et si on l'appelait l'Ile Rose?

[nnozomi]

Daily life: Small-scale not doing great; very minor health issues (although today my head/neck are not hurting and not making creaky baki-baki noises when I move, which is a nice change, knock wood), and generally terrible local corona news and effects thereof getting to me.
Still, the other evening Y and I went out to throw a frisbee around in the park and saw a lot of people having fun (all properly masked too): a sixth-grader with a plump brown bunny on a pink leash, two girls about the same age practicing volleyball, a high school couple kicking a soccer ball back and forth (he in sweats and she in blazer, skirt, and sneakers), Little Leaguers running sprints (and getting distracted by the bunny), two elderly bald guys playing a shamisen (or sanxian?) duet, all the trees green overhead.

Music: Do other people sing when doing housework? I tend to amuse myself that way while I’m washing dishes or vacuuming (because you can’t hold the vacuum in one hand and an open book in the other, I have tried). Mostly jazz standards (My Funny Valentine, But Not For Me, Cry Me A River...) and some Chinese pop (usually just the choruses to 太阳 and 突然好想你, because the lyrics are easiest to memorize).

Books: Rereading André Maurois’ Patapoufs et Filifers, one of the few books I can still read in the original French (and one of the few, in spite of my profession, I feel strongly is best read in the original, and with the incredible Jean Bruller illustrations). It’s on the borderline between kids’ book and allegory, funny and affecting with a wonderfully satisfying ending, and “Mais il adorait Madame Rugifer” still makes me tear up.

Chinese: Using the Chinese Grammar Wiki Anki deck involves translating Chinese to English in my head; I find that I always end up rendering 你们, the second person plural, as “you guys,” a sign of my own regional dialect, I suppose. (I love this deck to pieces and it actually is helping me memorize tones as well as grammar, at least visually. Highly recommended.)

Writing: I have actually not given up on revisions (or book 2 for that matter), I’m just making absurdly slow progress. Revising brings out the fear of Not Being Good Enough in me far more than just writing does, which should not matter, but...

Photos: The turtle photos are from the turtle pond at a temple not too far away, and believe me they represent ONLY A FEW of the actual inhabitants. If I had known there were so many turtle-lovers around here, I would have taken more pictures...





Be safe and well.

Comments

[falkner]

Those turtles are so cute...

[nnozomi]

Whenever I walk through the temple grounds there I end up just standing by the pool STARING at them!

[china_shop]

*hugs and hugs and virtual hot wheatpack and comfort drink of some kind, and yay at least for everyone in the park being properly masked* ♥

Music: Do other people sing when doing housework?

I tend to make phonecalls while doing dishes, listen to audiobooks or podcasts while doing other quiet housework, and rush through the vacuuming because it's not conducive to either... but I'm suggestible, so it's likely I'll start singing when I vacuum now. :-)

Good luck with the writing revisions! Fighting!

(Yay, more turtles! :-D)

[nnozomi]

*hugs back* thank you! ♡ "hot wheatpack" is a new one on me, I'll look into it. I have these hot sticky eucalyptus things (Salonpas) that help my neck.

but I'm suggestible, so it's likely I'll start singing when I vacuum now. :-)
lol, keep me posted. Maybe I should start using dishwashing as a time to make phone calls...

and thanks for good-luck wishes!

[cyphomandra]

Ooh. I read Maurois in translation (as Fattipuffs and Thinnifers) as a child and liked it a lot; I haven’t thought about (or read) it fo years. I am now trying to remember what the illustrations were like...

[nnozomi]

Oh wow, somebody else who's read that book! It's a lot of fun. My impression is that because the original Jean Bruller illustrations involve a lot of French text (and probably copyright issues etc.), all the translations have used new illustrations. (I looked up Jean Bruller for the first time, and he turns out to have been a French Resistance fighter and a science fiction novelist as well as an illustrator. Who knew?)

[laireshi]

*hugs for you!!!*

Revising brings out the fear of Not Being Good Enough in me far more than just writing does, which should not matter, but...
*more hugs* You are good enough! I catch myself thinking about your characters sometimes!

Using the Chinese Grammar Wiki Anki deck
Ooh, you mentioned it before and I was going to check it out and then got distracted. Maybe this time it'll stick XD

The turtles are so cute!!!

[nnozomi]

*hugs back* Thank you for kind words! That's good to hear.

Let me know if you find the Grammar Wiki deck helpful. (I enjoyed your post about writing practice--Tofu?--but as with Japanese, I am resigned to letting the computer or phone handle my Chinese writing, as long as I can read the characters...). So many study possibilities.

