Writer’s block is a tough back-clinging monkey to shake. Not that I’m a writer by any means, of course. I just like to dribble occasionally, and of late it seems like my dribble fount has run dry. In fact, my overall level of vocabulary and diction seems to have decreased in the eight months I’ve been here (as Greg is wont to say, my perspicacity has certainly diminished). I attribute some of this to the longest non-academic stint of my life (having spent basically my entire life in school, my brain is accustomed to a certain amount of constant stimulation and I just don’t think it’s getting that here — though studying Chinese is certainly mentally taxing), and some more to the fact that in most of my recent interactions in English (with Chinese) I’m intentionally reducing the complexity of my speech to make it more easily understandable and I’m finding it difficult to ramp back up when interacting with educated native speakers.
This reminds me of a friend who has been teaching first grade for the last two years after graduating with her BS in Elementary Education. She calls me occasionally, and I can tell when she’s had a particularly bad day at work because she talks to me like I’m six until I remind her otherwise. We share a little laugh of mutual understanding and then continue the conversation (but using words with more than three syllables).
Jordan and I started this website nearly one year ago and since then it’s produced some pretty amazing content and some great discussions. Though it doesn’t appear that way from my posting frequency, I don’t want it to die.
I’d gotten so accustomed to only Jordan posting it didn’t occur to me to check who wrote this. It was very confusing since it didn’t sound like jordan at all.
Left by Eric on April 20th, 2004
Happy 100th entry.
Left by David on April 20th, 2004