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I mentioned at the end of my post about Paris that I’m going to actively try to learn French. I should note that my brain is wired kind of funny in the language department - when I’m around people speaking a language I start picking bits up right away. When I sit down for a class with a book and try to learn it by reading nothing sticks. Proof of this I’ve studied in school, and failed Latin twice, French twice, Spanish once, and tried 3-4 different “teach yourself Japanese” programs involving books and gotten next to nowhere with them.

Luckily I’m not the only one like this and I’ve found quite a bit of info about people like me who can learn by hearing but not by reading. Michel Thomas built his whole teaching method around it in fact. Anyway, I’m using his tapes for French so we’ll see how that goes. In searching around for language tips, I’ve seen a few references to people talking about where your brain stores a first language vs second, third, etc in relation to how easy or hard it is to learn other languages as well as some interesting suggestions about when you should learn them.

Traditional theory would say learn one, get it locked solid, then move on to another but keep up with the first otherwise you’ll lose it. I’ve frequently heard of people who speak 2 languages attempting to learn a third only to find that one overwrites the second one they learned. A hack on this I’ve been hearing about recently is to learn several at once. The idea with this would be it’s no harder to learn 3 or 4 languages than it is to learn 1, and by learning them at the same time your brain keeps all the info together rather than replacing one with the next. Think of a file structure - adding 3 docs to one file at the same time works better than trying to add a doc of the same name to file you created two years ago.

I haven’t found any hardcore proof on this, or really and solid studies one way or another but it’s an interesting theory and kind of makes sense. Before I jump to far into the French I’m wondering if I should add on some others at the same time?

You may have noticed that it’s mostly a crapshoot at this point trying to figure out if I’m in Los Angeles or San Francisco. I’ve been back and forth a lot - a habit that has a short lifespan but more on that in a bit. This weekend I’m in LA with the main purpose of finishing my Motorcycle Safety course. Unfortunately the class that I was told I could easily grab a standby slot in was full, so I ended up with more free time than I’d expected. I don’t believe in fate, but I do think things happen for a reason and this all worked out for the best.

I left SF and shortly there after so did Tara. She went north to her fortress of solitude (except not really because her family is there) and I ended up in Dogtown. Within a few hours I was rolling around on a floor at Dennis Hopper’s house with a Keith Haring painting. Xeni was entranced by some charcoals and Souris was talking about white picket fences. I suppose you just had to be there.

Tara and I have been trying to decide where to live since long before we got married but had remained mostly undecided. As much of a militant advocate of Los Angeles as I’ve been known to be, it has been amusing to see how many people instantly assumed that I’d be moving to San Francisco. Certainly I’ve been spending a lot of time there, but in the last 12 months I’ve probably spent as much time in Vienna, yet no one assumed I’d soon be calling Austria home. As Tara mentioned in her post, we need to find a place that could be ours. A place of our own, a home. After much consideration, many candidates, and stacks of pros and cons, we’ve focused our sights on Venice. We don’t have an address or a move in date yet, but it’s fairly safe to say that once we get back from Europe we’ll be on the lookout.

Just logged into facebook and was greeted with approx 150 friend requests which was just too much to deal with so I blanket ignored all of them. If I do I actually know you and you sent a request recently please resend it and I’ll try to be more on top of it. I’m kinda weird about it though and for the most part I try to only be “friends” with people I’m actually friends with, and generally won’t approve someone I’ve never met or talked to just because we have X number of mutual friends. That said, if we are working on similar stuff or interests, just include a note with the request that that will help a lot. Also, just a heads up in efforts to get more use out of the site I will probably be trimming down folks who I don’t know that well who flood me with invites to events (especially ones in cities I’m not in) or groups. Please don’t take this personally, it’s really just trying to get a better grasp on the signal to noise.

To continue my thread this week of tweeking things and launching things I’d like to introduce you to Viva Riot. This site half nudging from Tara to do something creative, half writing exercise, half primal urge to do something with a cool URL. I’ll basically be writing stories to go along with some of the weirder things I’ve seen around and taken pictures of. Some won’t be entirely factual, and some much outright suck. But it’s a start at least. I’d love to know what you think of it.

I’m messing with the layout, as you might have noticed. Please ignore any wonkyness and I hope things will be all working again shortly.