[laireshi]

Let me know if you find the Grammar Wiki deck helpful. (I enjoyed your post about writing practice--Tofu?--but as with Japanese, I am resigned to letting the computer or phone handle my Chinese writing, as long as I can read the characters...). So many study possibilities.
My handwriting is absolutely atrocious, but I find I memorise characters better if I can handwrite them. Or just visualise how they should be handwritten. (I mean, I quite literally can't learn one without this step? It's just a matter of not immediately forgetting the writing xD)
(Same went for Korean, btw--perhaps because the ㅜ,ㅗ,ㅓ and ㄱ,ㄲ,ㅋ etc. remain a full mystery for me, I would handwrite new words a lot.)

[nnozomi]

I find I memorise characters better if I can handwrite them. Or just visualise how they should be handwritten.
Yeah, I think you're right; it's probably a necessary step. I'm just cheating now because eighteen-year-old me put in the hard work learning to read Japanese, if never to handwrite it properly ;)
Same went for Korean, btw--perhaps because the ㅜ,ㅗ,ㅓ and ㄱ,ㄲ,ㅋ etc. remain a full mystery for me
SAME. I never did learn to keep the consonants straight. Typing practice was fun too, though!

(Sorry to bombard you with replies here and there!)

[laireshi]

Yay at 18 yo you :D

SAME. I never did learn to keep the consonants straight. Typing practice was fun too, though!
OH, yeah, typing would be sufficient for Korean, but I'm so slow at typing in hangul and so frustrated about it.

(Sorry to bombard you with replies here and there!)
Always a joy to see a reply from you! But right back at you ;)

[nnozomi]

♡♡♡

[clevermanka]

Do other people sing when doing housework?
I sing all the time when I'm alone. Doing housework, stretches, showering, fooling around on the internet. If I know a song well enough, I can even sing while I'm writing.

I have such a complex about my failing voice, though, I refuse to do anything except mumbled humming when I'm around other people. (I used to have a decent voice--nothing great or powerful, but I had a nearly 4-octave natural range and after decades of abuse and neglect--well, you can imagine the difference.)

It's one of the things I love about living alone again. I've been singing enough that I regained my ear for harmonizing and can sometimes make a high harmony line for songs that don't have one. My most recent accomplishment 😆 was finally figuring out (one of) the harmony lines for this song. (That whole album is amazing, btw, if you're not familiar--although it might not be to your taste)

I'm sorry you're feeling intimidated by the revising! *hugs* *sends you confidence vibes* And, as always, thank you for the photos. So! Many! Turtles!

[luzula]

I totally harmonize with songs I listen to, as well! Though my range is, uh, much less, and I usually harmonize below the melody (I was a second alto during my choir days).

[clevermanka]

LOL oh believe me, my range is down to maybe a hair under two octaves, now. I dunno, it's been so long since I did scales and I certainly don't have the emotional fortitude to try it now. *waves that thought away*

Hurray for harmonizers! I'm rotten at picking out harmonies below the melody which makes no sense because a third is a third, right? But I can't hear it like I do the higher one. I can sing along with someone else singing the lower line, but picking it out myself is a big nope. Maybe that's just more practice, though.

Ha, just noticed I was singing along to something as I was typing this! If you like pop music and harmonizing, can I recommend the band Marianas Trench? They do some gorgeous multi-part harmonies that are a blast to sing. Their first and latest albums are my faves.

[nnozomi]

I love it that you keep your house full of singing, complete with harmony. (I listened to a bit of the Marianas Trench album--reminds me a little of the a cappella groups we used to listen to a lot when I was in college. Nice. Planning to come back to it soon.)
*hugs back* and thanks for encouragement!

[tinny]

I'm rotten at picking out harmonies below the melody which makes no sense because a third is a third, right?

That is interesting. I have been singing alto for so long that I now unconsciously sing a third lower than the actual melody. /o\ Not helpful for remembering melodies. ;)

I've never actually tried to harmonize higher, hmmm.

[clevermanka]

I love everyone's different harmonizing experiences!

The fact that I can easier hear a high harmony line is honestly strange, because my mom (very much an alto) never sang one when we'd sing together. So I have no idea how/why I picked that up.

[luzula]

Re: harmonizing above or below the melody, I think that's just practice. : )

There's this harmony where you're supposed to always be a fourth below/above the melody, and that's difficult! You do that sometimes in Swedish folk music, and it has a sort of austere sound. Very different from being a third below, because when I do that, I listen to and follow the melody, and you're actually not the same interval below all the time, but alternate between minor and major third. OTOH, when you're doing the fourths thing, it's exactly the same interval all the time, which means you're actually also singing the melody! So the way to do it is to convince myself I'm actually the melody and not the harmony...

