Archive for the ‘Spanish’ Category

   One would think that once you are in your 60s you would stop having mid-life crises…..evidently not……..Seems I am once again concerned with the direction my artistic life will take, now that I’m retired. This thinking has kind of evolved over the last two-three months, as I realized I had over-scheduled my retirement on a weekly basis. College algebra on Monday (which takes 6 hours on Monday, plus a good chunk of Sunday for preparation), tutoring on Tuesday afternoon, yoga on Wednesday, tutoring on Thursday afternoon, yoga on Friday……add in an unexpected move, and there’s been virtually no sewing time these last six weeks. Not a happy camper……

So what to do? I have one Monday after today to finish the term, and then I am putting this teaching on a long-term hold. One of the reasons I retired was because I didn’t want this grind any more. I know I could teach more classes, but aside from screwing up SSI, I really don’t want to get back into the teaching focus. Yoga is a constant; I will keep my two mornings a week. I feel good and I am making weight progress. I’m going to keep the tutoring, as it is more rewarding, doing the one-on-one work. I picked up an additional client short-term, and both clients now will be a total of 6 hours a week, spread out, over several months at a time. That’s fine, because I can adjust travel schedules as needed pretty easily.

All that said, nothing much has gotten done on marketing. It took me forever to find the time to get new business cards made for the Seattle trip. February just flew by in a blur. This week are are attempting to finish the last of the marbling for StashFest, and we have already started to put things aside for packing. Two weeks from today we will be somewhere in California, headed north. I decided to redo a smaller quilt from about 12 years ago, to take along another example of the marbled fabrics with more free motion quilting. Spent about five hours over the weekend ripping out stitches. Surprisingly calming, not that I need another project…..

The rest of the marketing for the quarter is on the back burner. Visions got completed and entered…and I learned last week that the piece didn’t get in. Oh, well….this time at least I am philosophical and not pissed. It’s still a great piece. But I am rethinking the entering-shows-again route. I will keep making art, regardless. I do work well with deadlines, however, so I need to keep that in mind. And I do want to get back to taking some classes on line, once we are  back from Seattle.

Still no newsletter, and blogging took a big hit for about three weeks……just when I was getting so close to 3000 visitors. How important is all that? At my age, being retired, just how much of the marketing/business work do I really want to do? I find that if I don’t have one or two days a week to just sit outside, read, and generally veg, I’m not happy. So it’s time for some rethinking. And time to enjoy this new trip that’s coming….never been to Seattle and Portland, so we’re saving our pennies, given gas prices and the fact that the tax refund was virtually non-existent, so we can have some fun…and  possibly buy some new art!

I just finished my evening walk, and as I strolled I reviewed the Spanish vocabulary on my index card. I have started the Rosetta Stone program for Spanish and am really enjoying it. What I discovered today is the need to figure out some conjugations for verbs, so I can get a handle on how verbs go together.

I have always loved languages. Thanks to Joan Daniels, who introduced me to Latin my 9th grade year in high school. I fell in love with the language and the woman who would be one of the most important influences in my education. She understood the meaning of gifted education way ahead of time. She suffered from psoriasis, and I think she was single her whole life. She had a superb sense of humor and a great singing and comedic talent – she would participate in the faculty talent shows each year.

Moving to New York state the beginning of my junior year meant the end of Latin for me. I did get back in the late 60s (Sterling in 1969 applying for a teaching position), and then again in 1986, both times to thank her for how much she meant. And both times she mentioned to present students that I was the only person she ever had who took second and third year Latin at the same time. I dearly miss the woman, but at least I had two chances to say thank you.

This was the beginning of my love affair with language. Latin 1 was so easy, and I loved the translations. The beginning of my 10th grade year, it was obvious that I remembered all my Latin and didn’t need review, so she added me to the third year class. It meant having to come in an hour earlier for the class, which was fine with me. I also took French 1 at the same time. And I ended up representing the school in the state Latin contest for both second and third-year Latin. This was so important for me, because it was some of the only validation I got for my intelligence.

I still can conjugate and do declensions, and I pull in the vocabulary piece of Latin constantly in class. I can compare some simple sentences, so kids can see the similarities. Now it’s all coming back as I work with the Spanish, knowing which verbs will probably be irregular, agreement in case and number, and so on. Some of the words for nouns are similar, but I am wondering where “pasto” for grass came from….

So Miss Daniels – I hope you are looking down from Latin heaven to know just how much you meant to me! All my love – Linda Lemke