Tangent:
Here is a list of other things that are totally self-defeating/counterproductive topics of conversation:
- passwords! How you create 'em, how you remember 'em, what your favorite one is
- explicit details about your sexual experiences
- how annoying talkative people are
- how you want to be sleeping but aren't
- how antisocial you are
- the fungus on your left foot
- opinions you have that always make everyone else angry #greatestshowman #utahsucks
- how awesome Czech is [hahahahahaha]
/tangent (though...that would be a really fun list to continue!)
By Wednesday I had started to think about starting to dive back into my projects, but that also happened to be the day that my friend Lukáš decided we should start the FINAL ROUND OF EDITING of the book we have been writing together since 2016 or so.
For some perspective, Lukáš also basically has told me to stay away from writing anything at all for the past 3 months, since sometimes...
Well co-authoring something is really hard and I am really nitpicky, and writing is not the same as editing. I actually deeply enjoy editing, but only *with* someone else.
This is actually really what I wanted to write about anyway: how to solve the problem of working collaboratively on a project. At RootsTech I learned that FamilySearch approaches their development with an agile philosophy. Later, I learned about Scrum (which is a horrible sounding word! But sounds about right. Very app-y) which is basically this strict collaborative work method that programmers sometimes use for agile programming. From what I understand, it's basically that you work in small teams with a leader, you have short time frame goals (like 2 weeks), and you sprint to completion. There's probably a lot more to it.
It was actually the first time in my life I had even considered that like, other people had thought about, let alone studied in great depth and created entire plans for how to collaborate on projects. Like, I know about all kinds of collaborative tools (evernote, trello, github, basically the entire gsuite...) but to learn about it as a philosophy, a method - that was really interesting and new to me.
My Czech programmer friend compared Scrum to communism, so...there's that :-)
But there are also probably some good things about it; basically acknowledging the very real human tendency to get super caught up in one thing. The idea of sprinting.
I am totally a sprinter! I can get very one-track in my projects. Danny is always telling me that I flit around from interest to interest - but it's not like...constant flitting. It's more like...like steering the car into totally different lanes of traffic or something.
It's even sort of like this with Czech genealogy, which is my deepest, most long-lasting interest. It has sort of been temporarily put on hold(ish) while I get a handle on the Czech language itself, which is a newer but possibly even deeper (!) interest. Although, both these interests kinda serve the same goal, so maybe the analogy doesn't hold. Or maybe it does, it's just they represent separate lanes on the same road going to the same destination? By the way, Corpus Linguistics is also going to the same place: true, deep understanding about my Czech roots?
I just love making connections between my deep passions and interests. It's so fun!
I'm a sprinter. Lukáš wanted to start editing. In one day I made my first round of edits to the entire chapter (18 pages). We have been slowly attacking all the edits together.
For me, it's the together part that is so crucial to keeping me motivated. It's why I am capable of learning Czech: it involves other people! I just really love interacting with other people.
tangent:
Today I taught a webinar to a classroom full of people in Reno, Nevada. The subject was Getting Started with Czech Family History. I walked away from that experience on some kind of high or something. It was like a drug. I *love* teaching! It so fun. Not much can compare to the kind of satisfaction that I feel after doing that, though teaching these really nice Czech people English comes pretty close. Learning from them is really high up there, too. Interacting in the comments of google docs/sheets is basically my favorite form of social media bar none. #Iamadork #ohwell
/tangent
How can I successfully sprint on two projects at once?
I don't think it is likely to be very healthy if I try to maintain the status quo. I really love my Czech learning plan, and how it's basically just in a series of feedback cycle loop-de-loops. But it literally takes all the limited discretionary time that I have, including hours and hours in the evenings while my sweetheart works his way through his online master's degree (he has gotten an A in every single class, and I have to take a tiny bit of credit for that feat, since I am making it possible). Maybe if I found a way to reduce the number of steps in my Czech learning units, it would be better.
