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Acajack, based on some long-ago comments, I'm pretty sure that you know music just as well as some of my friends in radio. Perhaps you could suggest some tracks for a friend who is still in radio.
Thanks for the compliment. I did not know I had a reputation as a musical expert of sorts!
....... Zoisite, I know you love your garden. What are you growing this year? .......
I'm sad to say that not a heck of a lot will be getting planted this year. I'm still in major damage control and clean up patrol with no end in sight yet after losing so many plants/trees/shrubs to the changing extreme weather conditions we had during the past year here in BC. I've also had a lot of problems this spring with night-time vandals and thieves digging up and stealing many of the plants that did survive the winter.
So this year I plan to be planting mostly rocks instead of plants. Seriously. Last week the association that owns the property had a big trailer load of good sized beautiful smooth, rounded, river tumbled rocks delivered for me at my request and I'll be using them to make garden bed borders and short walls and rock gardens all around the property. I figure it will take me all spring and summer to get that all done because I'll have to do it in stages. Then in autumn I'll make plans for what needs to be planted in spring and summer of 2023.
I'm also on a mission to try to persuade the association that owns the property to fence in all the grounds with some sturdy fencing so it won't be possible for trespassers to easily access the property and do damage. Wish me luck with persuading them to agree to fencing.
I never did post much about my life on here, but I do miss the old discussions. I've been posting on here since I was a teenager, and in that time I moved from Montreal to Vancouver and back again. I am now a man in my thirties and have gained a profession, a spouse, a home, and am now expecting a child, but I always return here and have it as a secret place of comfort. I do feel like I know the people who post here in a sense.
At the moment, I am holed up in a hotel in Los Angeles, having just returned from a 4 day festival off the grid in the desert. It was quite an adventure
I'm sad to say that not a heck of a lot will be getting planted this year. I'm still in major damage control and clean up patrol with no end in sight yet after losing so many plants/trees/shrubs to the changing extreme weather conditions we had during the past year here in BC. I've also had a lot of problems this spring with night-time vandals and thieves digging up and stealing many of the plants that did survive the winter.
So this year I plan to be planting mostly rocks instead of plants....
Zo, I look at my garden the way I look at sports: sometimes, it takes a year or two for plants or a team to mature. Plant the roots today, and if they flourish in two years, so much the better. Looking forward to you telling us about your garden two years hence.
Mightyqueen said:
Quote:
I fell in love with Vermont after staying at a writers retreat there a few times and taking my daughter up to the language school at Middlebury.
The language school at Middlebury is something I wanted to attend. When I finished my undergrad, I was trilingual: English, French, and Russian. Great, but what's next?
Middlebury, said my supervisor of studies, a Ph.D. at the university where I got my Bachelor's. She said that I could be a UN interpreter with my aptitude for languages, especially coming out of Middlebury. I looked into it, but I couldn't do it. It was $10K at the time, plus living expenses. That would be about $30,000 today, at least, and I had no help from my parents. Their attitude was, "You've got your degree, now go get a 9 to 5 job in an office." They didn't see my potential, as my professor did, and they would not help with finances, and they could not accept that attending Middlebury involved leaving Canada. What could it teach me that I couldn't get here?
Answer: A lot. But my parents refused to believe that. "You have a degree from the best university in Canada. Isn't that enough?"
Nowadays, I could afford Middlebury, but I'm more interested in a Master of Laws degree. Even though it doesn't require French or Russian, it would allow me to delve more deeply into the laws (and lack of them) and constitutionality that led to Bleeding Kansas in the mid-1850s United States. Yes, I actually wrote a paper on that, and it blew my Legal History professor away.
Last edited by ChevySpoons; 04-25-2022 at 03:00 AM..
I'm sad to say that not a heck of a lot will be getting planted this year. I'm still in major damage control and clean up patrol with no end in sight yet after losing so many plants/trees/shrubs to the changing extreme weather conditions we had during the past year here in BC. I've also had a lot of problems this spring with night-time vandals and thieves digging up and stealing many of the plants that did survive the winter.
So this year I plan to be planting mostly rocks instead of plants. Seriously. Last week the association that owns the property had a big trailer load of good sized beautiful smooth, rounded, river tumbled rocks delivered for me at my request and I'll be using them to make garden bed borders and short walls and rock gardens all around the property. I figure it will take me all spring and summer to get that all done because I'll have to do it in stages. Then in autumn I'll make plans for what needs to be planted in spring and summer of 2023.
I'm also on a mission to try to persuade the association that owns the property to fence in all the grounds with some sturdy fencing so it won't be possible for trespassers to easily access the property and do damage. Wish me luck with persuading them to agree to fencing.
