starhead @ blog again

A spelling style is
a style is a style is a style
is a style is a style is a style . . . . .



Pirates often drink much rum.
Pirates often stink.
Pirates often don´t sing but hum.
Pirates say what they think.

Pirates don´t go to toiletts,
Pirates normally do pee
From the boat with greatest joy,
Directly into the sea.

Pirates do not write a proper style
Pirates just write and they scrible along while
Pirates think on a topic intense
I admit, most times without sense ;-)



This is a little poem i just wrote for a friend, from the other English-group, ....
and i want to deliver this little poem directly to switzerland to her.
The reason is, that we had a discussion on the different spelling styles
which we both are used to write.

Dear friend, i hope you understand the meaning of my little "poem"
which i want to give u as a present.

Pirates write ugly, sometimes like rude,
other people write more nice and much, much more elegant.
Both are writers,
even they write different.

That is good in a way and absolutely necessary.
What would be a painting without different nuances and coloures?
What would be music without different variations and sounds?

Without different spelling styles
the world of sentences and words would be monotone and boring, ....
different spelling styles and ideas make the world multifariouse.

One is not better as the other one,
they are just different,
like a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose, . . . is . . .


a rose for Petranima


Ho ho ho, my pirate friend,
hoist the sails !

with best regards, ...
HajO

when i was in the typography-seminar, ...
all of us had to do a presentation on different topics,
concerning various types of fonts and it´s history in the sense of evolution.
partly it was very interesting, partly boring to listen to the people´s presentations.
it was boring due to the fact, that some people have not been really involved
and touched by the topic they have to perform.

anyway, ...
there was a guy, who had to perform a topic about a particular font
and he had , ....
a black-out.
totally.

when i was watching him, i could feel his powerlessness to overcome this situation.
and it lasted long. very long, till he said: sorry, i am gone.
after a while he said: o.k., i am here again.

i was really astonished about his courage, to handle such a deep and powerful impact in his
emotions so clear and conscious, and so candid.

i really could feel with him. for me as a listener, it was a strange feeling, when he had his black out.
on the one hand i did not want to help him. not to take away his situation to explore what´s going on, not to take away, the posibility to look behind his curtains, which were in front of his mind.
On the other hand, i really had the intention to ask this guy just a little question, which maybe would have helped him out of his powerlessness, just by asking him smthng.
just a little words, which would wake him up and dissolve his stress.

but i didn´t and in a way i felt ashame and accurate at the same time.

two days later this guy had to perform a short presentation in the English seminar which we share together.
the same situation happened to him again.
the environment of our seminar, where we learn how to present topics is safe and comfortable,
good for individual experiments, .... not to have fear smthng.
so it was really for him to "test" what´s going on with him.
and he went through this situation again.

"wow" i thought, this guy is really tough!
he is willing to deal with himself, ... "what a great guy he is", ...

he stands his person, like a man / woman."

anyway, to shorten the topic and my writings,

on the seminar next days, when the last one finished the presentation, he suddenly stood up
and said: i did not do my presentation. i will do it now. please pay attention.
He stood in front of us and he was speaking about his feelings and his emotions,
his beating heart, his perspiring hands, about his fears and his blockades, probably comming from an experience of his childhood.

in this moment i nearly wanted to yell out : yeahh! you ´r´ the man, u did it!

even if i did not know what he did, ...
but he did a great job, standing out there, and speaking about his emotions.

fnally i did not yell out, ...
i felt a great empathy with him, ...
i was glad for him, that he had the courage and the will to overcome his obstacles.
the courage to think and to speak about what he feels and what makes him problems.
an hour later, on the same day, in the next seminar, ... when i remember right it was psychology-stuff for media-design, . . .i sat beside him by coincidence and i gave him my congratulations for his performance.
he answered: thank you.
just simple: thank you.
that was it.

humans are beautiful.
especially these ones
who desire to walk a path
and dig in the unconsiousness for finding new wissdom.


that was the story and the learning what i got in this lesson.

I Tarzan, you Jane, go eat, Banana.

hmmm, that looks like somebody doesn´t speak English very well.

Last days i was wondering how it could feel for a native speaker, if he listens to me, when i am speaking English language or writing sentences. I am wondering where my level is and if i am falling still in the traps of making sentences in a German style-English, or obviousely a kind of a Tarzan-style-English. Most mistakes i do, so i think, is to "translate" German sentences and take over the grammar and parts of sentences
into English. I think, that this could sound very horibble to native speakers. But that mistakes seem to be difficult to explore and to bring to conscious.
I cannot compare, and that makes me a bit unsafe in speaking.

