Success and Speed

[livingdeb]

Not much happening lately. I've been having angsty middle-age-crisisy thoughts. Not the kind where I feel wrinkly and old and start longing for a sports car or a face lift or a hot babe secretary of my own or whatever. The kind where I think about how when Mozart was my age, he'd been dead for twelve years. Shouldn't I have accomplished something pretty cool (see relevant links below) by now? At the very least, shouldn't I be managing people by now? With all my acquired expertise? Instead of running away from my job that's too haaard.

Relevant journal entries of the day - Chikuru's Ingenieros Sin Fronteras and the update, Attempted Solar Panel Rescue.

Madspark's Hard Work, Good Rewards - there's still time to help with Scare for a Cure.

**

In other news, I've decided I want to learn shorthand. Actually, I want to just magically know shorthand. There's a meeting I have to keep minutes for and I have trouble keeping up, so I have an actual real excuse. And it might come in handy at other times, too. I think it will be like running instead of walking: it will feel good to have the ability to use that kind of power.

First I did some research on different styles of shorthand. Here is a summary of my findings (speeds shown are at the high end of what is possible).

* Pitman - a symbolic system, 200 wpm, requires different line thicknesses
* Gregg - a symbolic system, popular, prettier than Pittman, doesn't require different line thicknesses
* alphabetic systems - fastest to learn, recommended as good enough for notes at meetings, 100 wpm
* Teeline - a hybrid (alpha/symbol) system, 120-150 wpm (100 wpm in 4 months), popular in Great Britain but not US
* longhand - 50 wpm

Average speech is 140 wpm (probably slower in Texas).

I like the idea of Pitman because it's the choice of the likable and brilliant heroine of the book Emergence. But I'm deciding against it because common modern writing instruments aren't ideal for varying the thickness of your writing.

I like the idea of Gregg because it's also fast and I already have a book for it for some reason. But I don't suppose I actually want to learn shorthand strongly enough to deal with the learning curve.

So I'm picking Teeline, even though there are no books on it in any of the libraries I have access to. That's not like me. However, apparently it is like me to pick something that is popular in Great Britain but not the US (my old electronic toy, the Revo). And I have ordered a used copy of a highly regarded book. Let's see if I really can learn to take notes significantly faster in just four months of 30 - 60 minutes of study a day.

Or if I do anything at all. Currently I'm doing nothing. Because I'm waiting for my book to arrive in the mail, see.

Actually, I did read up on learning strategies. Just like when you're learning a whole new language, it's better to practice a little every day than to spend the same amount of time all bunched up in one day a week. And you can record yourself reading your assignments you want to practice so you can practice to something you're listening to instead of to something you're reading. And one person recommended practicing to songs at first because they can be slower than regular talking. (I'm assuming her favorite songs are not rap.)

Photo journal entry of the day - Pamwheatfree's And Now for the Oddest Thing I Saw in Texas. You know you want to see a large somehow beautiful sculpture of a longhorn armadillo. You do.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Southerners don't actually talk slower, as far as I know. It's a myth. Unfortunately I have lost my cites for this :-)

Tam

[(Anonymous)]

I have heard that it's because Southerners tend to lengthen vowels, e.g. by using a dipthong in place of a single sound.

(sally)

[livingdeb.livejournal.com]

So southern speech only seems slower, the way certain fonts seem bigger because they stress the bottom half of the letters. Weird.