Well here we are at the end of another year waiting to see in the next one and hoping it will be better than the last. For me 2010 has not been so bad, it has certainly been better than the few before, my recovery from depression has come a very long way and I know it will only improve in 2011. That said it still feels that my life has been on hold again and Iwant to start living again I want to mix with other humans more, which means I have to overcome my insecurities which sometimes stop me from getting involved.
I have achieved some really good things this year, I have travelled by myself further than the shop at the top of my road, I have been as far as to Germany and back several times. I commited to a degree and I have worked hard to receive some great results for my efforts and I didn't give up when it looked to hard, instead I took time out to calm down and to find a solution. i am quite proud of how far i have come.
I am not really sure if I will write any New Years Resolutions, pretty much they are the same every year aren't they? Mine usually are anyways, I just want to continue to step forward, but perhaps some directions would be good. I will think about it some more, but goodbye 2010... Happy New Year Everyone!
Showing posts with label Ponderations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ponderations. Show all posts
Friday, 31 December 2010
Saturday, 11 December 2010
How to Read
I got my Kindle today, an early Christmas present from my Dad. He wanted to give it to me so i could set it up before my flight to Germany on Wednesday. The first thing I have to say is how amazing it looks, I had heard the comments that the screen looks just like paper but really not believed it as how can it, it is a mini computer no? But really it does, which is down to what is called e-ink, a small explanation from the more technical father was that unlike lcd's which refresh a few times per second there is no refreshing of the e-ink until you 'turn the page'. Whatever it is I say it's jolly clever!
It is pretty simple to use I am currently about a 3rd of the way through reading Pride and Prejudice, part of my Big Read challenge, so I have downloaded it onto the Kindle (for free!) and will continue with my bedtime reading from there tonight. I have even managed to work out how to transfer one of my OU textbooks from the student website onto the Kindle, so feeling very pleased with myself indeed. The only thing I am missing is one of those expensive leather covers which will protect it and have a built in reading light.
Being so new I have had a quick check around for questions, like making sure I know how to get it into flight safe mode and as such I found myself on the Amazon Kindle forum and a topic caught my eye immediately called How do you read? No, I'm serious - I've just been told I should relearn! and I have to say it raised a discussion that I have never ever thought about, which is the way we read. I suppose I just took for granted that everyone reads in the same way, I knew that some people were faster readers than I was but I never thought that they actually read using a completely different method.
Like the poster, I too read each word aloud in my head, but from what I can work out some people read by sight alone and their brain must process the information in a different way. Some people say there is a right way and a wrong way to learn to read and I apparently have the wrong way, which might make sense, I have a mild-ish form of dyslexia, unless I am stressed then it can get much worse. However, surely the way in which one person learns to read is very much personal and works for them, just like the hand we find it easier with which to write?
The question that quite interests me is how our interpretations of what we are reading might differ depending on the way we read. By reading each word aloud in my head I find I have a narrator voice which is quite expressive, I am not sure if that would translate to someone that reads with just their eyes. Do they have a more or less vivid illustration of the world they are reading about? I wonder if thinking is exactly the same, I quite often think in words but I know other people that hardly ever internally narrate their thoughts but instead have images.
It is a subject which just 30 minutes ago I had no opinion of, but now I really want to find out more. Do you or anyone you know read in the same or different way?
It is pretty simple to use I am currently about a 3rd of the way through reading Pride and Prejudice, part of my Big Read challenge, so I have downloaded it onto the Kindle (for free!) and will continue with my bedtime reading from there tonight. I have even managed to work out how to transfer one of my OU textbooks from the student website onto the Kindle, so feeling very pleased with myself indeed. The only thing I am missing is one of those expensive leather covers which will protect it and have a built in reading light.
Being so new I have had a quick check around for questions, like making sure I know how to get it into flight safe mode and as such I found myself on the Amazon Kindle forum and a topic caught my eye immediately called How do you read? No, I'm serious - I've just been told I should relearn! and I have to say it raised a discussion that I have never ever thought about, which is the way we read. I suppose I just took for granted that everyone reads in the same way, I knew that some people were faster readers than I was but I never thought that they actually read using a completely different method.
Like the poster, I too read each word aloud in my head, but from what I can work out some people read by sight alone and their brain must process the information in a different way. Some people say there is a right way and a wrong way to learn to read and I apparently have the wrong way, which might make sense, I have a mild-ish form of dyslexia, unless I am stressed then it can get much worse. However, surely the way in which one person learns to read is very much personal and works for them, just like the hand we find it easier with which to write?
