August 28, 2007 by Ceolwulf.

So back to that rhythmic breathing thing, this morning I was getting really frustrated.  Enough so that I goofed a bit and went to breathe way earlier than I should have, or thought I should have - it didn’t work very well (cough, splutter) but I could tell instantly that I was onto something.  By the end of the session, well I won’t say I had it down cos I didn’t, but it’s a whole lot closer than it was!  Three more pool sessions, let’s see if I can get it somewhat smoothed out.

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August 27, 2007 by Ceolwulf.

Just starting to get a bit into anime.  There actually isn’t much of it that’s interesting to me … don’t really care about comedy, sci-fi just irritates me, most fantasy bores me, and that covers the majority of what’s out there it seems like.  However now I’m almost undecided whether to even bother watching any more, …

because I really don’t think anything else can measure up to the greatness that is Haibane Renmei.

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August 24, 2007 by Ceolwulf.

Wednesday and today, I’ve been trying to put together a full swim stroke.  Not really happening.  The trouble is with my breathing.  I can do all the drills reasonably well, but rhythmic breathing eludes me.  Thing is swimming is basically overswitch drill with breathing incorporated; however, during overswitch, with the balance I’ve learned (which does seem to be very efficient), my head is so far underwater that just rolling to where I should be able to breathe leaves me with my mouth six inches from the surface - so I have to wait till my head clears the surface, and that interrupts my rhythm.  Really not sure how I can overcome this.  I tried the drill TI suggests, with just breathing from skating position, and that seems to work more or less OK.  But putting that together with the overswitch, just doesn’t.

Well, five more practices in the pool and then that season is over.  I may have to get a wetsuit yet, and go to the lake until freeze-up (heh, right!).

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August 18, 2007 by Ceolwulf.

Yup.

Pix tomorrow.

edit: go here for pix.

Few issues with it that I wasn’t told about.  I don’t think any of them should be too serious.  Overall it’s in good shape and I’m reasonably satisfied.  Now this importing process seems to be, well, a real process.  LONG process.  RIV take their sweet time.

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August 17, 2007 by Ceolwulf.

Well, still swim training every morning (more or less, this week I got there every morning).  Steady progress, is good.  Today I started “overswitch” which is the last drill in the TI system before actual swimming … it’s basically a standard freestyle swim stroke without the breathing (yes you do breath, you just pause the drill to do it).  Went well.  It’s strange though, been doing the “zipperswitch” all week and sometimes it feels just perfect and sometimes I feel so unbalanced that I seem to be about to tip over in some direction or other.  Got a bit of that today but not much.

Learning swimming is basically the same as learning kanji.  Or anything else.  You master the skills in blocks, start with the micro-segments of it, eventually that series of strokes or whatever it is becomes “one thing” and now you can use that as a single block that can be incorporated into a meta-block that will in its own turn become a single block for the next level up.  And the next thing you know you have it.

And then you go back to the beginning and polish the micro-segments that you started with to perfection.  Because a building is only as good as its materials.

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August 2, 2007 by Ceolwulf.

Apparently I can’t swim straight to save my life!

also, note to self: remember to put everything you need in your messenger bag so you don’t have to bike home in a panic between swimming and work.  Yes, this includes underpants.

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August 1, 2007 by Ceolwulf.

So I just restarted learning Japanese, … again.

When will I ever learn that it’s more effective to stick with something than to take three runs at it from the beginning, before quitting yet again.

Anyway the Kanji to me are the soul of the Japanese language, and are a large part of why I want to learn it. I am making good progress now with King Kanji on my PDA and Heisig’s book. The mnemonics in the book are sometimes indispensable, sometimes worthless. Sometimes I can remember a character just fine with only the appearance of it (and stroke order, very important I find) and don’t need a mnemonic at all. Sometimes I make up my own mnemonic. Also I think using just the book would be ten times as difficult as using it in combination with King Kanji.

So far I’ve been at it again for about two weeks and have learned approximately 200 Kanji, so I’m about 10% done. A lot of those were just review, but the latest study set (35 characters) I seem to have pretty much mastered in two days using this system.

Oddly though I have not yet started learning the pronunciations. Just the meanings and stroke order. Not sure of why I’m so reluctant to start aside from my usual reluctance to begin anything.

What I wish there were though, is a system for learning based on the radicals that make up the characters. Heisig does this to a considerable extent, but what I would like is a learning order, not by grade level as Heisig does it, but rather by building block; where you would learn first the characters that are also radicals. I think this would make it a great deal easier to use the mnemonic system. As it is, I often find that I am expected to remember a character based on the meaning of a radical that I haven’t yet learned.

I think to a large extent I am approaching Japanese learning backwards to what most Westerners would do. Most learn the spoken language first, and if they ever do learn to read and write, that’s much later. I heard somewhere that Japanese people use a completely different part of their brains for language than Westerners. Makes sense, because it’s so visual. Japanese writing has an extra dimension than writing with alphabets - the characters themselves hold meaning, which you don’t even have to map to a particular sequence of sounds in order to understand. Contrast that to alphabetic writing where the letters themselves only represent sounds and nothing more. That’s why I think that learning the Kanji is central to a real understanding of the Japanese language.

Anyway just some thinking aloud about this interesting subject.

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