Le Baron's casual reading log

[Le Baron]

I don't expect to carry on very actively with Spanish once it hits the new year. It's nothing to do with the language itself, I've enjoyed myself with it, but I feel like pursuing something else and actually picking up a language I put into storage. That language may well be Norwegian. I want something I can pursue with just reading and listening rather than specifically developing speaking competence; which has been a strong goal for Spanish, because I have a fair number of Spanish friends. Spanish won't disappear from my maintenance.

I'd also thought about Italian, which I've never studied formally, but picked up a lot along the way and I watch a lot of Italian films anyway. However I want to move more to the Germanic side. There are some small things I want to tidy up in Dutch, to improve in German, and since I actually enjoyed Norwegian when I was doing it previously I think I can dust it off and move forward with it.

[Le Baron]

Even though I don't strictly log numbers and activities I know what I do per day, week, month... Sometimes I've felt that I was 'slacking' then when I count up the actual number of hours of the activities I've done in a day/week, it's far beyond my casual assumptions.

So this year I've actually done about 2000 hours of pure audio listening alone (audio learning material/podcasts). This doesn't count videos or watching entire films or television or even listening to the live radio. So that would increase considerably, considering I listen to the radio a lot whilst using the internet or working.

Then reading. It is 'casual' in the sense that I don't make grand plans or predict exactly how many books I will actually read. There's a goal in my signature or a book per month read extensively. I've done this, yet also read lots of things more quickly or things like newspaper magazine articles. So the actual number of 'learning' books is more like 20, plus maintenance reading for Dutch, German, French...a piddling amount of Indonesian.

Followed by actual study from study materials, working on weaknesses and structural competence. I've actually done a lot more than I commonly imagine, simply by means of time and persistance. So I'm pleased with that. For next year I think I might be less casual in my approach and perhaps try and see if I can pare down some of the time at least spent listening and still make progress. It always feels less like 'immersion' when I've tried this, but I also need more time to do other (important, life) things. Perhaps next year if I go along with the plan to continue with Norwegian, where it is already past the very basic stages, I can run it in a more streamlined way. And i I decide to pursue Italian...well we'll see.

[Le Baron]

My great discovery (well probably not 'mine' or even 'great') is that the fewer fixed micro goals I set the more I seem to do. At times like this, Christmas I mean or Easter or when I'm going on holiday etc, I tend to wind it all down and not think about what needs to be done or finished or read. It just stops. Then I end up doing loads of other things and it didn't even feel like work.

How can this be? I've tended to believe that it's like me saying: 'right, next Monday at 3pm I'll enjoy Grieg's piano concerto immensely!'. Then at 3pm on Monday, this doesn't happen and usually because you can't programme for engagement/enjoyment. Whereas on another day I'll listen to it twice and lots more besides and perhaps for a month running. Yet there has to be some 'plan' or you end up flitting about and being disorganised. However, for me it's more about setting a long-term goal, not panicking about how far away it is, and then having no unreasonable or strict division on the steps I'll take in the short term. When you do that latter you end up fixated on not having done a particular number of things in a set time. So it's a guaranteed sense of failure when it happens.

The small dips without guilt or pressure make me always eager to get back at it. Strangely it also makes me have a regular habit, since there's no fear of having to meet goals for 'number of pages', and number of listening hours. So I don't need to say, 'blast, no progress this week/month...' (sad face).

I realise this is not for everyone, but it does pay to look at what actually does suit you as an approach and periodically too, because when I was a student I was highly organised and micromanaged things and it had some beneficial effect. People change or even different things need different approaches. After all if I was as cavalier with my finances as I am with language learning I'd probably be homeless.

[Le Baron]

I have to get this out of my system, even if it's a dodgy topic. It has a language component, but it's small.

For a number of months I had been preparing a two-part talk with a Q&A, largely meant for people in the political party of which I am a member (soc-dem, but uses the word 'socialism' vaguely), but haven't been greatly active in for a year or so. Part of this was their poor, self-handicapping economic framework which causes me great annoyance. I agree with their aims, but their literature and their general outlook is based on a flawed and incomplete understanding of operational facts and principles. They're not entirely to blame though, because it flows from the same orthodox monetarist (now 'neoliberal') conception we've all been subjected to for around the last 46 years. So there are those who fully accept it ideologically and those who unwittingly accept it because they can't overcome it. Most people alive have come of age under it, so it's like those people who think 'a computer' means 'Windows'... 'how else am I going to use the internet!! and write documents'..etc

Consider also that I had to give this talk in Dutch, a language I don't struggle with, but the problem is terminology. I know the terminology, but I also know that some of it is fundamentally unhelpful as description and some just plain wrong. I'm much more used to these discussions in English or French, which also share a lot of technical vocabulary on the topic. However, not so long ago I was teaching this subject in Dutch and had gone to great trouble to develop the vocabulary. One of the reasons I became disenchanted is due to the public perception of economics as some kind of incomprehensible 'voodoo', promoted by the media. Also somewhat promoted by academia itself, where clarity and factual understanding gives way to crank opinions and rehashed, half-understood ideas. Once I properly understood Minsky and later burgeoning monetary theories after at least 2007, my job became untenable.