.
I love that look. Beautiful. Post pictures sometime when you are finished creating!
Zo, I look at my garden the way I look at sports: sometimes, it takes a year or two for plants or a team to mature. Plant the roots today, and if they flourish in two years, so much the better. Looking forward to you telling us about your garden two years hence.
Mightyqueen said:
The language school at Middlebury is something I wanted to attend. When I finished my undergrad, I was trilingual: English, French, and Russian. Great, but what's next?
Middlebury, said my supervisor of studies, a Ph.D. at the university where I got my Bachelor's. She said that I could be a UN interpreter with my aptitude for languages, especially coming out of Middlebury. I looked into it, but I couldn't do it. It was $10K at the time, plus living expenses. That would be about $30,000 today, at least, and I had no help from my parents. Their attitude was, "You've got your degree, now go get a 9 to 5 job in an office." They didn't see my potential, as my professor did, and they would not help with finances, and they could not accept that attending Middlebury involved leaving Canada. What could it teach me that I couldn't get here?
Answer: A lot. But my parents refused to believe that. "You have a degree from the best university in Canada. Isn't that enough?"
Nowadays, I could afford Middlebury, but I'm more interested in a Master of Laws degree. Even though it doesn't require French or Russian, it would allow me to delve more deeply into the laws (and lack of them) and constitutionality that led to Bleeding Kansas in the mid-1850s United States. Yes, I actually wrote a paper on that, and it blew my Legal History professor away.
I bet. It sounds interesting. I am an uneducated idiot myself, but I'm fascinated with some aspects of the USA in the pre-Civil-war days, particularly in my home state of NJ (a northern state with a southern sympathizing view), but I also have an interesting in the abolitionists, especially John Brown, who actually murdered a couple of supposed slaveholders in Kansas.
My daughter defends her thesis this week, so I've been reading her last draft. If I recall correctly it WAS only $10K for the eight weeks at Middlebury when she went ten years ago. She'd started school in NYC undeclared but with an eye toward medical school, and by the end of the first semester, she called to ask if I would be disappointed if she didn't become a doctor. I said no, because that was always YOUR thing, I never pointed you in that direction.
She said that while she enjoyed dissecting a fetal pig and a sheep's eye (causing me to gag on the other end of the phone), she was really far more interested in the Latin she was taking and had decided to study languages. I suggested she study a non-Western-European language, as she'd have better career choices. On an impulse after seeing a bin at Christmastime, I bought her a CD that said, "Learn Chinese in Fifteen Minutes a Day." She transferred to another university with a better language program and in her sophomore year she took Russian and Mandarin. She decided to stay with Mandarin and applied for and received a scholarship from the Chinese government to study for a semester at Sichuan University. She went to Middlebury that summer to bring her Mandarin up one level before going to China.
For those who are wondering what we're talking about, Middlebury College in Vermont has an eight-week summer immersive course in a number of languages. You speak only your language while there, including at meals and during activities. You are discouraged from calling your family every day to speak in English.
When we picked her up at the end of the eight weeks, she actually had trouble the first day remembering to speak English to her. It did the trick, though. She went to China with a better command of Mandarin, and then as a bonus while there, she picked up some of the Sichuan dialect, as well.
I bet. It sounds interesting. I am an uneducated idiot myself, but I'm fascinated with some aspects of the USA in the pre-Civil-war days, particularly in my home state of NJ (a northern state with a southern sympathizing view), but I also have an interesting in the abolitionists, especially John Brown, who actually murdered a couple of supposed slaveholders in Kansas.
My daughter defends her thesis this week, so I've been reading her last draft. If I recall correctly it WAS only $10K for the eight weeks at Middlebury when she went ten years ago. She'd started school in NYC undeclared but with an eye toward medical school, and by the end of the first semester, she called to ask if I would be disappointed if she didn't become a doctor. I said no, because that was always YOUR thing, I never pointed you in that direction.
She said that while she enjoyed dissecting a fetal pig and a sheep's eye (causing me to gag on the other end of the phone), she was really far more interested in the Latin she was taking and had decided to study languages. I suggested she study a non-Western-European language, as she'd have better career choices. On an impulse after seeing a bin at Christmastime, I bought her a CD that said, "Learn Chinese in Fifteen Minutes a Day." She transferred to another university with a better language program and in her sophomore year she took Russian and Mandarin. She decided to stay with Mandarin and applied for and received a scholarship from the Chinese government to study for a semester at Sichuan University. She went to Middlebury that summer to bring her Mandarin up one level before going to China.
