The stream will never run dry.

I really like stream of consciousness writing. Here's my latest stream. Someone else gave me the topic. It's one of my fav's.

The future.
I like thinking about the future. I really like planning and thinking on the future. Is “thinking on” a real phrase. I’m thinking of the time I saw some author speak and she said that she needed to stop “meditating on” her enemies. She meant that she needed to stop thinking so much about her enemies and thinking they they are negative. Oh well. Ok. Back to the future. I just watched back to the future 3 the other day. Not al of it. My father had it on while we were waiting for another movie to cue up. Is that the right way to spell cue for this meaning. Or is it que? Not sure about that one. So, the future. I really hope to do many things in the future. In the near future I would like to finish Newvember strong and consider it a successful month. I can already consider it a success depending on how I rate myself. If I rate myself like I was in school, I would only need 65% completed to pass. I definitely have that done already. But I want to hold myself to a higher standard. In a way, anything but 100% will be considered a failure, but that’s unfair. I think as long as I can finish some of my incomplete challenges by the end of the month then I’ll call that a success. Next month I’m going to make it simpler. I really only have two main challenges for next month: continue to learn and love sign language and work out regularly. I’m feeling lazy and weak and crappy. Last year we did the push-up bonanza, maybe I need to do one of those again?! No, I don’t want to do that. I want to go to the gym and work out. Since my breathing is not very efficient right now I’ll put cold weather running on hold an stick to bike riding (which I’m actually enjoying a lot lately). What I would like to do after this session of consciousness is map out a route from my house to school that will have me avoid hills and add some miles on my morning commute. A half-hour commute would be ideal. That would give me some exercise in the morning and afternoon. To really maximize my health I hope to go to the gym before riding my bike to work. I know it’s possible; I’ve done it before. I just need to take it one month, or week, at a time. Ok. Now I’m kinda freezing on topics. Someone else has disappeared and all I hear is the churning of the dishwasher. Ok. Now she’s back. She seems to be eating something. She said “wow, that was quick” when she saw the amount I have already typed. She then said “I do need the computer when you’re done.” That’s good, that will give me a reason to get off quickly and let my fingers/hands rest. I like this type of typing because I get to type really fast but it does hurt my fingers and hands pretty quickly. I wonder if those split keyboards are good enough to invest in. ok, I can see the word count at the bottom of the screen. I’m over 500 words. I’m drifting off. Someone else needs the computer. It’s time for me to go. This is the last stream of consciousness for Newvember. I will definitely do this again someday. It’s always fun and fun.

Tomorrow I have to learn all I can about Spanish, the subject I disliked the most in high school. I guess I'll do that while my better half is out and about. I'm not really looking forward to this. I didn't like spanish then and nothing has changed to make me rethink my opinion.

Oh, and here's a fun thing. This is a link to a google spread sheet. It has all the words I can currently sign (there might be a few missing) in alphabetical order. Feel free to use these words to create a sentence, paragraph, or conversation for me to practice. You can email it to me if you know that info, or you can just post it in the comments.
Thanks in advance for such a ridiculous request!

Signing is fun

Signing is very fun. Someone else and I had a nice time practicing tonight. We took the 3rd lesson quiz and got 100% (although I feel like I took it before). I practiced a little with my coworker. It's hard to just walk into someone's room and start signing, especially when I'm really not that good yet. I signed the sample paragraph that was at the end of lesson 3. She was pretty impressed. So was I.

Oh, quick story about why I love this lifeprint website. I wanted to go to her (my coworker) and tell her that because ultimate was cancelled, I could practice with her for a bit. When I searched the word for Ultimate on lifeprint, the teacher showed the sign for frisbee!

Sign Language Is Awesome!!

The most recent Wolverine movie. Winter Carnival. The most recent Indiana Jones movie. The new Primus album. Going to the mechanic. Congress. Riding a bike.
What do these things have in common?
They're all disappointments.

XAP, Pizza, Charlie Hunter, ultimate, disc golf, American Sign Language.
What do these things have in common?
They're all totally awesome.

Today's challenge is to spend an hour practicing another language. I have chosen American Sign Language (ASL).

My initial reason for choosing ASL we pretty immature: I want to be able to talk about people in their presence without them knowing. Now that I'm learning, I'd like to actually do some good with it. I'm not really sure what that good is, but I'm open to suggestions.

I'm a little hesitant to say that I'm learning/practicing ASL. In researching how to go about learning I stumbled upon a great page for beginners to learn some basic ASL. He (Dr. Bill) is very clear in commenting that ASL is different than signed English. I hope to learn ASL but I'm a little nervous that I will fall back to signed English or Signed Exact English (SEE). ASL is it's own language with different grammar rules and word orders. It is more than just hand signals. It incorporates facial gestures and body movement as well.

The website I found is fantastic. It has lots of pictures and short video clips of so many of the words and phrases. It has lesson plans with a very logical path to learning the most useful words. The creator of the site is an ASL professor for California State University in Sacramento. His online persona is very friendly. The way he talks about ASL puts me at ease and makes me think I could actually learn it!

I think I will devote some time each day to practicing. I'm doing pretty good on lesson one.