This “burn-out” issue [as discussed here, here and here] is really interesting. Now, all you wusses out there — you know I’m just having fun with you; I don’t actually think you’re wusspots, I just think that you’re morally inferior to me.

BACK UP! You were NOT supposed to see that right there. We’re all special and…

OK, never mind. But, seriously, you know I’m just screwing with you. I think the world does people a disservice in two ways. First, it tells them it’s normal and OK not to have fun for the majority of one’s life. Second, it tells them that it’s OK to feel and act helpless in the face of all this. The result is this disgusting push to mediocrity. But we don’t have to accept boredom, nor do we have to accept weaksauce and being, I dunno…less than we can be? We should join the Army and die? Really, I don’t know, I’m just as lost and vague on this as most people are.

Anyway, after that paragraph of nothing, let’s get to the point.

Let me tell you why you might need a break from Japanese. It is not because of the inherent structure of your brain or some other lamo reason. After all, there are people who have essentially spent their entire lives in a single language and never “needed a break”. The reason, I think, most people need a break from Japanese is because they’re always struggling, always reaching, always try to get somewhere. Always looking at where they aren’t, where they should be, where they could be, where they want to be. If you learn to let go of this and just be Japanese — be, in Japanese — then you will never need a break. If you merely accept Japanese or whatever your L2 is, as the primary reality of your life, as reality itself, then you will never feel the need to escape from it. It is only your thoughts that are tiring you. If you stop having tiring thoughts, you stop feeling tired.

In my hardcore Japanese phase, I didn’t take breaks. Not consciously. Partly because of my moral superiority and saint-like nature and Naruto-like drive. And partly because (1) I sucked at scheduling and getting myself to “do thing T on day D of any given week W”; I really did. And, well, do. (2) Knowing my own character, I knew that if I gave myself an English centimeter, I would take an English kilometer; in fact, I would take several English kilometers. Dude, I would take light year. One thing would just lead to another and before you know it I’d have been one of those guys in a forum talking about how: “Ah done tried immerse me in some Jyapnaze wonce…hehe. That shiz is impossible”. (3) The fact of living in America and being a college student naturally forced me to leave my Japanese bubble at least some of the time anyhow, so why should I go out of my way to throw gasoline on the English fire threatening my precious wooden Japanese house? There’s a joke in there somewhere about the KKK circling Malcolm X’s childhood home, but…I don’t think it’s worth picking up.

OK, so, what if this still isn’t enough for you? What if you still feel the need for a break? I have the suggestion of a lifetime for you and it is this:

Take a break.

In Korean.

Or whatever L3 is for you. Take a break from L2 in an L3.

So, if you’re a native English speaker doing AJATT for Japanese, and you’re feeling “combusted”, feeling “extinguished”, feeling “burned out”, then take a break into Korean…or Hindi…or Spanish, or anything, as long as it’s a language that you suck at, that you know considerably less of than L2. Let’s call this language L3.

Why? At least seven reasons. DJ, break it down!

(1) It’ll be amusing. Languages you don’t know sound like amusing gibberish.

(2) You will realize how amazing you actually are at L2. Learning by immersing in native materials has the one downside that it can make you blind to just how good you’re getting, since you’re always comparing yourself to native speakers, you’re always seeing the delta between your current self and the destination — while rarely getting a chance to see the delta between yourself and the starting point. Often, all it takes to feel energized and confident again is to see how far you’ve come. Before going to Korea, I listened to some RTHK podcasts for Cantonese-speaking learners of Korean [sequel here]. And I realized that my-Cantonese-OWNED, relatively speaking: I could follow almost all of what they were saying, and of course I could read and everything. Conversely, Korean was a total blank. Korean was like…WTF? Circles? TF?

(3) If you’re in a frame of mind that requires a break, then this same frame of mind will be refreshed by a break to L3, but will also be unable to stay in L3 too long, since:

(4) L3 lacks the familiarity, the draw-you-into-a-downward-spiral capability, of L1. Returning to L1 is more than simply watching one program or listening to one song. Returning to L1 is to plug back into the whole matrix, the whole web of materials, relationships and interconnections that you have made in your years of L1 experience. As such, it is a dangerous thing.

