@cintinative Do you want to change the title of your thread? @alisoncooksGlad you found your way back to learning languages! Breaks are important for me, also. Otherwise I suffer from burnout.

Some things to explore: This is a really neat app that lets you listen to radio around the world. Radio Garden http://radio.garden Women in Language (March 4-7). An online event with a $29 fee. I think you have to enroll while the event is active, but you can view the recorded talks later. https://womeninlanguage.com P.S. I obviously should no longer be relied upon to start a monthly thread. Sorry.

Yes, I am still around although I have obviously not been very active. @cintinativeI am glad that you took on starting the thread. I didn’t really mean to ghost on everyone, but life has been a bit complicated lately. Languages are actually a nice diversion and a balm at the moment. Everyone should listen to @Matryoshka when she talks about Lingua Llama! It is a friendly place with lots of options.

We can hug each other. ETA When I finally get to the EU I’m gonna stay my full 90 days!

It all depends on the vaccine rollout here and within the EU. I have not seen my overseas kiddo in a year and really hope we don’t have to hit the two year mark.

I’m glad you asked, though! I am looking ar perfume subscriptions and Olactif is one I had not heard of. My mom lets me pick out my own Christmas gift so it would be for me 🙂

@JunieMaybe look into the Zoom conversation opportunities that @Matryoshkahas been talking about. I am very glad that she nudged me to try the Dutch convo, and there are lots of choices on that channel for Spanish.

@Loesje22000Thanks to all those lovely trips to the Netherlands (and one very lucky ebay purchase of Lekturama’s Luister Sprookjes) I have plenty to read in Dutch. And this year I am determined to do it! And now that I have the weekly convo practice I am feeling motivated again. @Quill If you are managing to do anything optional in the midst of adjusting to full time employment, I am super impressed. Then again, I think you are one of the most organized people I know 🙂

I think so, yes. You are six hours ahead of us. I know what you mean about pondering your reasons for learning a language. I will likely never visit Norway again. I want to read these tales in the original Norwegian but I’m not sure if I’ll continue reading much Norwegian after that. Access to books is part of the problem.

I'm still working on Danish, Latin, and Dutch. I spent quite a bit of time exploring Norwegian in November, and I'm trying to decide what to do with that. I think the best thing now would be to read the Danish version of a book in parallel with the Norwegian. It took me a ridiculous amount of time, but I have finally located both Danish and Norwegian versions of the famous Norwegian folk/fairy tales by Asbjørnsen and Moe. I've already read these in English, which helps.

Link to December thread.

Sorry that this is a bit late! The November thread is here. -- What are you studying? How is it going?

Maybe I shouldn't be, but I am surprised that someone would go to Robin with a complaint about a BaW post and expect her to moderate that. -- I haven't really been reading many books and have instead been playing around with languages that I can't yet read well. But I have read a few things since I last posted about my books. I don't think I have posted about any of these before - my apologies if I am repeating myself. Why Karen Carpenter Matters by Karen Tongsen. This is a mix of biography/memoir/gender study/music criticism. That's a lot to pack into 138 pages, but it did a good job. The author, originally from the Philippines, comes from a family of musicians and she was named after Karen Carpenter. I really enjoyed this book and followed it up with a Karen Carpenter YouTube binge. On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder. This was wildly popular on the left in 2017, and I wasn't sure how it would read in 2020. But, as someone concerned about the state of democracy, I found it perfectly suited to right now. This is also a very short book, and I have now read both of Timothy Snyder's short books (the other one was Our Malady). I would like to read his longer works about Eastern Europe. Dracula by Bram Stoker. It took me longer than it should have to get through this, but I was very distracted in November. As it turns out, I did not really know the story of Dracula at all! I feel so enlightened now! Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson. I have read a selection of anti-racism books this year, and this was easily the best written of the batch. I look forward to reading more of her work. @Dreamergal I also learned quite a bit about India from this book.

Wow @Karenithat is indeed a lot of book kudos! Glad it lived up to them!

@Melissa MI really want to thank you for introducing me to Theater of War productions. I think I have participated three times now. They do stellar work. I’ll have to check out Court Theater. Fen looks interesting.

@Robin MI never read Black Narcissus, only saw the movie, so I don’t know. I’ll be interested to see what other nunnery books you choose!

In This House of Brede looks great for my 10x10 Good Catholic/Bad Catholic category. I saw the movie Black Narcissus and it was quite disturbing. Another excellent literary novel with a nun as the main character is Mariette in Ecstasy by Ron Hansen.

@mumto2I ended up sending Piranesi back to the library unread. I never even opened it. I read very little this month, and couldn’t summon the enthusiasm for Piranesi. I might try it again sometime. ETA Love the wall hanging!

Congratulations!

And I am still finishing the ones from 2019!

Fantastic!!! Congratulations!

The local store is out of toiletbowl cleaner, as is Target online.

But I think you would agree that it is good to know what the follow-up expectations are if you use it?

Here ya go: What to do if you get an exposure notice Link

I am having the same thought experiment, Quill. I did look at the .gov site last night, and I think it addressed what one should do if one gets a ping, but I can’t remember right now what it said. I’ll see if I can find it again. What will happen to me if I turn it on? I would not get a false sense of security. No way. The people who go maskless and flaunt health guidelines won’t even consider turning it on. If it used location services, I think I would be pinged constantly. I live in an urban setting. I don’t need daily false alarms because someone outside stood still for 15 minutes. But bluetooth? That might be ok. My wireless headphones lose the bluetooth signal with a wall between me and the device. I’d like my line of thinking corrected if I misunderstand the technology.