understanding, which are both huge factors in language. Hell, you barely learn conjugation. In this regard, that library book is probably more valuable.
I think the Stone is a great supplement for learning a foreign language. As the lead tool, or stand alone tool, it comes up way short. Especially considering the price tag (thanks, tax payers, by the way) and gaudy claims you hear on TV.
There is a hierarchy within the Foreign Service Office, and clearly, I’m the low man on the totem pole.
It is more complex than this, but for my sake, here is a pretty basic breakdown. On the top are the Pickering Scholars; they’re like the Skulls and Crossbones secret society of the State Department Foreign Service branch.
Next in line come the outside-a-magical-50-mile-radius hires who inexplicably are bestowed gifts of exuberant per diems. Third place belongs to the locally hired who apparently don’t need money as badly as their not-locally-hired counterparts.
A distant, distant fourth are the Extra Filework for Management (EFMs) who do not have jobs. And there at the bottom, are the Employed For the Moment (another use of EFM) people like me.
I think I understand why we are at the bottom. It is because we don’t really need much from the FS office, and they really don’t have much to give us.
I caught a little glimpse of how little of importance I am to the FS office through the Federally Supervised Instructions (FSI; and yes, that is a downgrade from Free Studies Inside status on the Official Unofficial Chart of Acronyms).
Yesterday, until Snowstorm 5.0 rendered D.C. utterly useless, again, I was supposed to be at FSI attending a course entitled “Post Options for Employment and Training.”
But before I move forward with the story, let me paint the complete picture.
The class was advertised for those who need help finding employment and for those who already have employment and what they need to know about taking that job abroad with them. At the time I was signing up, I wasn’t sure which category I would fall under, but it seemed like a class I should attend.
The problem, however, is that this class was being offered in the middle of the work week, which makes it a little more difficult for those of us lucky enough to have jobs to attend.
And for the uninitiated, it is not like the FSI does not offer weekend courses. I know because I took one already on overseas protocol and etiquette, which is a whole different blog post of its own that I’m saving for a rainy (or snowy) day.
Seems to me that a course about employment for EFMs would be ideal for one of FSI’s weekend seminars, but I digress.
No big deal; I’ll lie. I asked about obtaining the lecture material because I couldn’t get off work. I received a response that they don’t have any material to send and if I can’t make the course this time to try again in the future as it is offered four times per year.
So that didn’t work, so I’ll just take the day off work to attend. Mother Nature had other plans, and as a result, evened up the score to Mother Nature 1, EF’M 1.
While there were announcements the Federal Government was closed on Thursday, I guess it was too much to send an e-mail to the enrolled to let us know the course also was cancelled. Are they re-scheduling the course? Do I have to wait until it is offered three months from now to try and take it again? No word from FSI.
And I learn a little more about my place on the bottom.UPDATEAt 3:04 p.m. today (Friday), I finally received my notice that Thursday's "course offering has been canceled." Whew, what a relief, and only about a day and a half after the event.
It also is worth noting that by noon today, Natalie had already received information about the class being cancelled and for when it is being re-scheduled. My notice just said someone would be in touch with the re-scheduled date. I'll probably receive that notice the day after the course is over, too.
Oh well, this is what is to be expected when left to the hands of the government.
In case you didn't know, it is snowing more in D.C. I've been out of the office since 10 a.m., Friday, Feb. 5. But I'm sick of snow, so I'm moving it into Haiti status; i.e., I'm done writing about it unless something new happens. And I'll take this opportunity to point out that even Snowstorm 4.0 through 5.0 has relegated Haiti to third or fourth story status, what is going on there deserves more attention than what is going on here.
OK. New topic. And really, this is the big one I've been putting off until I had the energy necessary to address it, and the answers to provide.
When we first started telling people about Natalie's acceptance into the foreign service (good job, honey!), the first two questions were, "When and where are you going?" and, "Is David and Tiffy going with you?" Usually the third question was, "What is David going to do?"
I usually mumble something about look for some freelance work, and I'm not worried about it because I really don't like my job anyway, and there is no room for me to grow there so this was an opportunity to re-evaluate my career. And yes, I'm pretty sure that was a run-on sentence.
