Level One: Complete

I finished Level 1 of German today w/ Rosetta Stone. I told you that I'd give you an update on it once I finished and to tell you my thoughts. Well, I'll divide it into Pros & Cons

Pro: the focus on listening & repeating. They have both men & women with different accents and tones to their voice so that you can hear different variations on different phrases and things.

Pro: the repetition. The repetition of the learned words and phrases & grammatical structures really settle in over time. There are also periodic "Review" sessions to keep these things in mind.

Pro: the microphone. The microphone helps you to really get the pronunciation right and it generally doesn't settle for "close enough." I kinda think that this would have been nice for French & Spanish, but most especially French which has all sorts of different sounds that I didn't really learn about until I was abroad! I like how Rosetta Stone emphasizes this from the very beginning.

Con: the microphone. Sometimes I would say the word several times and it would take multiple tries to get it to accept it, and I really said it pretty much the same way each time, so...yeah. glitch?

Con: I miss learning rules! I don't know why they say certain things certain ways (like why they add "an" or "ein" to the end of some of the phrases. Without knowing why, I won't remember to say it and who knows how that changes the meaning). I also did eventually have to look up whatever was going on with the definite and indefinite pronouns. I still don't fully understand.

Well, on the whole, I liked it, but I do miss having a class & learning rules. I think that maybe if I continue I'll keep a notebook as I go because that will help me to get the best of both worlds: I'll be able to take notes to review, look up things I don't get on the Internet later, and have the Rosetta stone listening-visual focused learning.

Tschüss!

Wow, God. The mind is AMAZING!!!

So, I'm reading this book called How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer. It's SO fascinating. I should have been a psych major, seriously. The book talks about, well, how we decide! We make decisions based partly on our emotions and partly based on reason. Lehrer's point in his book is that we need both reason and emotion to make good decisions, and that without one of the other people make bad decisions all of the time. It has been proven that often times our feelings or intuition are what we must rely on to make the right choice. He gave this interesting example of a naval commander who had to make a quick decision in order to save an entire ship full of people. On the radar screen, the blip could have been a friendly plane or an enemy missile. He had a strong feeling that it was enemy fire, so he ordered it shot down, and in so doing saved hundreds of people. The reason that our intuition/strong feelings often help us make good decisions, according to Lehrer & the research that has been done is that our brains actually process a lot of data and translates that into a feeling, so in a way our feelings are often based on things that we know from experience or from the info that our brains collect without our conscious knowledge. Lehrer writes: "In this sense, every feeling is really a summary of data, a visceral response to all of the information that can't be accessed directly" (23). Anyways, I can't go off on all of the SUPER interesting stories and experiments and everything in the book. If you're like me and you find psychology interesting, you should read it. It's pretty simple to understand (= not too science-y. trust me, I haven't taken science since high school). But the more I read, the more I realize just how amazing the mind is, and the more that I realize how amazing God is! Wow, the brain is SO intricate and SO interconnected and SO much of what I read reminds me of things that are in the Bible. In one of the chapters that I read today it talked about how incredibly important love is to brain development. Not having love in the young formative years keeps children (or baby monkeys) from learning sympathy and empathy and so they really cannot connect with other people well (or monkeys). There were other things too, but I have a short term memory sometimes. Also, I'm being distracted by an episode of What Would You Do? that I'm watching right now. SO...yeah. read the book. It's small, and it's REALLY interesting.

My $15 sundae, why San Diego is my BEF, and more!

