#7) a portugueseish haiku

eu escrevo
...syllables are different
[i write in english]

holly willman
10/3/13

you, too, can learn another language!

i think i have made it pretty clear that i like to learn.  (if you know what strengths finder is, i have gotten learner as one of my strengths both times i took the test.)

at work, i ask for resources to learn more about this new field (401k stuff).  at home, i read, i do logic puzzles, and i ingest random tidbits of information all over the place.

i don't have any desire to be great at one particular thing...it kind of bores me, actually.  so i try and develop skills in many different areas.  this is why i could teach myself acoustic guitar and bass guitar and be content with my medicore skills.  probably why i am a decent athlete in many sports but not super talented at any of them.  i just like to take in more and more content.

so i took 3 years of spanish and a year of sign language in high school.  passable...i can say things like 'por favor, puedo sacarle punto a lapiz?' in spanish (roughly, 'please, can i sharpen my pencil?') and sign, 'i'm sorry your cow is dead' in asl.  you know, important conversational pieces.

i met a friend in college who was from brazil, and i thought portuguese was such a cool language...kind of a smash up of spanish and french.  so i bought some cds to try and learn it, and she gave me a new testament in portuguese.  i learned a couple things but didn't really stick with it.

but...

last week, i was killing time and looking through free apps for my phone, and i found one called duolingo. 

dude.

this thing is baller.  it's totally geared toward a mind like mine...give me the lessons in little chunks, have lots of checkpoints so i feel like i am doing well, etc.  you can learn a ton of different languages, but if you're starting from english (which...i'm going to say the majority of my readership is...), you can learn spanish, german, french, portuguese, and italian.

it teaches you in a variety of ways: they write portuguese, and you write in english and vice versa.  they have a sentence in portuguese and give you options with which to build the sentence in english and vice versa.  they say a phrase or sentence in portuguese, and you write it in portuguese.  they have pictures to help you learn vocab.  they give you multiple choice questions.

i think it's really fun.  :)

travis is learning italian, so you'll have to ask him how it is. 

but now my speech is filled with phrases like ' eu como frango' (i eat chicken) and 'voce gosta o livro?' (do you like the book?)

check it out.  let me know what you think.  i think it's pretty sweet, especially considering it was free.


yes, i am talking about a product that is awesome.  no, i am not getting paid to do so.  yes, this is all my opinion.  no, i was not forced to say this.

poem #6

unsettled, again.
pushed [hard] up against a wall.
sigh: rocks in my shoes.

claiming small victories

i wore my contacts for the entire day yesterday.  i rocked a low to mid level migraine all week, so that was pretty special.  still not feeling 100%, but i seem to be on the upswing.

...

i don't know if you're keeping tabs on my list over there, but i am behind on almost everything.  and i have thought lots about that...should i take things off the list?  should i just give up on the list?  should i change things?  and i probably will end up changing some things, but i am not giving up just because i am behind.  instead, i am trying to sit quietly with the concept of disciplined grace.

there are seasons of life where i am really good at discipline.  and there are seasons of life where i am really good at grace.  so i want to wrestle with a season where i try to unite those two suckers.  where i practice discipline because it pushes and expands me and keeps me from being lazy.  and where i practice grace (for myself...i am usually pretty good at grace for others) because it is exhausting to try and control every moment, it's defeating to see empty spaces on my checklist, and it sucks all the joy out of the things i actually want to do.

so.  you can pray about that for me.  :)

...

in the meantime, liz and i hosted our first 'official and check it off the list' dinner last saturday.  we went to a corn maze that we thought would be pretty quick.  and while it was fun, we ended up trudging through mud for an hour and a half, not even finding all the checkpoints (thus, no popcorn prize...some participants were more upset by this than others), and feeling ravenous by the end.  which was inconvenient since i had not prepped or made any of the food ahead of time.

luckily, liz is good at entertaining while i cook.

i made four recipes out of bread and wine (and if you don't trust my endorsement of this book, go talk to emily sutherland.): brannon's caesar salad, white chicken chili, blueberry crisp (except i made it with peaches this time), and gaia cookies.  everything seemed to be a hit.  i took the leftover chili for lunch every day this week.

here are the girls:

they are lisa, erin (surprise guest), ashleyne, kristen, and liz.  they are cool.  we missed kim, who was busy throwing up, and heather, who was on a beach somewhere.

posted from the comfort of my very own bed.

oh, yes.  you read that correctly.