(5) A flirtation with L3 can restore in you the sense of curiosity and wonder that brought you to learn L2 in the first place. Anyone who’s learning an L2 feels a “need” to do it, but this “need” is not as strong as the “need” to breathe. Really it’s a “want”, right? It’s fulfilling a “wouldn’t it be cool, if…” I know I make an effort to get people feeling uncomfortable with illiteracy in Sino-Japanese; I think illiteracy is inexcusable. But, you know, really, this language thing is generally fulfilling a desire of ours, a dream; we’re explorers — like Dora, not Christopher all-your-base-are-belong-to-me-now-I-kill-you-AND-your-couch Columbus. Dude, why am I talking about Columbus? Oh yeah, curiosity, wonder — if you’ve lost this in the sea of obligation and “gotta do more reps” and measurement and execution, then a trip to L3 can give this back to you. What’s more you get to take this 元氣 (juvenile energy?) back to your L2 journey.

(6) Most people learning an L2 have interest in further language-learning. “Interest” is too tame a word — it’s closer to greed, LUST, YEEEARNING! Unfortunately, I often see this interest take an unproductive turn — people “learning” multiple languages simultaneously but really just “sucking” at all of them. To be fair, I speak mostly of myself here: there appear to be people who get the MSLA (multiple simultaneous language acquisition) thing working well, but focussing on one thing at a time is much faster and in the end much funner — you get results sooner, leading to a big boost in confidence, and more rapid economic benefits.

Trying to do too much at once tends to drag and lead nowhere — as the saying goes, “the hunter who chases two rabbits catches neither” [by the way, in my experience, there is next to 0 financial return for “kind of” knowing a language, but as soon as you really know a language, you’ll be having to turn opportunities down: this seems to be true regardless of the size of user base, such that thoroughly-learned Icelandic shall tend to serve you better economically than broken Mandarin, although then again if you are in the country where a certain language is spoken, even a minimal knowledge of it is obviously far better than total ignorance. Anyway, rather than have your mental and financial energies divided between two languages, better to acquire one first and then use it a mental and financial hook for the second: emotionally, this decision can be painful — but methinks you’re better off making it than suffering the consequences of evading it]. So, breaking to an L3 is potentially a constructive outlet for the wanderlust that plagues so many of us.

(7) Best of all, when you come back to L2, you will feel like a champ. You’ll be like: “HOLY CRAP! Look at all the stuff I understand!!!” Basically, the sojourn in the truly foreign L3 will make L2 seem totally like home. When I was in Korea, I might as well have been born and raised in Hong Kong because Cantonese sounded like the soothing lullabies of my mother, cooing me to sleep all: “乖呀，乖呀小寶寶，唔使驚呀”[ “ssssh….hush now…you’re safe…it’s Cantonese, motherlover,…no more circles…ssssh…”]. If learning L2 is like running uphill, then switching to L3 is like running uphill with a 50kg backpack: put that thing on for a while — when you finally take it off, life will seem a whole lot easier.

It is like a 50kg backpack, but not nearly as sucky — in fact, it’s actually a lot of fun (see point # 1, above) — so, yeah, try it out! Make your break destination an L3! The break doesn’t have to be long, or complicated; it doesn’t even have to be total. I once watched a Thai movie (Ong Bak!) with Japanese subtitles, and the process left me feeling like a dog having the base of her tail scratched; I really felt like…vegan cookies dipped in soymilk; it was delicious and gave me a lot of confidence in my Japanese, which looked amazing when seen next to my zero Thai knowledge.

Anyway, try it. Go to the red, Krypotonian sun of L3; then return to the yellow, Terran sun of L2 with superhuman comprehension abilities.

I wonder if there’s Prison Break in Polish…

YouTube’s TkyoSam very kindly did an ad-hoc interview with me…unfortunately it’s in English. Fear not, I have finally acquired a camera [inherited from TkyoSam, actually], so Japanese stuff shall be forthcoming.

Um…this really was ad hoc. TkyoSam walked into my fortress of solitude while I was watching Dragon Ball Z in Cantonese, and turned his camera on. My posture, hair and make-up would make any mother weep. (To Mum: deal). Notice how the Cantonese ball kept rolling even while we used this non-Cantonese thing.

It’s funny because we’d tried making semi-scripted versions of this before, with digital effects and light sabers and Gollum, so I figured this was just us doing our umpteenth “screen test”. But the rawness of this is cool. Thank ye, Sam of Tkyo!

Anyway…yeah. Video. Me. In. Three parts.

This post began as a footnote to one of my own remarks here, where I said that:

Even “burn-out” is, IMHO, almost always bogus - you’re not “burned out”, you’re just “being lame”: you need to get more creative about the immersion process.

