This month's video offerings:
Below are two videos. The Chiang Rai Road trip is 15 minutes, and the Loy Krathong celebration musings are 5 minutes.
And...A Musical Special
Both Diane and Bill have musical backgrounds and from time to time, we post things here from that world. Diane spent a couple of days recording at Studio B in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Sometimes referred to as the second bedroom in our condo.
This is Diane’s rendition of the song One Lord. Diane has a YouTube page, where she has videos of her work at Sacred Heart Cathedral and recordings done at the Chiang Mai Piano Institute. If you’d like to go to that page, click the purple button below.
Hey, how's yer Thai?
It came up as a question. How is your Thai? The answer to that is not simple. If, I want to move on in the conversation, I’ll say simply, “it is improving”.
The real answer is more complicated as it is with anyone who has attempted to learn a foreign language.
There are several multidimensional angles at play here. First, is one’s ability to learn another language. This is, I believe, a spectrum. Ranging from “gee, those darn foreign languages seem ta have a different word for everything, I don’t git it” to the higher end of the spectrum; “yes, I work for the state department, my mother is Uzbek, and my father is Tasmanian. I can speak x number of languages… blah, blah, blah.” I am a fair amount south of the middle of that spectrum.
The second angle is how much effort you make. Even a small amount is just fine… at first 🙂
The third is ‘where’ do you live as you are learning said language. How much access do you have to native speakers? And how much desire you have…
Before this gets depressing, I feel learning a foreign language is truly a wonderful thing. It keeps your brain sharp, and you learn about a different culture at the same time. You will become a better person. I promise.
And… it might even be inspiration for a future vacation abroad.
Most importantly, ‘you’ should just start this week. Do a small amount. Set achievable goals at first. Find an app. Hopefully soon, when you feel you are ready, find an online teacher. Invest $18 for one hour a week.
Here is an example of my homework this week. Either you will look at that and think “that’s pretty impressive” or you think “geez…. kinda disappointing. Vloggers on YouTube claim that you can learn to speak fluently in 3 weeks.” Those Vloggers exist only to get clicks, likes and subscribers. (Gawd, I just hate those lying, no-good, scoundrels.)
Thank You!
Thank you so much for reading our blog. I recently learned that the video concerning the flood in Chiang Mai had 279 views. The number of views are not a goal, but it is nice to see.
P.S. (that is 'post script' for those of you under 40)
Busy, busy, busy…
In the years approaching retirement, several recent and longtime retirees I knew had shared a mysterious and puzzling sentence. “Now that I’m retired, I am so busy.” At the time, from my perspective, it somewhere between comical and nonsensical.
Now after 1 year into retirement, I absolutely get it. This morning (Sunday) I only had a couple of hours after my walk and breakfast to catch up on completing one of the videos for this blog. Some changes I needed required an upgrade to the video software I use. That decision and download took both hours. Now we are off to our weekly run to church and a wat respectively.
The difference is that time in which I would normally dedicate to my working career is now wonderfully given to things I want to do… and I want to do a lot! I have self-inflicted deadlines. I release a new blog on the 1st of every month, which is at the end of this week. At the same time, we have a trip planned for Phuket for some well-deserved beach time and to meet with our insurance agent. Add to this, a bandmate just sent me a file of bass guitar work which will complete a song I’ve been working on for a couple of months.
Diane has her own busy world which always starts with a 45-minute workout at the gym. Then as a member of the Sacred Heart Cathedral Choir, she has responsibilities of singing responsorials, substituting occasionally playing piano and such. All this takes time from downloading music, rehearsing and performing. She also spends a fair amount of time on vocal maintenance and piano playing improvement. Things I should be doing but don’t. Then after finding herself addicted to Korean dramas, Diane has been attempting to learn the Korean language. When I see her writing squiggles it makes me dizzy. Too difficult! (Diane says “not as difficult as Thai.”)
By 6:30 pm we are done with our ‘day jobs’ and settle in for dinner, an episode of something, and then news before bedtime. We have been lucky in life and are both grateful. We had good steady jobs at the same company (85 years between the two of us). And a thankful shoutout to Dave Moore, the previous owner of Electrocom, who started the 401k plans at our place of work so many years ago. We saved our money, and now also receive a nice supplement from social security.
I write all of this as I am sitting 30 ft from the Ping River as it slowly drifts by, shaded by a sala (a building without walls) at my favorite wat. It’s approaching noon, 82 degrees, and I’m sipping an iced coffee. I realize this all sounds pretty sweet, and it is, but I do schedule this time, every Sunday, for two hours as Diane is singing at church. The coffee lady recognizes me and spends some time helping me with my Thai. Life is indeed good!