we have internet in our apartment.  which is actually the cause of the late-in-the-week post.  because every day, i was all, 'oh, i can just write something at home SINCE WE HAVE INTERNET!'  and then i obviously forgot to do it.

and since i can't rant about the internet anymore, i just don't know what to write about.

oh, got it!  i'm going to tell you random stuff i like.  cause it's my blog, and i want to.

i like bread and wine by shauna niequist.  actually, i like everything by her.  read all her books.  this one is great because it has recipes.  and they are awesome.

i like broccoli chips.  think kale chips, but use broccoli instead.  throw on a pan.  spray with pam.  toss some sea salt on 'em.  425 for 13 minutes.  thank me later.  (actually, thank shauna.  it's in her book.)

i like hollywood game night.  takes me back to the days of win, lose, or draw.  i will shamelessly admit to the fact that i love when celebrities are competitive and look ridiculous.

i like having internet.  ha.

i like that the colts acquired trent richardson.  we'll see how it turns out.

i like cafe escape chai lattes for the keurig.  they are yummy.

i like our coffee shop in pendleton.  so cute.

i like this season of life.  (the season of weather is only my third favorite, but it's a million billion points above winter, so...)

oh, it's the little things

i have always been drawn to particular sounds or sensations.  they connect to me very deeply, for reasons i cannot necessarily explain. 

here's a random example: in the movie 'on our own' (yes, it's a feature films for family movie, and yes, you should watch it), one of the characters is carrying grocery bags.  they kind of crunch and rustle in a particular way, and that sound is embedded in my soul.  obviously, if i am writing about it this many years later. 

i recently (aka yesterday) got a new keyboard and mouse at work.  this is a delightful thing on multiple fronts.  for one thing, i had no idea how bad my old ones really really were.  oh, i knew they were awful.  they had been going downhill for at least a month and required a special kind of finesse to use...my right mouse button had to be gently and evenly depressed using the entirety of my middle finger.  the keyboard...well, let's just say i had a few heart to hearts that ended with me slamming it to make it work.  i didn't think it was asking too much to type letters and numbers when i hit the appropriate keys, but it seems that was reaching a bit too high.

another plus: the news ones work well.  super awesome rockstar well.  the mouse zips around my screens (psh yeah i have two screens.  don't you?) like it's the greatest thing to do on earth.  the sides of it have this grippy rubber that feels so cool.  and there are clicky buttons on the sides that let me navigate between folders.  which is actually a neat feature for the work that i am doing.

but my favorite part (and the reason for my sound/sensation post) is the noise that my keys make.  i'm not sure how to describe this sound.  there's a smoothness to it.  it's not thunky, like with keyboards from the 90s.  those keys were higher up off the board.  these are lower and probably a little smaller.  sleeker, certainly.  and when i get typing at an accelerated pace, i could close my eyes and breathe the sound right in.

yeah, i might be a weirdo. 

i am not a soft typist.  i think my mom, with her secretarial school training, probably is, though.  and maybe heather.  could be the delicate piano skills they have acquired.  but i type like i play piano--loud, hard, with the belief that speed is always the right choice.

so i have gone from a keyboard that made it sound like i was abusing the hard plastic in unmentionable ways to a keyboard that essentially reads my mind.  it absorbs my force, has a gradual incline to support my wrists (instead of awkwardly force them upward), and has a button devoted solely to pulling up the calculator on the computer.  this thing is awesome.

if you want one of these bad boy sets, it's called the microsoft wireless desktop 3000. 

i was hopeful...and other miscellany

oh, so hopeful...hopeful that i would be able to type this at home. 

but alas.

it is not to be.

we are still without internet.

and that is all i have to say about that.

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our apartment is cute.  you'll have to come visit.

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very fall-like weather we are having these days.  that's bittersweet.  i like fall--the colors, the bite of the air, the apples and pumpkin and cinnamon smells everywhere, the bonfires, etc.  but i am a summer girl.  born for the sun.  born for the heat.  plus, fall means winter is right around the corner.  barf.  i am NOT a winter girl.

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peyton is still the man.

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i am in the middle of several books that i am really enjoying.  what are you reading right now?  not that i should, but i might add it to my pile.  :)

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we have an unusually high number of bugs, etc. in our apartment.  it does not seem to be as a result of cleanliness or uncleanliness.  they just sort of show up for no reason.  i feel like i should start a list to keep track of all the different types.  i shooed a cricket out yesterday.  maybe if i killed more of them, word would get around that we are bad mofos and not to be trifled with.  maybe not.

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these are just a small collection of the things in my head.  hope it was as good for you as it was for me.