Well, today I had an interview that was in San Diego. The interview included a store tour, which was cool. I go to Target (my interview was with/at Target) all of the time, but I didn't know all of the behind-the-scenes things about Target. All of the people who led the tours & talked with us were super nice & friendly and seemed to really love working at Target. I really hope I get the job! (Although there are apparently at least 3 more interviews to come if I passed this round). But my story of woe has nothing to do with the interview. Actually, part of it existed then, but it wasn't the tour or interview itself that was the issue. Well, here's the story:

I had never driven to San Diego before (and if you're unfamiliar with SoCal, San Diego is an hour away from where I live in no or easy traffic), and it was a very bright day, which made for a really hard drive down there. I had to sort of squint the whole time, I hadn't had any caffeine and I was a little tired from having woken up earlier than I normally would (7am) despite going to bed at about the same time. So it was a long drive and I'll admit to losing a little bit of attention at times. I WAS paying attention, however, when a large plastic bag or piece of plastic or something like that was floating in my lane and I apparently drove right into it! So before I know it there's a large plastic thing completely covering my windshield, so I absolutely could not see in front of me. I started my windshield wipers and that didn't seem to do that much. SO I had to make my way over to the side & stop, at which point my windshield wipers fortunately were able to knock off the piece of plastic so that I didn't have to get out so close to the highway (because people were FLYING! I've rarely seen such fast driving off of the Toll Road. I mean, it was the I-5, and EVERYONE (other than the trucks) were going at least 80mph). Then I somehow merged back into traffic & survived.

As mentioned earlier, I didn't have any caffeine this morning. I didn't want to drink coffee before my interview because a) I didn't want to have coffee breath, b) I didn't want to chance spilling anything on myself and c) caffeine + nervousness can make me really jittery. I was tempted, though, because the Target had a Starbucks in it. But I resisted, which may have been a bad idea. After the tour, we had the individual interviews. I was the second-to-last to go, so I had my interview at about 4:30pm. My caffeine headache hit somewhere around 3pm. I have not weened myself off of caffeine from my trip (when I had 2-3 shots of espresso per day), so the lack of caffeine got me (I'd normally have had my latte of the day by 2 or 3 pm, so it makes sense that it hit then). When I went to the interview, my head didn't bother me as much, but my throat & chest felt weird, as if something were lodged in my throat. It felt like pressure. It eventually went away, but it took a while. I'm trying REALLY hard to not blame Vitamin Water. I gave it a third chance this week, so I might just be waiting for yet another weird occurrence to happen. Or maybe there is randomly something weird in Vitamin Water that's not in Gatorade or Powerade that my system just doesn't like.

Then I went downtown to get a sundae from Ghirardelli. If you've never had a Ghirardelli sundae with their yummy dark chocolate fudge, you're seriously missing out. Anyways, I get downtown, and drive around FOREVER looking for parking. Not that I know how to parallel park well, but still. Downtown SD is full of one way streets and pedestrians, so it was really annoying and time consuming to drive around the block(s) constantly. I was getting super frustrated and declared that San Diego is no longer my BFF, but now my BEF (Best Enemy Forever =D ). It's got to be the worst place ever for driving & parking. At least in SoCal. Eventually, I just gave up and went into a parking structure. I'd avoided it before because it was evening and so the rate was $10 for the evening; it was no longer hourly. But at this point, I really didn't care. That's how I ended up paying $15 for a sundae (the sundae itself was $5.25, and parking was $9, so it was almost $15, really). The parking structure was near a CVS, and I was like, "oh great! I need to get some eye drops," but I always try to get the 30ml ones, which I normally get from there, but they did not have it there. I also upped my sundae from one scoop to two scoops because at this point, I had just had it: the tiredness/the squinting, the long day, the headache, the weird pressure in my throat/chest, driving around looking for parking and getting stopped at literally every possible light downtown, CVS not having my eye drops...*sigh* I felt much better after I had a sugar & chocolate infusion. My chocolate chip cookie dough w/ dark chocolate fudge was delicious. I also got a jar of their fudge sauce, so I can have some whenever =D

Then I drove back...in the dark. Fortunately, the highways here are well lit, especially compared to Vermont (where you essentially drive in pitch black. ick). Except for one part when, for whatever reason, the highway (the 15? I don't remember which) ends in a residential area, then you have to drive on these residential streets that have very few lights at all until you get to the 5. I'm SSSSSOOOOO glad I have a GPS. I would have been so lost and even more confused otherwise. Seriously, whoever designed the street plans for San Diego...I shake my head at you.

