The irony of slacking

Adults forget the depths of languor
into which the adolescent mind
descends with ease. They are prone
to undervalue the mental growth
that occurs during daydreaming and
aimless wandering.

—Scientist/Conservationist E.O. Wilson

If the dearth of postings didn't give it away, last week was my first week of serious slack since I've been here. It may be nothing more complicated than just learner's fatigue, but it was still a concern. I'm one of these people who worry if he lets himself go, he'll never get back on track.

But just because the light is off, doesn't mean nobody's home. Recent conversations have led me to put aside my belief that an inactive brain is an unproductive brain. Because it seems our grey matter is never really "off." According to one supportive source, once you've ingested a sufficient amount of raw material, your brain kind of takes over from there. What you assume are mostly un-organized sounds take on a life of their own inside your nugget. As long as you give your brain something substantive to work with then, rest assured that your natural learning abilities will kick in, making learning both a conscious and unconscious process.

And, true enough, I believe the week off was actually good for me. (I should note I still attended class, so it technically wasn't a total withdrawal.) When I turned back in earnest to studying on my own time, I found I had 'lost' nothing. Huh: maybe there's something to this rest and reprieve business.

eksoi pitama,
Rick

Longest 2 minutes ever

So some more positive news to report: recently, we were required to make oral presentations before our classmates. We were to come up with 2-3 minutes' worth of things to say. In English, that's laughably easy; in Cree, a tad terrifying.

But I'd been pretty diligent, and knew that, worse comes to worst, I could probably string together something. And on my own, or in front of one other person, I could. But, boy, once the day came and I got in front of that group (about 10 other students and my instructor) I found my throat going tight.

Like most in the class, my strategy was to rely on a set of phrases I'd memorized, down to the syllable. I also made sure I learned the Cree verb forms for "to say," so I could tell a rough story. (This way I could stick in a "s/he says" here, and a "I said" there, etc..) But there's a big gap between intake and output, that's for sure. Hearing, in other words, is very different from speaking.

Well, I must've picked something up these first 2 months or so. Not only did I achieve the magic 2-minute mark, I surpassed it by almost 3 minutes! Yessir, a 5-minute monologue about, among other things, what a friend cooked me for breakfast, and a porcupine I saw near the road one day. What was neat for me was that the kâkwa story was more or less ad-libbed. Now, sure, I didn't exactly race through my presentation, and the content wasn't as sizzling as an episode of Desperate Housewives, but I daresay it was competent.

And, hey, it's nice to exceed expectations. The next challenge: a paired dialogue at the end of this month. Mamaskac!

ekosi,
Rick

Understand your barriers

So I caught myself in an odd way of thinking about Cree that's actually brought insight into English. Funny how that works.

You see, something that's made it hard for me to learn a second language is my need to know the precise meaning behind each of these new words. I find I resist taking in these sounds when I don't fully understand them. After all, didn't I do that with English?

Thinking about it some more, I realized: maybe not. What do I actually "know" about most of the English words I use? Take a word I just used a moment ago: "understand." Ironically, I'm not entirely sure I 'understand' how the make up of the word carries or connects to the concept it embodies. Under stand? Stand under what? After a while, I sussed out that it's somewhat metaphorical — so, if you understand something, you are aware of the ideas which "stand under" it.

Or so I am guessing. And that's my point. The stories or underlying meaning that lay behind much of our words — what some call their etymology — is typically hidden to us. And yet we somehow carry on. Can wanting to know everything about the words you're taking in effectively constitute a barrier to learning?

I wonder, I wonder.

ekosi,
Rick
Sipitakanepihk
(at Blue Quills College)