Some quick background, I suppose, is necessary. After graduating with my extremely valuable degree in journalism (Why did my parents let me go through with that?), I reported for a couple of newspapers in southeast Ohio while Natalie worked on the Hill. I needed to find a job in D.C. for when we got married, and I landed a job with a health care magazine...at least, that is how they advertised it on journalismjobs.com.
I learned during the interviewing process that it was actually a trade journal on eye care, but I needed a job, the pay was decent, and I needed a job.
About 4.5 years later, and after a lot of angst, alcohol and job searches, I told the publisher and editor about this recent development, and asked about freelancing for them. While I get no satisfaction from the work, I do get some satisfaction from the paycheck, and they pay their freelancers better than their staff writers.
Well, they kind of gave me the run-around leaving me the impression they are ready to part ways. But last week, lo and behold, I had a meeting with the publisher in which he said he would be happy to keep me on staff as a freelancer, and he thinks it would be a good idea for me to start transitioning to life as a freelancer sooner rather than later.
Music to my ears. I first brought this up with them in October hoping to start freelancing at the beginning of the new year. So now it looks like I will get to start freelancing starting in the beginning of March.
I still do not see this as the long-term answer for my life as an Employee Forcefully living in Mexico (EFM), but this gives me some more time to figure things out while getting to work some and contributing a little money.
The worst is over, but we're still "suffering" the ramifications of about 18 inches of snow. For example, the federal government is closed, the Metro is running underground trains only (which means we can go to Pentagon City or Pentagon, and that is it), and my office is open if you can get there. I can get there, but it is not worth losing my parking spot over, which took me two hours, three pairs of a gloves, a long scraper and a bucket.
I kept a timeline for your entertainment, especially for those of you poor saps who have to work today.
FRIDAY
7:02 a.m. – Leave our apartment to go to work.
9:58 a.m. – First time I noticed snowfall.
10:03 a.m. – The office closes. By about 4:30 p.m. the day before, there was already rumor spreading that as soon as the first flake hit the ground, which was suppose to be at 10 a.m. today, the office would close. So knowing they would close the office right away, they made us come in for two hours anyway.
10:42 a.m. – I finally get a parking space at the near-Potomac-Mills Harris Teeter. Not because there were not enough spaces, but because everyone was concerned about getting the closest spot to the door as possible. Mind you, this was an indoor parking garage.
I also want to add that I was shopping for groceries not to sustain us for the snow-pocalypse; rather this was a trip I was going to make regardless as part of my regular routine. In all, about 75% of my groceries were things I was going to buy, and 25% were emergency groceries. And by emergency, I mean we have one bag of chips here. Given we’ll be inside for most of two days, we might eat that bag and want to open another. Hence, an emergency.
11:22 a.m. – Begin leaving Harris Teeter. I have to acknowledge the wonderful job the HT employees did in keeping the check-out lines moving. When I saw the lines, I was preparing myself mentally for a 30-minute wait or so, but they had me done in about 10 to 15 minutes.
11:33 a.m. – Got home and found that Tiffy had left me a surprise. I knew as soon as I opened the door because she does her I’m-so-happy-your-home routine combined with her please-don’t-be-angry routine. That, and I could smell it. After cleaning that, I then have to console Tiffy because she knows she did wrong. I do a short show of anger, clean the mess, and then cuddle with her to let her know I’m no longer angry with her. Fortunately, this is a very rare event.
12:25 p.m. – Natalie calls to let me know she is on her way home. We had already known she’d only have a half-day today. I should also point out at this point that while it has been snowing for about 2.5 hours, it hasn’t begun sticking to the roads, yet.
2:05 p.m. – Went running on our rooftop treadmill. Hey, if I’m going to be a stay-at-home husband, I’d better start looking the part. Right before going for the run, NBC’s Pat Collins brazenly declared that in Gaithersburg, according to his calibrated yard stick, there has been no accumulation. A calibrated yard stick? What is a non-calibrated yard stick? A branch?
5:20 p.m. – I took Tiffy out for our 30 minute walk. My non-calibrated eye estimated about a quarter inch on the roads when we started, and about a half when we came back.
7:11 p.m. – Went across the street to the Crystal City Oakwood to hang out with some A-100ers, drink wine and play games…yes, Never Have I Ever was a staple.
11:56 p.m. – Walked Tiffy after the party. We stopped in a park where I let her off her leash, and we chased each other around. I know the snow was getting ridiculous because I was able to outrun her as she had to jump through the snow where I was still able to lift my legs. Upon coming home, she had clumps of snowballs tangled in her legs, so we put her in the tub to melt the snow off her then chased her around the apartment to dry her before going to bed.
SATURDAY
All Morning - Pat Collins makes TV watchable. This by far was the greatest revelation of the entire weekend. Normally, Collins does over-dramatic crime reports in which he speaks in sentence fragments straight out of a bad 1970s newscast a la Ron Burgandy. But doing the man-on-the-street during the snowstorm, he was intentionally hilarious. Bag the crime reports and relegate Collins to man-on-the-street.
1:23 p.m. - I opened emergency bag of chips No. 1.
4:45 p.m. - I'm walking Tiffy again, and the snow is petering out. There are a couple of down trees and large limbs; the roads are rough; the sidewalks are gone; but the 24"+ of snow is not going to happen. Not even close.
SUNDAY
9:45 a.m. - I begin the task of digging out our car. We don't have a shovel, so I take a bucket with me. And being the considerate neighbor I am, I scoop a bucket of snow, walk 10 yards or so to a snow mountain, and add my snow to it instead of dumping my snow on the car parked next to me.
11:40 a.m. - I finish my task. The car can get out of the parking lot. EF'M 1, Mother Nature 0.
While I have the ability to move the car, this was an in-case-of-an-emergency task because no way I'm giving up my shoveled..ur..bucketed parking spot to go to work.
1ish p.m. - We're doing some chores around the house to host a Super Bowl party. The original destination lost cable.
3:32 p.m. - We haven't eaten real foods since the first snowflake. I look over at Tiffy, and I start imagining short ribs or rack of Tiffy or some such delicacy. Nah, too messy; too much work. I think I just open another bag of emergency chips. (This is all a lie. This timeline was too boring, so I felt the need to spice it up a bit).
5:10 p.m. - I receive an e-mail that the office is opening at 10 a.m., but only for those who can make it. I won't be docked time off for not showing up. Yeah, I think I'll stay home on Monday and blog.
Time to do a little housekeeping.
First, I apologize about the links in yesterday’s panda post. They've been corrected to actually take you somewhere now; apparently HTML code is a little sensitive when it comes to its font, and it rejected my use of quotation marks within the hyperlink tags. If you know HTML code, that made sense; otherwise, all you need to know is that the links work now.
Secondly, as I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, Natalie is walking in the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer in Washington, D.C., on May 1 and 2, and she has a Web page set up to accept donations. I’ll be leaving a link to that page in the left hand column until the end of April, so if you feel so moved, please feel free to donate.
This is Natalie, Mom and Mindy at the 2008 walk.
Finally, I don’t like to write about weather, but what is happening in D.C. right now is nothing short of epic. The region is teetering on the brink of collapse. Western civilization, as we know it, could be a crossroads as this winter’s SnowStorm 4.0, “The Bigger One” has this city gripped in fear.
(Quick aside: In D.C., the mere threat of snowfall constitutes a snowstorm. So far this winter, we’ve had one real snowstorm, two snowfalls, and what appears to be another snowstorm, possibly larger than the previous.)
Want to see humanity at its worst? Check out the parking lot of the Crystal City Costco at 5:30 p.m. on the eve of the largest storm human eyes have ever witnessed.
As of this morning, they are predicting 5 inches to fall during the day, followed by about 10 to 18 inches over night and then maybe another 10 inches on Saturday. Estimates range from 20 to 30 inches all told.
If I don’t post another entry by Tuesday, send a search and rescue team.
Wait, a flake just fell. Our office announced it is closing, and there is a mad rush for the staircase. My boss is on the verge of being trampled to death. Should I stop to help him? No, no time to be a hero now. Run down the stairs! Get out of my way!
On second thought, our earliest ancestors survived an entire era known as the Ice Age in loin clothes with large cats with large teeth trying to eat them, so I think we’ll be alright.