And that, my friends, is my story.

Funny Minnie Mouse Comic

Here's a comic from D23's Comic Page that I thought you might enjoy =D

German-ing it up

Well, a few days before we went to Austria, my mom bought my Rosetta Stone - German, which I wanted for Christmas / to learn some German before the trip. I only had maybe 4 days before we left, so I didn't really get very far. I could say "Das ist meine Schwester" and"Die Katze ist auf Dem Fernseher," but not anything super useful. Fortunately they speak English there =D But anyways, I like Rosetta Stone, but I definitely miss learning rules. I can parrot back phrases that it gives me, but I can't create my own sentence because who knows how to put a sentence together. For example, the definite article changes depending on...I don't even know. You might use "der" in one sentence, but "dem" in another and I really don't know why. And sometimes I really don't know what the pictures were showing. There was a whole segment with people hugging or just being close together with phrases such as "Ich liebe meine Schwester" and "Ich liebe meinen Großvater" and I really didn't know if it meant hug or what until I went to Austria and there was an ad in the metro with that word and I finally understood that it meant love! But yeah, I reeeeeeally miss grammatical rules and direct translations, but I like it. I'll let you know how I feel after I finish Level 1 (I just finished Unit 2 (out of four) in Level 1).

Well, I was reading the newspaper on my iPad...

[Insert shocked sounds from you. You're thinking: "She's reading the newspaper?!?!"] well, yes. I do read it on occasion...like reading the headlines when I'm at Starbucks waiting for my drink (so, every day). But I also have USA Today on my iPad. I like USA Today because they have short articles on pretty much everything. It's just short enough for my attention span and in clear language so that I don't tune out because it's complicated or boring. So I like it, and I learned a few interesting things: 1) Starbucks has a new logo (there was a blog entry that was somewhat about this on the My Starbucks Idea blog, but I didn't really get that there was a new logo because the entry wasn't really fully clear on that) that doesn't have words. 2) Despite being a top-rated show, Idol stars don't really have much success (well, some have, but in recent years many have not become stars). Apparently, watchers don't necessarily go out and by the winner's CDs. 3) The consumer electronics conference is this week and Apple totally owns (which I know, as I read the news on my iPad, am writing this on my MacBook Pro next to my parent's iMac while charging my iPod and waiting impatiently for the iPhone to come to Verizon). There will be more tablets, a better version of 4G, and other miscellaneous things. Then I read this funny article: "Final Word: Getting juiced up over the old fitness routine" by Craig Wilson. Here's the article:

Like the rest of the world, I'm at the gym this week. But unlike the rest of the world, I'm at the gym every week, not just during these post-holiday-get-back-in-shape days of the new year.
I'm not bragging. Far from it. If you could see me, you'd be shocked that I go to the gym as often as I do.

What does he do, you'd ask? Hang out at the juice bar? Talk to the trainers? Sleep in the sauna?

I've been known to do all of those things, yes, but in fact I do actually venture into the workout area, too.

I even have a routine. Leg lifts. The elliptical machine. Water break. Free weights. Then I take my shower, get dressed and walk home.

I count the walk to and from the gym part of the routine. My only goal here is to get my heart pumping enough to remind myself that I have a heart.

Despite all this rigor, I have lost no weight in five years and have now concluded that the "middle" in middle age is the bulge around the waist.

It doesn't help that I still pretty much eat and drink what I want. (No need for the dietitians of the world to weigh in here, pun intended. I know that diet and exercise are to be done in tandem. I've just never tried it.)

Call me a gym rat but without a gym body. Sad thing is I still pay the same price as those guys who actually end up with six-pack abs and rock-hard butts.

It's probably more correct to refer to me as a gym tortoise.

This week I've been surrounded by hundreds of people I have never seen before, each running a mile a minute on the treadmill or climbing those stairs that take you nowhere.

Some even sweat, something I try to avoid.