Looking back, “creative” was the wrong word. “Active” might be more appropriate. Now what do I mean by “active”? In my case I mean just turn up the “sheer quantity” dial on your immersion. What this often meant for me was tons of “weeding out”. I would get Japanese/Cantonese stuff: movies, music, comics, whatever. And watch/read them. And if, after 10 to 120 seconds I did not like it, I would simply delete/throw away and move on…sort of like channel-surfing — just jumping from one thing to the next, until I found something that drew me in. In fact, I do this even now. Remember, the only “obligation” with immersion is the language. Everything. Else. Is. Negotiable. No one said you have to read that particular book or watch that particular program. Even if you were enjoying it 5 minutes before, the instant it gets boring, it needs to go.

What are the chances you would enjoy a randomly selected piece of media in your native language? Slim, right? Maybe, what, 1%? 10%? The same goes for the language you’re trying to immerse in. So just weed the mothers out. I mean, think of great shows like Family Guy, or South Park — if you had to watch them all day every day, even they would get old, and even CSPAN might start to look attractive.

Judging from my personal experience, I think when most people say or think they’re “bored” or “burned out” with a language due to a lack of basic fluency, it’s not really the language that’s bugging them, nor is it their apparent lack of fluency: it’s the materials they’ve got in the language. The solution to this problem is (very American): more. More stuff. More quantity. More acquisition. More sampling. More weeding. More throwing away. More putting aside. More deleting. More replacing. More turnover. More. More. More.

This intense sampling will do at least three things — (1) it’ll keep you feeling busy and active, while (2) being immersed, and (3) you’ll start to figure out what you like, there will be a core of shows, actors, writers, musicians whose work you will enjoy: you can start to use this core for further exploration — find other stuff by the same screenwriter/director/author/band. Example: the guy who directed Trick also directed Ikebukuro West Gate Park (IWGP); the screenwriter from IWGP also wrote Tiger and Dragon. Quality tends to group. If you liked one Stephen Chow movie, you’re likely to enjoy his others.

And this is why, I think, people blame sucking as a reason to stop immersing and therefore continue sucking. From my observation, there are at least three things that early beginners do wrong, that unnecessarily and inevitably lead to a sense of “burn-out”:

(1) They listen to the target language dutifully but indiscriminately. This may seem diligent, but the fact is even babies have taste. Even a near-languageless baby would rather watch, say, Teletubbies, than reruns of Matlock [except a possessed baby?]. You have taste, too. Even in a language you don’t know or only know a very little of, there a things you would rather watch. The key is to find these things.

(2) When they do find something they like, they repeat it beyond enjoyment. It is beautiful and honorable to repeat only as long as something is being enjoyed. I never have and never will re-watch movies because I have to, only because I want to. When your skin/emotions start to chafe, please cease use and consult your media library.

(3) They do not yet know what they like. Most people who have basic fluency also happen to have spent long enough on the language to start gravitating to what they like, if only unconsciously. I am suggesting you make this a conscious process of “取捨選択”/しゅしゃせんたく: consciously taking in vast amounts of stuff, throwing out what is chaff to you and leaving the wheat. And there is always a lot of chaff. The good news is that even the chaff [in the little time you watch/hear/read it] gives you information, teaches you something, serves a purpose. Just don’t hold on to it for too long: it will hurt you, bore you and trick you into thinking that “this language that is as yet a mystery to me” bores you, when in fact it’s just those particular materials that are boring you.

(PS) All of which is another reason why watching L2 dubs of stuff you do like from L1 can be such a great starting point.

Don’t think you’re not “good enough” yet at the language to be picky. You are always good enough to be picky. There are things you will be able to appreciate more later when you are fluent, just like there are Japanese rappers whom I appreciate more now that I can fully understand the depth of their wordplay, than I did before. But I have no regrets about having ignored them earlier in the process, back when I was less proficient.

Your personal taste is always valid. Even if it is merely a noob taste; it is your taste right now, and that is all that matters. When I was 9 years old, I thought Tiny Toons was the height of satire and self-referential humor. So I watched it. Now I think it’s goofy. And that’s fine. I grew up, my tastes grew up. Same with you. And you’re going to be doing some mad-fast growing up. So just…keep acquiring materials, keep selecting, keep doing 取捨選択. Massive acquisition, massive rejection, massive turnover. Think of all materials in a language as existing to be cut through, leaving only materials that you like. You are a sculptor, carving out the subset of L2 that appeals to you. We’re not talking about euthanizing baby seals here, we’re talking about getting rid of crud, so feel free to be brutal.