So I wrote the thing out, since the topic at hand is not small. However, try living in the EU and explaining to people who aren't right-wing populists why the EU and its econ policy (monetarist ideology) is such a stumbling block for sane national economic policy. Next-to impossible. They think I'm a 'Brexiteer' (and those right-wing populists think I'm a 'communist') who is preaching 'capitalism', even though none of the representatives stand in parliament to say they plan to abolish the monetary economy. So offering them an understanding of how to prevent abuse and make good use of a monetary economy is met with suspicion and disbelief. They actually believe that sovereign issuers 'go bankrupt' (or don't grasp why the loss of monetary sovereignty in the EMU could make that a reality). Or don't understand how the private 'market' is fed by the same origin of government issue. It's almost hopeless.

So there I was explaining and people stopping me in the Q&A asking if I 'understood' the meaning of e.g. 'deficit' (begrotingstekort in Dutch), since I was explaining in a way which is, I admit, counter-intuitive to the term as it developed popularly, and which is wholly unhelpful as a common term for us now. This happened numerous times, until I had to write each word down on the whiteboard and go through the meanings in relation to the discussion. So e.g. a government 'deficit' doesn't mean they are strapped for cash or that it's necessarily negative for you, but that such government injection describes 'public financial wealth' on your side of the sectoral balance. Assuming it isn't syphoned off somewhere else. Or that 'government debt' is nothing at all like actual debt in a personal or private sector sense; that the terminology describes an entirely different sort of banking operation which is policy-based, i.e. a choice... I have to admit I was expecting this sort of thing anyway.

What annoyed me language-wise was people (like a young 'economic advisor' from the SNS bank) chatting to me afterwards and implying that I'd 'muddled' certain words in translation . It won't be in my lifetime that this demented ideological misinformation is overcome.That it causes progressive politics to unwittingly poison itself from the inside is utterly frustrating.

[lichtrausch]

Are you advocating "modern monetary theory"?

[Le Baron]

Are you advocating "modern monetary theory"?

Broadly, yes. Though even I was sceptical back before the 2008 crash. I've found it's best not to use that name because more people have just heard the name or read a negative hit-piece, than know what it refers to!

[Le Baron]

Yesterday I watched a Spanish film, Angelica's cousin (Saura, 1973), the second from Saura after Ana and the wolves, which stars Charlie Chaplin's daughter Geraldine. No subtitles, understood most of it, though there were enough moments of uncertainty.

Also yesterday a German Arte documentary about 'bullsh*t jobs'. The sociological analysis seemed a bit weak and superficial to me. Focused upon middle-class office jobs, which no doubt suffer greatly from this, but ignoring mindless, much lower-paid work.

I dropped-off ma femme at a friend of hers, whom she hasn't seem for over six months (they moved house) and then while I was in her motor I stopped off in Amersfoort to visit a Spanish friend for a quick toast (non-alcoholic). She's gong to stay over there tonight, so I can watch a 'foreign film' without being interrupted or told to get off the computer!!

I already finished Réquiem por un campesino español, so that's my lot for books until I start up again next year.

[Le Baron]

Well, Pelé died. I'm not a fan of modern football, but I thought 'yes, it's a milestone'. He was indeed a great ambassador for the sport and a great figure.

Today in Utrecht I was with some Norwegian people who seemed to be completely undaunted by the wind and rain and were having a great time going around the old parts of the city. I finished around 2pm in the workshop (rest of work is at home) and so I caught them up near the railway museum and we went to a café. I only really know one of the women, she used to live here about 5 years ago. She had a friend with her husband. This sort of thing always happens, where I have previous knowledge of a language, but didn't take it far enough to be a properly usable language. If feels a bit like defeat, because although I could understand a good deal of what they said to each other and to me, we did default to English for total comprehension. It's a real encouragement for me to take Norwegian off the shelf.

and that's my decision for myself: Norwegian or Italian? I've watched so many Italian films lately and perused certain books, that I feel motivated to go on with it on the back of Spanish. Yet I also felt it was time to bring Norwegian study back to life rather than letting it sit half-finished. Then I thought maybe this was just rash thought like a New Year's resolution or something and what I really ought to be doing is solidifying Spanish and ensuring all the hard work doesn't slip away. 1st of January is not a 'deadline', it's important to spend time wisely, not make promises on a whim.