The question that quite interests me is how our interpretations of what we are reading might differ depending on the way we read. By reading each word aloud in my head I find I have a narrator voice which is quite expressive, I am not sure if that would translate to someone that reads with just their eyes. Do they have a more or less vivid illustration of the world they are reading about? I wonder if thinking is exactly the same, I quite often think in words but I know other people that hardly ever internally narrate their thoughts but instead have images.
It is a subject which just 30 minutes ago I had no opinion of, but now I really want to find out more. Do you or anyone you know read in the same or different way?
Monday, 29 November 2010
So this means we're grown ups now...
On Saturday morning I found out that one of my best friends from school is getting divorced after being together for 15 years. They are the first people I know of my age to go through it and unfortunately it isn't going to be amicable. He cheated on her with someone else we were at school with, her part in this doesn't surprise me as she was only interested in attached guys even back then, once she had them she didn't want them, so the soon to be ex will hopefully be in for a lovely surprise when she gets bored and he finds himself alone. However he has emptied their bank account without a thought for how my friend will provide for their child and is sending threatening e-mails, I fail to see it from his point of view at all and believe he is probably being manipulated into doing it. What I find worse is that he was absolutely appalled by the similar behaviour carried out by his father on leaving his mother, so I add hypocrite to the list of smaller more Anglo-Saxonesque words I have taken to referring to him as.
A quieter more secret part of me is pleased he is gone. I think my friend was always too good for him, and although it is all too raw for me to say it to her right now she will meet someone far better, having a little fun along the way road-testing - if you catch my drift ;) Myself I have had many break-ups in the past to know that the feeling that no one will ever find you attractive again is not true, and I know that the pain gets less with every passing day, that I am better without every one of them, but 15 years of being with the same person, the person you promised "'til death do us part." I cannot imagine the pain. Then there is the practical stuff that needs to be sorted, the legal things, the day to day things, the question of who gets what and on top of that carrying on and putting a brave face on for her son, when I am sure all she wants to do is stay in bed and eat cheesecake for a week.
My own parents have now been divorced for almost twice the amount of time they were married. The first time he left - which incidentally was for a woman that shares the name of the husband stealer above, a woman that also stole the husband of my step-mum in an unrelated event - he came back home a short while later, by that time my Mum had accepted it was over, realised they were better apart and they split for good. They remained amicable and neither ever tried to turn me or my brother against the other, of course there were the odd irritated grumbles, but they'd be there even if they were still married. The funny thing is that I find it quite alien to think that they could have ever been dating let alone married for 14 years with 2 kids, but I suppose that is down to them divorcing when I was 5 and spending the past 27 years getting to know them individually.
Ironically Saturday was also the day that my teenage crush got married, we had one of those Joey & Dawson things going on for a while and I was convinced we'd end up together and although we had moments of shared teenage fumblings we never did. I haven't seen him since last millennium (haha how old does that make us sound?) and I have no interest in seeing him, but still it felt a little bit odd. I do however wish him as much luck and happiness and hope that his new wife is every bit as amazing as my beautiful boyfriend.
A quieter more secret part of me is pleased he is gone. I think my friend was always too good for him, and although it is all too raw for me to say it to her right now she will meet someone far better, having a little fun along the way road-testing - if you catch my drift ;) Myself I have had many break-ups in the past to know that the feeling that no one will ever find you attractive again is not true, and I know that the pain gets less with every passing day, that I am better without every one of them, but 15 years of being with the same person, the person you promised "'til death do us part." I cannot imagine the pain. Then there is the practical stuff that needs to be sorted, the legal things, the day to day things, the question of who gets what and on top of that carrying on and putting a brave face on for her son, when I am sure all she wants to do is stay in bed and eat cheesecake for a week.
My own parents have now been divorced for almost twice the amount of time they were married. The first time he left - which incidentally was for a woman that shares the name of the husband stealer above, a woman that also stole the husband of my step-mum in an unrelated event - he came back home a short while later, by that time my Mum had accepted it was over, realised they were better apart and they split for good. They remained amicable and neither ever tried to turn me or my brother against the other, of course there were the odd irritated grumbles, but they'd be there even if they were still married. The funny thing is that I find it quite alien to think that they could have ever been dating let alone married for 14 years with 2 kids, but I suppose that is down to them divorcing when I was 5 and spending the past 27 years getting to know them individually.
Ironically Saturday was also the day that my teenage crush got married, we had one of those Joey & Dawson things going on for a while and I was convinced we'd end up together and although we had moments of shared teenage fumblings we never did. I haven't seen him since last millennium (haha how old does that make us sound?) and I have no interest in seeing him, but still it felt a little bit odd. I do however wish him as much luck and happiness and hope that his new wife is every bit as amazing as my beautiful boyfriend.
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