Maybe they're trying to shed their holiday pounds. Maybe they're getting their bodies ready for the romance of Valentine's Day.

Maybe they'll still be here in July.

I doubt it. They're gym hares. They run, then burn out. We tortoises have seen them before and trudge on.

A new, young personal trainer came up to me the other day and asked if I wanted any New Year's tips on exercise and diet. He wanted to know if I was interested in putting together a new routine. He could work one up. How about looking over my diet, he suggested. I was a project, someone he might be able to whip into shape.

No thanks, I said.

I told him I'd been coming to the gym for years now, loved the place, and was actually quite happy with the way things were going.

"Really?" he asked, sizing me up once again.

"Really," I answered, heading to the juice bar.

Confused or Diversifying?

Ok, the first advertisement that I've ever seen for the Honda Odyssey was the one that seems to be geared to guys, the one where the guy is leaving the grocery store with a bag of groceries and in the parking lot there's a Honda Odyssey parked there and it has a loud amp in the back and fireworks are going off and everything so it's trying to convey the message that a van can be cool & rockin'. Here's the print version of the commercial:

From: http://www.advertolog.com/honda/print-outdoor/rock-van-13963805/

Then recently, I was at the mall and the advertisement was trying to communicate the exact opposite message; it's an image of serenity with deer and rainbows and things like that. I understand that it's trying to reach a different audience (this time => moms), but still. Very interesting.

From: http://www.advertolog.com/honda/print-outdoor/serenity-13963905/

When I was looking for these images to show you, I found yet another advertisement for this an: a romance one. A van that's romantic? That's a bit of a stretch, but ok. Worth a try, I guess. But really, a romantic van? a VAN? To me, that seems like the opposite of romantic because it brings to mind the idea of a van full of kids who are begging for attention so that you don't really have time for each other...but maybe that's just me

Romance: http://www.advertolog.com/honda/print-outdoor/romance-13963855/

But anyways, isn't it interesting? I don't often see such different messages being sent out about the same product. I guess that they're trying to cover all of the bases and get as many people as possible to buy that van, but to me that just seems confusing. I mean, I had already seen two of the ads just going through daily life (TV, mall ads, an ad at the gym), so I'm getting mixed messages. Then I find out that there's a third ad...there could even be more! I don't know if it's a mommy van, a dad van, or a romance van. Fortunately, I'm none of those anyways so I'm safe. Me & my VW bug are uncomplicatedly happy =D

Back in Austria...in less than 6 months =D

Well, yesterday we got back from a super fun Christmas trip to Austria. We started off in Vienna, then went to Salzburg, then returned to Vienna before coming home. Here are some random thoughts/notes from the trip:

*I loved getting into the Viennese coffee culture. My favorite drink was the einspänner, which is a double espresso with whipped cream. Absolutely delicious! But they have a lot of different coffee drinks, which all at least looked good. I got a drink every day, sometimes twice a day, so this week I need to slowly decrease my caffeine intake so I don't accidentally get a caffeine headache or something.


*They LOVE pretzels there, apparently. There's a pretzel stand pretty much everywhere with all different kinds of pretzels: regular, chocolate covered, cheese, pizza....so many types! I'm not a big pretzel person so I didn't experiment with them, but it was definitely interesting

*As New Years approached, stands selling pig figurines and other pig merchandise started appearing everywhere. Apparently, pigs are signs of good luck in Austria.

*They're really serious about Christmas, it seems. Both Vienna & Salzburg were very decorated

Below are pictures that I took that I really like:

View from the castle that overlooks Vienna.

Mirabelle Gardens

Lake near the town of Salzburg

(me playing with our new Bamboo thing)

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

I have had a super long New Year's Day because we left Vienna for home at 7:45am their time (which is still New Years Eve in California) and I'm still awake (and it's like...almost 4:30am there? Wow. No wonder I'm so tired). I'll write about my trip later., maybe tomorrow. I just wanted to post this pic in case you haven't googled today: