Stuff from 1 January, 2010
This is the archive of tumbledry happenings that occurred on 1 January, 2010.
This is the archive of tumbledry happenings that occurred on 1 January, 2010.
Mykala and I made a quick list of things we did in 2009. Here are my notes from our conversation:
THINGS WE DID THIS YEAR
Got married
Went to Hawaii
Survived 5 semesters of school (combined)
Moved in together
First married Christmas
Camped
Bought a real tree
Attended a cat funeral
I really liked 2009. 2010 has been good so far.
Reading the New Yorker (thanks, Katy!) with the afternoon sunlight streaming in through the window may be the single best way to spend an hour of a cold winter afternoon.
HTMLGIANT’s Grammar Challenge, courtesy of David Foster Wallace, is composed of ten of the most difficult grammar questions I have ever attempted to answer. Mykala and I worked on it together and got… some answers correct. If the sentence “I only spent six weeks in Napa” looks wrong to you, then take a look at the remaining sentences!
Barbara Strauch, in How to Train the Aging Brain:
Teaching new facts should not be the focus of adult education, she says. Instead, continued brain development and a richer form of learning may require that you “bump up against people and ideas” that are different. In a history class, that might mean reading multiple viewpoints, and then prying open brain networks by reflecting on how what was learned has changed your view of the world.
Confronting people with whom you disagree will only raise your blood pressure — but absorbing, internalizing, and critiquing ideas that run orthogonal to the “well-trodden paths in [your] synapses” will keep your brain’s abilities honed.