Normally, when i write German texts, i can choose between different styles, ...
simple styles and expression, archaic styles, styles which has been spoken in governments of old times, poetic styles and so on, ...
for me as a German native speaker it is simple to switch, but in English language,
it seem that there is no chance.
I would like to get the possability to play with the words and phrases more and more, but i think it´s a far way to there.

I have no idea how i could learn that and how to approach on that level of speaking and written words.
Maybe reading English historical literature, or selected texts and books?
I don´t know, ...
Maybe i will get an answer on that question in my courses.

 Though my many faults defaced me,
 Could no other arm be found,
 Than the one which once embraced me,
 To inflict a cureless wound?



H

Reading, reading, reading.
These words are following me since three weeks.

This was the topic of the third lesson.

During the lesson i could see, that i already use some of the skills and methods of the fast and
"excerptive" reading-technique, which Ms. Doshi taught and explained to us.

I was glad of that and i had the impulse to deepen this techniques more, because i noticed them as very useful and
time- and energy-saving skills. Because of this i ordered a book on the same day. The title of that book is "Visual Reading",
and the literature promises that is a good course to learn very fast and intense this kind of visual reading techniques.

During the lesson i remembered that i also use special techniques in reading, especially for scientific chemical papers which i had to read
during the time when i was working in the environmental institute.  After a time an many papers and pages,
I was used not to read just single lines, but more waving through the text in the manner of a serpent, or another kind of lines, like waves or zick-ziack-lines, grabbing the words and the content in a free and "flowing" way.

 I heard after a while, that his technique which i naturally explored by myself,  is taught in reading-seminars. But i never tried to enhance that
skill which came in my mind and reading-habbit naturally. So, i hope that book i ordered will help me to speed up and deepen my reading-skills
and to save my time and energy and also to bring more joy in reading and to overcome the threshold to say: okay, now i read this book
in an hour, or one and a half.

I think, the problem could be to deal with that methodes when i read in a foreign language, or read a book which material is not connected to a basic knowledge i already have. something really new, so i guess could be difficult to read even with that techniques. but time will show.

As an example, when reading a sci. chem. paper, over 20 pages, even in english language, i just used five or ten minutes and i had the content and the regulations in my mind. But that was due to the fact, that i already knew a lot of the formulations, vocabularies, expressions and also the basic content. So the input was more easy for me.

anyway, i was glad to be remembered on that topic during the lesson and
glad, that we were pointed with our noses to that topic and it´s importance.
When i look on my bookshelf, ... i can see half a meter of books i should read.
"Hopefully i will find the time i think, ...", when looking on that staple of books,
but better to think would be: I will read that books in a short time and looking forward to train that techniques.

Second Lesson

the second lesson was very interesting for me.
the reason was, that we had to prepare and to perform again a
presentation and this time i could focus on the performance better than the first time.

In general i am not really used to speak in front of people.
But this time, i could deal better with my nervosity and beneath that,
i could partly observe myself and structure my feelings
during speaking and acting more consciously.

In a way, it felt for me like a gestalt-therapeutic procedure. I had the feeling
after the lesson and some thoughts on parallels to that field of existential and
experiential psychotherapy stuff.

I do not want to describe the course as a kind of psychotherapy,
but the experiences reminded me on that.

During speaking it was interesting to see the content more and more going back to a second and not so important level in my consciousness, while the focus on what i feel and the focus on my experiences was enhanced in every present moment.
It was primarily a strange feeling but started to be a kind of pleasant flow after a while.
It was like somebody (mostly myself i think *grinning*) made me, as a better
expression, forced me to focus on the present moment, on acting, speaking and performing, gesticulation and mimicry.
On one point i caught myself thinking: " it is not important to focus on the content, i know the content anyway and it will flow into my mind on the right moment ... it is more important to focus on myself and on "my" listeners. "

I did a provocative joke at the beginning, as an intro. this was partly due to the fact,
that we did not really prepare a good presentation and that we did not find a red line when working on the content.
But we have been also driven by our interest to use the moment and the class as a platform just to experiment and to get to know and figure out, what will happen.

Marina, a co-student was willing to take the risk and to aid in that "experiment",
because she was also interested to see the reactions of the listeners and our reactions to. What we will make with that situation and platform, how we can handle that. A little self-experience journey started. Even it was just for a few minutes.

The feedback we got was showing us, that we have to be more sensitive and more conscious on what we do, how speak, how we formulate, look, act and interact and specially not to to miss the points, where we have to be patient and cautious with the listeners. Some reacted a bit shocked, as i could see in some faces, some disorientated, because it seemed, that nobody expected a "silly-provocative intro" like this.

The key for me could be to stay in the focus on graping the whole situation (included myself) and
use this as a self-regulating tool and as an insight for the way i act and perform.
Maybe like the gestalt-therapists do, working with a field-dynamic, including themself, but consciously.