You aren’t drawn to English stuff because of the magical beauty of your native language. You are drawn to English stuff because you already know where to find the good stuff, from years of experience. No one gets tempted away from immersion in L2, by sucky material in L1. So I am saying this — keep spending time in L2 finding, sifting for the good stuff in L2. And that means lots of taking in accompanied by lots of discarding. Do you hate that L2 show? Throw it away. Do you “vaaaaaguely sort of like” that L2 show? or feel like you “should” like it or that that might be “good for you”? Still not good enough — throw it away; keeping things out of obligation is a nasty habit; get used to interpreting “could learn to like” as “don’t like”; people who have gotten good at keeping their homes clutter-free apply the same basic principle: you don’t keep stuff you might could use, keep stuff you do use. Are you in love with this L2 show? Good. Keep it.

You might conceptualize ($10 word!) yourself as a little “fun factory” that takes in vast amounts of media as a raw materials, keeps the good ones to produce enjoyment, and throws out the crappy ones as waste. Do not be alarmed by how much you have to throw away, just keep getting new stuff. Throwing away crappy stuff is only a good thing: it opens up physical, electronic and mental space for good stuff to take its place.

That concludes this post-sized footnote. Anyone with good selection strategies, feel free to share.

The title of this post is a misnomer: I don’t know that you can both immerse yourself and avoid alienating your friends/family/roommates. But, you can help soften the blow somewhat. These are fun activities you can do with non-immersing people around you, who, as you may already be observing, can sometimes have very strange reactions to your immersion. I don’t get it — I’ve seen otherwise very cool guys become sobbing, emotional wrecks over me saying that I can’t go to a movie with them because it’s in English. Yeah…your guy friends become clingy, bipolar, high-maintenance wusspots. “Bros before hos”? Pssssh…my “bros” don’t make out with me!

Anyway…

1. Music videos

In Japanese, these are called “PV” (promotional videos); “MV” (music videos) in Chinese. Watch lots of music videos. There’s just something about the combination of music and visuals that can hold people’s attention for a really long time. People who would otherwise whine about you doing immersion in another language, somehow just get drawn in by music videos. So use them.

2. Watch L2 video with L1 subtitles

L1 would be English for most of you here, and L2 Japanese. Generally, I’m wary of the use of subs because they tend to create an illusion of comprehension, as well as (more importantly) distract from listening; I know plenty of rabid anime fans who’ve watched thousands of hours of subbed anime but don’t actually know Japanese.

But, for someone who’s not working on the language with you, watching L2 stuff can be a chore…unless and until you sub it up. So, when you have friends who don’t know, the subs don’t have to go.

3. Just Plain Music

Hey, it’s the universal language, right? Pick a style that everyone enjoys and play it up. Everyone will love Rip Slyme.

4. Food

Make people a meal. With all that stuff in their mouth they won’t be able to whine and complain about you doing immersion. You can look up the recipe in Japanese and then execute. This means you get to learn food words, too! Snap!

5. The Enemy Within? Compromising with Yourself

I, too, am still partially human. I have seen the temptation in your heart. After all, MAD TV is good for you, right? Laughter’s the best medicine, right? So watching MAD TV is nothing less than a medical necessity, right? I mean, there’s a cancer called sadness and the only cure is more cowbell, uh, comedy…right? And there’s no Daily Show in Japanese so this is all there is to go on, right?

Cut the crap.

Stop making up lame-donkey, righteous-seeming excuses to slip back into your native language. 99.9% of the reasons for not immersing are bogus. Even “burn-out” is, IMHO, almost always bogus — you’re not “burned out”, you’re just “being lame”: you need to get more creative about the immersion process. Anyone who has the mental togetherness to pronounce themselves “burned out” is simply a whiner; when you’re really burned out you’ll be trembling uncontrollably and frothing at the mouth, so chill. Find new friends, find new materials. Currently I am constantly feeding myself a stream of new Cantonese content — new videos every day, a new batch of books every few weeks, new friends every week [mostly Skype — by the way, do you like how I talk about people as if they were a commodity?…maybe I’m the cancer of sadness]. No one’s going to turn the soil for you, so you’ve got to keep it fresh.