For those who are wondering what we're talking about, Middlebury College in Vermont has an eight-week summer immersive course in a number of languages. You speak only your language while there, including at meals and during activities. You are discouraged from calling your family every day to speak in English.
When we picked her up at the end of the eight weeks, she actually had trouble the first day remembering to speak English to her. It did the trick, though. She went to China with a better command of Mandarin, and then as a bonus while there, she picked up some of the Sichuan dialect, as well.
I never did post much about my life on here, but I do miss the old discussions. I've been posting on here since I was a teenager, and in that time I moved from Montreal to Vancouver and back again. I am now a man in my thirties and have gained a profession, a spouse, a home, and am now expecting a child, but I always return here and have it as a secret place of comfort. I do feel like I know the people who post here in a sense.
At the moment, I am holed up in a hotel in Los Angeles, having just returned from a 4 day festival off the grid in the desert. It was quite an adventure
I've only been on CD for 9 years, and my life hasn't changed as much as yours, but it has changed.
LA a city I know fairly well. I had family there since the 1950's, but have all passed on now.
Off the grid. I haven't never technically done it, but I have gone camping where there are no facilities at all. I guess that's off the grid? I can vouch, that the luxury you didn't know you missed when you re-enter the world is hot water out of a tap. Such a miracle!!
Allow me to be a bragging Mom for a minute. She will be a Doctor after all. Next month she gets her PhD (provides her successfully defends her thesis this week).
In more practical matters, when we go to a Chinese restaurant and she asks a question in Mandarin, they are usually so impressed that this blonde white girl speaks her language that they'll send out an extra specialty dish on the house.
A couple of years ago she went to Paris to give a presentation at the Sorbonne. Afterward, she and a fellow student, who is Vietnamese, went to a Parisian Chinese restaurant where they heard Chinese people go to dine for authentic dishes.
She said they walked in, and she was the only non-Asian there. She asked for a table for two in Mandarin, and for a brief moment, everyone in the restaurant paused and looked at her. Then they went back to whatever they were doing.
I keep trying to tell her to apply to teach in Toronto. They have a sizable Mandarin-speaking community. People who do business with the Chinese need to know the language.
I bet. It sounds interesting. I am an uneducated idiot myself, but I'm fascinated with some aspects of the USA in the pre-Civil-war days, particularly in my home state of NJ (a northern state with a southern sympathizing view), but I also have an interesting in the abolitionists, especially John Brown, who actually murdered a couple of supposed slaveholders in Kansas.
Yes, John Brown did. He and his sons would knock on the door, and when it was opened, would attack with swords, hacking the householder, and his family if they could, down. It was (to me, anyway) a fascinating period of American history, and American legal history.
My thesis was that overlapping congressional legislation (e.g. the Missouri Compromise 1821, the Fugitive Slave Act 1809, and the Kansas-Nebraska Act 1854), as well as the US Constitution, and the Northwest Ordinance 1787, all were at odds with each other, and led to the conflict in Kansas.
Quote:
My daughter defends her thesis this week...
My very best wishes to her, and I hope that she is successful. Fingers crossed!
Quote:
She said that while she enjoyed dissecting a fetal pig and a sheep's eye....
It takes a special sort of person to do such things. My ex, a doctor, took me to her school, where we were able to look through window in the door to the lab where she dissected her first human. It looked like a quick-service morgue, with two dozen tables, all on a slant with drains at the lower end. To me, it was not pleasant, even with clean tables; to her, it was just another place where she had studied.
Quote:
For those who are wondering what we're talking about, Middlebury College in Vermont has an eight-week summer immersive course in a number of languages. You speak only your language while there, including at meals and during activities. You are discouraged from calling your family every day to speak in English.
Yes. Back in the day, when my supervisor was urging me to go to Middlebury, it was one of only two schools in the world that certified UN simultaneous interpreters. The other was in Switzerland. That may have changed now, but the fact remains: Middlebury is one of the top language schools in the world. Coming out of there would have guaranteed me a job at the UN in New York.
Thanks for crushing my dreams at a good career, Mom and Dad.
Last edited by ChevySpoons; 04-26-2022 at 02:44 AM..
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Last week the association that owns the property had a big trailer load of good sized beautiful smooth, rounded, river tumbled rocks delivered for me at my request and I'll be using them to make garden bed borders and short walls and rock gardens all around the property. I figure it will take me all spring and summer to get that all done because I'll have to do it in stages. Then in autumn I'll make plans for what needs to be planted in spring and summer of 2023.
