November 26, 2010

Quote of the day


Learning is more discovering how to align with the world than extracting knowledge from it.

--Tim Ingold, The Perception of the Environment

November 25, 2010

Reading notes



interactional linguistics
exogenous theory
ontogenesis
"doing being friends"
professional strangers
discursive psychology

(From "A conversation-analytic approach to second language acquisition," by Kasper and Wagner).

extraneural operations
the whole caboodle
007 Principle
linear salience
grounded cognitivism
literariness
fundamental extendedness of human existence

(From "Extended, embodied cognition and second language acquisition," by Atkinson).

November 18, 2010

Dr. Seuss Quotation


"Adults are obsolete children and the Hell with them."

November 16, 2010

Poem moment


And aren't we all so soft and whole

When, as dark plums on a damp night

We fold into our fallen bodies?


Believe it or not, I have, ever so occasionally, written poetry. I wrote this back in high school. A visiting friend actually remembered it. Thanks, John.

November 15, 2010

Xenophilia


We hear about its conservative, angry twin so often.

November 9, 2010

Awesomely untranslatable words


Jayus (Indonesian) -- "A joke told so poorly and so unfunny that one cannot help but laugh"

Mamihlapinatapei (Yagan/Tierra del Fuego) -- "the wordless, yet meaningful look shared by two people who both desire to initiate something but are both reluctant to start"

Wabi-Sabi (Japanese) -- "a way of living that focuses on finding beauty within the imperfections of life and accepting peacefully the natural cycle of growth and decay."


November 7, 2010

Words which, together, make me laugh


underwater blow job
urban war child
legends of the dhal

November 4, 2010

"compulsory visibility"


The anti-veiling laws and sentiments in Europe interest me. They came to mind when I read this:

"Disciplinary power [...] is exercised through its invisibility; at the same time it imposes on those whom it subjects a principle of compulsory visibility."

-Foucault, from Discipline and Punish