Thanks for the rec! I mostly listen to folk music, but I'm open to other stuff, as well. : )

[clevermanka]

Just reading that kinda makes me want to sing in a choir again--something I haven't done since 1988!

[maggie33]

Do other people sing when doing housework?

I do sometimes. Usually songs from my favorite musicals - Jesus Christ Superstar, Hamilton, Hair, Cabaret. A few Polish songs, too. My mom sometimes sings carols when she cooks, not just around Christmas, but during the whole year. :)

And that turtles are really very cute. :)

[nnozomi]

I listen to bits of Hamilton when I'm running! (Mostly the fast songs, lol) And although I can't speak to Polish carols, the ones I know are definitely earwormy and very singable.
(The turtles are irresistible, I can never stop looking at them when I go there ;) )

[chestnut_pod]

Sending warm vibes for health and a well-behaved cervical column!

And gosh, just look at all those turtles! All shapes and sizes. What a happy lot, to be a temple turtle.

[nnozomi]

Warm vibes much appreciated! There are dozens, maybe hundreds, of turtles in that pond, and whenever I walk through the temple grounds I end up standing there staring at them for ages on end. They're delightful.

[trobadora]

AWWWW turtles! :D :D :D

Music: Do other people sing when doing housework?

Not usually, but sometimes while cooking. Often just randomly while doing other stuff. 突然好想你 is one of my more common ones at the moment, too. Also 后会无期 (thank you, Zhu Yilong) and 知足 (another Mayday song).

[nnozomi]

Glad you liked the turtles! 🐢
Oh yeah, I sometimes do sing when cooking, if I don't have a book at hand... . 后会无期 makes me sad, so I tend not to sing it, but I have been known to burst out with 你不知道，你也不会知道 now and then. I'll look up 知足!

[trobadora]

Here's a link. :)

ETA: And I just managed to track down the video where Bai Yu sings it (at his birthday event in 2019)!

[nnozomi]

Oh, that's a nice one! Thank you <3 It reminds me a little of some of the stuff from Spitz, this Japanese band my husband likes a lot. And while I don't swoon over Bai Yu the way I do over Zhu Yilong, that big warm presence is so lovely...

[trobadora]

I love that song.

And "big warm presence" is such a perfect description of Bai Yu. ♥ I really love him, even if he's not at Zhu Yilong levels for me either. *g*

[nnozomi]

♡♡♡

[marycrawford]

Turtles!! Who doesn't love turtles? They have such a tough job carrying us all on their backs, too. That bunny also sounds marvelous.

I'm sorry things suck, hang in there.

[nnozomi]

The bunny was very cute and very self-willed, scurrying all over the place in the park!
and thank you! In the grand scheme of things I'm doing okay, knock wood, just in one of those dips.

[luzula]

I enjoyed your book and I think more people would enjoy it! You can do it, with the revisions! But I get you, I have experienced that sort of slooow revision process as well.

[nnozomi]

Thank you so much! Kind words much much appreciated. (And from your other comment I love it that you sing alto with the music you're listening to--harmonizing is so much fun.)

[umadoshi]

*hugs* I hope the health things continue to improve, minor or not.

[nnozomi]

*hugs back* Thank you! Knock wood, all the health things I complain about at this point are really the most minor of minor issues, just falling into the category of "one more damn thing," you know.

[tinny]

Yes, of course I sing all the time. (But then I like singing, so maybe not everyone does it? Just everyone I know. :D) I find myself singing the chorus to 突然好想你 often as well. It's catchy somehow. :D

(I love this deck to pieces and it actually is helping me memorize tones as well as grammar, at least visually. Highly recommended.)

I've been meaning to add that deck to my inventory, as well, I just haven't gotten around to it. But at least I'm actively learning vocab again now, yay?

Is the guardian deck working for you? Only one person downloaded the new version (or, I guess, in theory, several persons downloaded some of them, adding up to 1 download per file), so either they never used it, or didn't like it enough to get the improved deck, or something's wrong with it. Nobody told me anything, though, so... *shrug*. It's working fine for me, so I'm not really worried, but yeah. I hope it works for other people, too.

Revising brings out the fear of Not Being Good Enough in me far more than just writing does, which should not matter, but...

*HUGS* I understand the anxiety. But the book is good, and revising will make it even better. <3 Jia you!


p.s.: Cute turtles! \o/ Love the roses as well, the first one especially.

[nnozomi]

(But then I like singing, so maybe not everyone does it? Just everyone I know. :D)
With all the harmonizing around here, I wish we could all get together to sing...

I've been mostly saving the Guardian deck for later on, so I'm not doing too many decks all at once; I expect other people are getting to it gradually too. It's there when anyone needs/wants it!

*HUGS* I understand the anxiety. Jia you!
*hugs back* 谢谢啊！