Finally Employed

No, I didn't get the job at Walgreens. I'm working out of town this summer.

I'm finally going to work this summer, at Cedar Point as a warehouse worker in the merchandise department. This will be my fourth season working there, and my second in the merch warehouse. The first two seasons I was working in the food warehouse.

I would say I definitely like working in the food warehouse better, just because I don't have to divide bulk items by quantity, just put the item on the pallet and send it off. In the merch warehouse, especially with T-shirts, we usually can't just send an item from off the shelf, we have to take a quantity of the item out of the box and send it to the store. The rest, if they aren't T-shirts, are sent to a location called stock, which is the most annoying part of the warehouse. We have to organize everything by stock number, so it's a real pain when you have number 19876, the box next to it is 19910, and the box you're trying to put away is 19890.

Oh well, not the most exciting or dramatic job in the world, but at least it's a paycheck. I just wish I could get a job at a different company and have a job with more responsibility.

More Language Links!

Oh, how could I forget? I remembered a little bit after I posted yesterday that I forgot to mention the book and Internet document The Polyglot Project, which was written by members of the YouTube polyglot community about how they learned their languages and advice they have for language learners. It is over 500 pages in length and while I haven't read the entire document, I've read entries by my favorite YouTube polyglots.

http://www.docstocs.com/docs/60429490/The-Polyglot-Project

You can also buy it on amazon.com, but I wouldn't unless you wanted to donate a copy of it to your library to give it more exposure.

The man who edited the book is also a YouTuber, although most of his videos are not of him practicing languages. He issued the challenge on his channel last summer. He channel is below.

http://youtube.com/user/syzygycc

A great video that is by a man about my dad's age is by MagicMaximo. He tells a story about his experience learning Vietnamese in the US Navy in 1968. At first, he was reluctant to learn it since so few people outside of Vietnam spoke the language and he didn't know how he would use the language later in life. Apparently, it was a good thing he learned the language because after the Vietnam War many Vietnamese refugees moved to his area and needed to learn English and have their needs met by someone who understood their language. He, of course, could meet their needs and helped the refugees. His message is that you may never know if you really need to know a language.

Language Learning - A Story of Encouragement

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-X_H_JYweA

Another thing I want to mention is one of my favorite language books, How to Learn Any Language by Barry Farber. I think this is the fifth time I've borrowed the book from the library, and I love reading his language biography and the review of the languages in the back of the book. Since it was written in 1990 it is a little outdated, but I still enjoy it because it makes language learning seem to be a thing anyone can do, so it can be a little inspirational.

Oh well, that's it for now. Good night.

Language Links

All right, I'll list some of my favorite language websites, such as blogs, learning websites, YouTube channels, etc. for other people to check out.

My favorite language forum:

http://www.how-to-learn-any-language.com

My favorite blog:

This blog is about both natural languages and international auxiliary languages. He also writes considerably about space exporation and technology. It is written by a Canadian working in Seoul as a translator.

http://www.pagef30.com

Another blog, by an Australian author & scientist trying to write literature for an international audience:

http://joyoflanguages.blogspot.com

Naomi Chambers's language blog:

http://thepolyglotexperience.blogspot.com

A blog by a young man sampling 37 languages and deciding on one, kind of like The Bachelor for languages:

http://37languages.wordpress.com

His second blog:

http://pardonmynorwegian.tumblr.com/

ikindalikelanguages blog:

http://ikindalikelanguages.com/blog

Language courses at this site:

http://ikindalikelanguages.com/lab/courses.php

Last blog:

http://languagegeek.net

Some learning materials:

Jim Becker's website, links for 14 languages, the one below is for Spanish:

http://www.uni.edu/becker/spanish3.html

Spanish conjugation trainer:

http://www.spaleon.com/index.php

Spanish basics, plus a site to connect with Spanish-speaking learners of English, by chat or as a pen pal. Completely free. No, I haven't tried it yet.

http://www.lingolex.com/spanish.htm

German:

Deutsch - Warum Nicht? Great site to teach the basics of German, produced by the Goethe Institut and Radio Deutsche Welle. It's a four part course with 26 lessons in each part. This is the site in German.