Two techniques I use to deal with the desire to slip back into English. Credit for the first must go to Timothy Ferris.

i) Put your computer on standby or lock the workstation or whatever. Then plan and write down the next thing you’re going to do on your computer before you do it. Then do it. When you’re done, put your computer back on standby/lock and repeat. In any case, never approach a computer, especially a computer with an Internet connection, without a written agenda . This does a number of things:

a) Prevents accidentally slipping into random surfing about domestic violence by women [apparently, women are…freaking hardcore]. While it is kind of cool to be so well-read on Erin Pizzey’s research, there are other things that needed and need my attention.

b) Requires you to think about the most important thing to do, and helps you do it.　Often, the most important thing to do may be to get away from that screen for a change and read a book instead, or go play outside [armed with your trusty mp3 player, of course!]

c) Prevents you actively doing stupid, time-wasting things. Before implementing this, I would often click around my computer looking for amusement, and invariably that amusement would amount to meaningless googling or compulsive email-checking. There’s something about writing down what you’re going to do, before you do it, that just raises your accountability to yourself. I don’t know about you, but I’m embarrassed to have “surf random English websites” on my “record” as it were. So embarrassed — I know that Cantonese is my priority — that I stay immersed, i.e. away from English.

ii) 0.1% of the time, there is a legitimate reason for me to be reading English. The book Eat to Live, for example — there is no Japanese translation yet [showtime, Khatzumoto?], and I was reading this book for genuine, immediate, actionable medical reasons. At times like these, I play Japanese/Cantonese music or videos, while reading the English — very quickly.

And that concludes my tips! How have you dealt with keeping yourself immersed, and wusspotage from people close to you? Do share!

So, I thought I was having…what’s the word…hot flashes? Feminine itching? A dry spell? When I realized I was just taking mean comments to heart. They got moderated: people who say such mean things about Mati from Captain Planet shouldn’t be allowed on the Internet! He took the crappy power bullet for all the ethnic minorities! Anyway, I came across some really interesting sites you might want to see. About half are in Japanese, so we’re still on topic.

• うさぎさんの毎日/The daily life of Little Miss Rabbit. It’s a blog. Written by a friend of mine. So, more shameless plug than anything else . She told me she’s worried the content is too “mundane”; I told her we can’t always limit our discussions to what’s in 論点/The Issues.
• This article by Joel son of Spolsky. Suddenly I feel bad about all those 0.1%-funny-99.9%-offensive jokes I’ve made in the past. But it’s a great article about getting things done even when you feel sluggish and useless and like you’re not really progressing, filled with insight like this: “Maybe this is the key to productivity: just getting started.” Read the whole for deeper insight.
• 国立国語研究所/The National Institute for Japanese Language (”Nigel”). I had never even heard of these kids until yesterday, but already I’m officially in love with them. They publish these cool reports with suggestions for Japanese replacements of unnecessary foreign words. And, seriously, as obsessed with words like “コンプライアンス/compliance” so many Japanese companies seem to be nowadays, don’t they really just mean 「法令遵守」? Hopefully I’m not a purist, but when you have one of the most powerful neologism-generation systems ever created by mankind at your disposal, why ignore it just to pretend you know a foreign language and/or are importing a foreign concept when you don’t and you’re not? Rhetorical question. What I love about the 国立国語研究所 is that they’re not in any way denying the value of foreign words; they freely admit the freshness and vitality they can bring; they’re merely redirecting towards sensibleness — away from the descent into katakana absurdity that passes for so many business documents trying to sound “catchy” and “with it” (when the motivation is positive), or (when the motivation is negative) actually trying to break laws by obfuscation: replacing a term for something that is 一目瞭然 clearly illegal or unpleasant when in kanji, with a foreign word in meaningless, emotionally neutral katakana. Nigel take a constructive approach; avoiding blanket condemnation, they identify the prime offenders and actually propose simple, effective solutions. I mean, “パブリックインボルブメント”/public involvement? WTF? 「住民参画」, foo! Anyway, the fact the Nigel exists is a very healthy precedent, and good for the lymph. Take a look at their reports: they’re very well written and easy to read.
• While on the subject of good writing, here comes Uncylopedia — the Japanese edition. And their collection of autologically bad articles on bad (i.e. hardーto-follow) writing. I almost died of laughter In fact, after I get done writing this, I’m going back for some more chuckles. They also had this hilarious disclaimers. 「超フィクション」（笑）. “The contents of this article are entirely fictional, although some of what is discussed may be factual, making this ’super-fiction’, if you will”. Feels like that guy Alfred E. Tennyson’s famous blog post about half-truths.
• The fact that I haven’t already linked to Sushi and Seduction is a crime. Shame on me! The author, Emergency, is the man now dawg. And he’s the proud parent of three of the most amazing articles ever written. In one, he readies, aims and crushes with his bare keyboard all those crazy, negative, limiting beliefs that prevent so many people fulfilling their Japanese potential; he’s really dug deep and brought into the glaring light of day, all those irrational, nonsensical, unmaliciously racist beliefs [”but those people are just smarter! Their brains are designed for rote memorization! I read it in Mein Kampf!”] people cling to when it comes to Japanese and other Asian languages. But Emergency was just getting warmed up! He then comes out you with the positive beliefs that will help your Japanese self quickly grow big, strong and healthy. And just as a roundhouse kick, he gives his introduction to learning kanji. Keep an eye out for his family-oriented, hand-drawn illustrations that help you understand each article better.
• Glowing Face Man shares his insights on English and why you can’t whine about other languages if you know it. This ought to shut up some whiners for a while.
• Finally, I know I’ve put this up in some form before (indirectly), but that was to a sub-site. This is the main TBS Radio Podcasts site. They have some great podcasts up there, and it’s not limited to news/comedy/politics and general silliness. They also have at least one science podcast up there — Science Xitalk（サイエンス・サイトーク） — that I’m actually listening to as I write this, so check it out.

