![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Productivity, thy name is...
Mar. 25th, 2009 09:57 pm...Wednesday! (Or is that the name of that Addams girl?)
Anyway, I managed to send off a pile of work, which is always good.
Galina and I are not going anywhere for the next few days, first because our kitchen cabinets arrived today and we should probably be around to supervise installation, and second because there's supposed to be a pretty wicked spring snowstorm headed our way (though it's looking more and more as if we're going to miss the main part of the storm).
In terms of my office, I'm vacillating between going the Ikea route (cheap, but the products are cheaply constructed, too) or something a little more custom, but still cheap. I'm thinking a trip through Ikea might not be a bad idea, in terms of seeing what's available and kicking around some ideas.
* * * I'm trying to rebuild some of the memorization chops I once had (oh, but I've backslid over the years!), and I'm finding it's a little more difficult these days.
I am reminded of the difference I can feel (but not describe adequately) in reading English and Russian text (or French for that matter, but that's a different story).
I was fortunate enough to acquire reading fluency early in childhood, so that now, I can pretty much blast through most text not requiring careful attention ("Evelyn Woods" and "second order differential equation" are two phrases that ought never to appear in the same sentence.)
I've been known to knock off a Tom Clancy novel in two sittings. A John Sandford mystery will fall in one. Flights to Europe generally require two medium-sized books. I recall I once read most of a mystery novel while waiting for my bags to arrive after arriving in New York on a Delta flight (though I'm afraid that accomplishment is not entirely due to my reading speed <nudge, wink>).
Basically, whatever mental effort it takes for me to read English text, it's not as if the rest of me notices.
The same is not true when I read Russian, despite the fact I don't really experience any problems doing so. It's not as if I'm sounding out words phonetically, or anything like that. Heck, my comprehension is pretty good (unless the text has a lot of colloquialisms).
It's just that I can feel something fatiguing me, beneath the surface of my consciousness, like a soup bone that hasn't quite enough momentum to rise to the top of the stew. It's why I've not really done a lot of "outside" reading in Russian, at least as compared to what I've devoured in English.
It's also what I suspect happens to a lot of U.S. kids as they go through school, except that for them, it happens in English, so they never get comfortable with reading in childhood/adolescence, and since there is no huge pressure to ever get comfortable with it (radio, tv), that's where they stay.
But I'm getting away from my point (which is a hoot, because I'm actually freewheeling)... so I'll wrap things up for now, get some rest, and maybe continue this freewheel at some later time.
Cheers...
Anyway, I managed to send off a pile of work, which is always good.
Galina and I are not going anywhere for the next few days, first because our kitchen cabinets arrived today and we should probably be around to supervise installation, and second because there's supposed to be a pretty wicked spring snowstorm headed our way (though it's looking more and more as if we're going to miss the main part of the storm).
In terms of my office, I'm vacillating between going the Ikea route (cheap, but the products are cheaply constructed, too) or something a little more custom, but still cheap. I'm thinking a trip through Ikea might not be a bad idea, in terms of seeing what's available and kicking around some ideas.
I am reminded of the difference I can feel (but not describe adequately) in reading English and Russian text (or French for that matter, but that's a different story).
I was fortunate enough to acquire reading fluency early in childhood, so that now, I can pretty much blast through most text not requiring careful attention ("Evelyn Woods" and "second order differential equation" are two phrases that ought never to appear in the same sentence.)
I've been known to knock off a Tom Clancy novel in two sittings. A John Sandford mystery will fall in one. Flights to Europe generally require two medium-sized books. I recall I once read most of a mystery novel while waiting for my bags to arrive after arriving in New York on a Delta flight (though I'm afraid that accomplishment is not entirely due to my reading speed <nudge, wink>).
Basically, whatever mental effort it takes for me to read English text, it's not as if the rest of me notices.
The same is not true when I read Russian, despite the fact I don't really experience any problems doing so. It's not as if I'm sounding out words phonetically, or anything like that. Heck, my comprehension is pretty good (unless the text has a lot of colloquialisms).
It's just that I can feel something fatiguing me, beneath the surface of my consciousness, like a soup bone that hasn't quite enough momentum to rise to the top of the stew. It's why I've not really done a lot of "outside" reading in Russian, at least as compared to what I've devoured in English.
It's also what I suspect happens to a lot of U.S. kids as they go through school, except that for them, it happens in English, so they never get comfortable with reading in childhood/adolescence, and since there is no huge pressure to ever get comfortable with it (radio, tv), that's where they stay.
But I'm getting away from my point (which is a hoot, because I'm actually freewheeling)... so I'll wrap things up for now, get some rest, and maybe continue this freewheel at some later time.
Cheers...