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/0,,2163,00.html

Paul Joyce's German website, a professor at the University of Portsmouth in the UK. I highly suggest reading his "Why learn German?" section:

http://userweb.port.ac.uk/~joyce1/abinitio/index.html

Some YouTube channels:

Alkantre, aka Dr. Peter Browne, a Spanish professor at, I think, the University of Texas, and top-notch polyglot. The cool thing about him is he comments on new users' channels and videos, sometimes in random languages, LOL.

http://www.youtube.com/user/alkantre

Brian Greco, a young teenager who makes great review videos. He's interested in IALs and more unusual languages, such as Navajo (he has Rosetta Stone Navajo) and languages from the South Pacific.

http://www.youtube.com/user/BrianonLanguage

Cody, from Minnesota, a college student who is interested in German, Chinese, Swahili, Arabic, and probably many more.

http://www.youtube.com/user/Codylanguagesblog

A great Latin channel:

http://www.youtube.com/user/Evan1965

Anthony Lauder's channel, great even if you aren't interested in Czech, since he talks about issues everyone learning languages could benefit from hearing:

http://www.youtube.com/user/FluentCzech

Glossika, a YouTube polyglot heavyweight:

http://www.youtube.com/user/Glossika

A female polyglot:

http://www.youtube.com/user/katrudy7

Probably one of the biggest language channels on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/user/laoshu505000

Professor Alexander Arguelles's channel, probably the biggest language channel on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/user/ProfASAr

And many others. I don't want to list anymore right now, since this post is long enough.

Interview at Walgreens

Today I had an interview at Walgreens for a clerk position.

I doubt I'll get the job since I have no cash handling or customer service experience, but you never know. There are still plenty of pther jobs out there that might hire me. I have an interview on Monday for a position at Cedar Point and I'm confident I'll get the job, since I've worked there before.

Well, we'll see.

Pittsburgh Loses!

I'm from Cleveland, and while I could care less about the Browns or Packers, I hate the Steelers.

Anyway, it was a great game. Watched it with a bunch of other people and had lots of fun. I just hope there is no lock out so we can do it again next year.

New Developments

I'm only taking one class in college this semester, Gerontology. I've decided to go for Medical Assisting instead of Physical Therapy Assisting or Occupational Therapy Assisting because there is a three year waiting period on those areas while with MA I can start this fall. So far I like the class, especially since we learn a little bit by doing instead of just reading the book and taking notes during lecture. I'm going to see what I'll be doing in the fall. I'm thinking about getting a certificate in dental assisting too since it could help my chances of employment, and it might be interesting, although I don't know if I have the manual dexterity to do the job. I'm pretty clumsy.

I'm going to start focusing on Spanish again. I found a great site that has tons of links to Spanish websites. It is the site of Jim Becker, a professor emeritus from the University of Northern Iowa. It is at http://www.uni.edu/becker/ and there are 13 other languages, so I guess the good professor was a language instructor, but I don't know how many of the 14 he taught and how many he merely knew.

I found a Spanish group that meets at the same Panera that the game group meets at. It meets at 11 in the morning on Saturdays, so when I get a job I should still be able to go to the meetings. Definitely a motivator.

More adventures in language wanderlust. I've decided that I want to study Spanish, French, German, and Italian. Italian caught my eye this week, and I don't think it would be any more difficult then Spanish. I tried the course on ikindalikelanguages and liked it, kind of like when I tried Afrikaans and Dutch on Christmas Eve. I've decided to let Dutch and Mandarin go for now, maybe I'll try them later. Needless to say, I can't study a bunch of languages at the same time. My puny brain can only handle one a day, and I know myself that I won't learn 8 or more languages during my lifetime. I want to focus on Spanish and German this year, with maybe a little French. Ugh, my poor brain is going to explode, even with a lot of free time this year.

I applied to Cedar Point, and since my brother knows someone in the food department, I might be working there. Definitely a step up from being cooped up in a warehouse all day, but not as good as having a supervisor rank, like my brother has.

Chez is back on YouTube. It appears he started uploading videos at 3 PM today, or earlier. I think I'm just going to leave him alone, although I thought about sending him a PM, since he friended me, but I really don't know what to say to him. If he's just after attention, that's probably the best thing for us both that I don't contact him. If he really is out to meet fellow language enthusiasts and doesn't know how to properly interact with people, I can accept that and maybe help him a little. All I was going to do was suggest he go on meetup and find a language group so he could find a language practice partner in real life instead of just interacting on the Internet. But I think I'm just going to let it go.

OK, till next time.