OR...
There are 18 chapters in the book I am editing with Lukáš. We've got a tentative goal to do about a chapter each week. I don't really think we can do it faster, it just doesn't work that well with the asynchronous editing (though we often end up editing stuff at the same time; we've been working like this for about 3 years now and it's pretty familiar).
18 weeks from now is the end of June.
What if from now until the end of June, I adopt an abbreviated version of my Czech learning plan? Or a totally different plan that somehow is less time-intensive?
What aspects of my plan do I have to keep?
- cs SkELL frequency of words
- word lists <-- but can I get somebody (maybe Danny?) to write me a program to find the frequencies automatically? I don't really care if they output into a google doc, it takes like 20-30 minutes to find the frequencies of 200 words. That's a lot of time.
- videochatting with native speakers. That's a total must-have for me.
- reading reading reading reading reading and reading. It's like I am building my own internal language corpus. The only way to get enough access to words is via reading.
What activities could be streamlined?
- I want to keep quizlet but it could be streamlined
- blog posts!
What tools might help me speed up my process?
- My sisters in law started using this video-messaging app called Marco Polo. It's actually surprisingly fun. I enjoy it a lot. I wonder if I could use it to help with my language learning, since one of the big problems with finding a good time to videochat is scheduling it and that we generally sit there for 20-40 minutes (which is a lot of time!). Another advantage to a short video message is that I could watch it over and over and over, which would be good repetition. Also, it has potential to give me more authentic language experiences. I can't experience immersion since I am a housewife in the middle of Iowa, but I might be able to like, get a tiny bit closer to it by seeing people interacting in their actual, real lives. I guess this is how the people who I've been video-messaging use it. Very short messages that are within the real (and sometimes messy and not perfect) worlds. Think: crying children, messy laundry, sweaty and makeup-less faces, bedrooms, etc. It's somehow extraordinarily real because it's unrehearsed and totally authentic. There's also no hesitation since the point of no return is "record" not "send" making it a bit snapchatty I guess (I don't really know, I've never used and never will use snapchat - why would I?). Here is the main problem with Marco Polo, though:
I have two really great female collaborators, plus a couple other potentials, and only really one guy (Petr) with whom I'd even be comfortable considering video-messaging. I just...
It's too intimate somehow. Thinking about videomessaging with some of my male collaborators (the majority of my collaborators) is just...it kind of makes my whole body tense up in fear and anxiety, to be honest. I don't really know why. I guess I should think about it more.
Like, I'm really comfortable with videochatting. I taught English online to little Chinese kids for a while, and I've been skyping with people since Skype was a thing - so, well over a decade. But videomessages...it's sorta different somehow. I don't know how. I don't know why. I have to write about something different because I am literally starting to shake thinking about this. It is so...uncomfortable!
What things do I probably need to reduce (or change) a little in order to really achieve all of my goals?
- One of my favorite things to do is text. I enjoy it. I am a words girl. Texting in Czech is great, but I'm not very clever or funny in Czech, it seems. Also it's wayyyyyyyy hard to read between the lines, which is, well, all you have in texting. Sometimes I end up spending a lot of time texting in English when it could be in Czech. Danny says, "Well, you do need to take breaks, and this is an important friendship for you." Yes...but...Tom, if (okay, minus the if) you are reading this, we have to text in Czech more often! I don't really know how to solve this problem. It is hard. It is related to feelings and embarrassment and self-consciousness and all those things. But it's also related to trust and friendship and doing something really super worthwhile and all those things, too. I need some help with that.
- I also need to make sure I get more sleep. That will help my productivity more than anything.
- And...well...maybe blogging here is a tiny bit self-defeating. It's fun, but it's also time.
I will have to spend some time thinking about this in depth over the weekend.
It's one of my favorite things to think about at all :-)
I wonder if you can even use this (or other) videomessaging apps internationally? I tried to find out and couldn't. Hmmmmmmm.
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