And we’re done.

One day, I’m going to make an acronym for everything. Like, that last sentence will turn into: “ODIGTMAAFE”, and people will be all: “OMG!? AAFE?! LOL!”.

Also, a little warning — there are going to be a lot of links. Break yo’ self!

So, I’m sitting there, eating my curds and whey, when yet another good-looking reader (Gav) sends me a link. You know, one of those external links that comes up every once in a while, and just so resonates with the kind of things you read here, that it simply has to be brought to everyone’s attention. CNN Money/Fortune Magazine, way back in October 2006, put up this sooper harticle entitled What It Takes to Be Great.

Wait, before I go into that, the Gav himself is a pretty amazing guy. Right before the JLPT fiasco, kids were saying things like:

Making an [sic] random English penpal sounds like quite a task and scares me more than a little. Making a random Japanese one seems absolutely impossible. [WC]

and

For someone like me the very idea [of making Japanese friends] is terrifying [ren]

To which der Gavinator replies:

Feel the fear and do it anyway! If you wait for fear to disappear before you do anything new, you will never do it. [Gav]

So you already know this guy is going to be sending you good articles.

Anyway, What It Takes to Be Great is pretty great. It’s definitely got its fair share of gems of wizduum, like this:

In a study of 20-year-old violinists by Ericsson and colleagues, the best group (judged by conservatory teachers) averaged 10,000 hours of deliberate practice…It’s the same story in surgery, insurance sales, and virtually every sport. More deliberate practice equals better performance.

You like that? 10,000 hours?! Sound familiar?

Next time you feel like throwing out your SRS altogether [an ill-advised course of action, IMHO], feel this instead:

[Practice] regularly, not sporadically. Occasional practice does not work.

But I think the most important line comes here:

…talent has little or nothing to do with greatness…It’s nice to believe that if you find the field where you’re naturally gifted, you’ll be great from day one, but it doesn’t happen. There’s no evidence of high-level performance without experience or practice.

Talent has little or nothing to do with greatness. Everybody sucks at the start. Write it on your liver. Practice, son. But the process doesn’t have to be, as the Fortune article at one point suggests, “painful”. Remember what Julie Poppins said in Terminator: “a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, Mr. Frodo!”. Dude, forget a spoon — make a whole freaking smoothie, get a bag of sugar. Get as much sugar as you need, do whatever you need to do to make the process fun. And be sure to divide it into tiny little i+1 chunks so you can get a lot of cheap wins and feel great. Timeboxing, sentences, whatever it takes. Remember, you want to be doing:

activity…that reaches for objectives just beyond one’s level of competence, provides feedback on results and involves high levels of repetition.

So, baby steps. Anyway, enough from me. Go check it out for yourself. And if anyone finds other sooper harticles like this, feel free to share.

Did you see that? I just went a whole post without making a single disparaging comment about CNN and how they generally suck.  “The New Economy: Boom Without End?“…yeah freaking right, Willow Bay and Stuart Varney! Your former employer’s policy of making you pretend to turn breathless declarative statements into cooly considered interrogatives by merely adding a question mark fills me with the liveliest of disgust?

糞ォ・・・