Espanol

The penultimate of my resolutions was to keep learning Spanish. It’s the fourth most commonly-spoken language on the planet, with around 500 million native and non-native speakers.

I’ve never had the discipline to learn a language by self-study, so I have a few rarely opened Spanish books on the shelves. Podcasts have been a bit of a boon (although I’m now suffering from the fact that iTunes doesn’t run under XP x64), as I’ll happily listen to them again and again while travelling. The big problem for me though is that the ability to listen and understand a language doesn’t translate into the ability to speak it. Looking at my one-year-old nephew responding with comprehension when spoken to, but unable to speak, I guess this is a common function of the way he learn languages.

Late last year I signed up for a course at 44 Portland Place, and I got quite a lot out of it. Being taught in a small group seems to allow me to learn faster, probably because it’s not so passive. Of course, the big benefit is that I get to practice speaking throughout each lesson.

44 Portland Place is very cheap compared to other language classes, so I’ve no objection to signing up for their classes as long as there’s an appropriate one. The real challenge for me, and the point of the resolution, is to make sure that I put more into it than just turning up to every class. Homework, including some writing and some rote learning, is invaluable. On top of that, I need to take time to read Spanish (plenty of which is now available online - no more going to the library or buying foreign newspapers) and speak it when the opportunity arises.

Half-On the Wagon

I said this year I would try to avoid drinking more than six units of alcohol in a day. I’ve been teetotal for months at a time before, and it’s never been a problem. Alcohol is like Pringles or chocolate raisins - the real challenge isn’t refusing the first one, it’s refusing the third or fourth one.

Half of the reason I want to drink less is to lower and keep track of the calories I consume. The other half of the reason is that I want to avoid that day after feeling: even after the hangover’s gone, I still feel washed-out, and I can’t summon the willpower to do anything more than lounge around. But who doesn’t like a good glass of red, or a decent beer? Truth be told, I like most kinds of alcohol, I enjoy the taste and the relaxing effect of the first couple of drinks. It’s even good for the heart.

So I don’t want to cut it out completely, but I don’t want to drink so much that I spend half of the next day with a headache, or wondering if I should leave the flat. The time I’m least able to resist a drink is after I’ve already had two. I’m not sure exactly how I’ll solve this problem, but I’ll probably start by interspersing non-alcoholic drinks in between the booze. Of all the things I resolved to do this year, I think this one will probably be hardest to stick with.

Debt Free

A few days ago I did the maths, and saw that there were no instant-access savings accounts that would pay me more after tax than my student loan cost. Today I picked up the phone to the Student Loans Company, and paid off the last £1,200 of my debt.

That’s the last of the debt I accumulated over seven years, from 1995 to 2002. Much of the money went on two degrees, and some of it went on living expenses. For two of those seven years I was working in London, seriously underpaid, for Sweet & Maxwell, and the amount I owed rose slightly over that period. When I finally left university for a second time, I owed about £21,000 in total, to two banks, the Student Loan Company, two credit card issuers, an MCR and my parents.

So that’s £90 a month more I’ll have to do with as I please. Of course, all I do these days is obsess over when I should buy a house and get into much, much more debt.

On the Plus Side

I went to see The Nutcracker at the ROH this evening. I had the last seat available, closest to the stage in the righthand slips. This is above the level of the curtain, which although raised still obscures about half the stage.

Missing much of the dancing could be annoying, but then I realised that hearing a famous orchestra play a two-hour long favourite was worth the £5 admission by itself.

Early to Rise

Continuing the trek through my resolutions, the third was “Get up at 6.30 am during the week.” To those that know me this must seem well out of character. In fact, it’s already becoming an easy-to-keep habit.

I never liked the fact that I would get up, get ready for work, go to work, and not have any time of my own until the evening. This way, I get an hour or so in the morning before work. It’s quiet, and since there’s definite time limit, I don’t spend it staring into space. I’ve been using it to read, blog, tidy, correspond, play piano and organise. I typically get much more done in that hour than I would in an hour in the evening. In fact, I’m even thinking of getting up at six!

Write More

The second resolution I made for this year was, “Blog or otherwise write for one hour a week, no matter the subject.”

My earlier experiences with more ambitious blog posts were frustrating, as I find my breadth-first thinking patterns do not easily translate into good writing. But I read a lot of material, both online and in dead tree form, and plenty of people write well, if not amazingly. My guess is that practice is important, as is allowing myself to make mistakes. So I’ll be writing often, and hoping to learn how by doing.

The Family Trade, by Charles Stross

Charles Stross is one of my favourite current authors, but I’d shied away from this one because it had a “fantasy” label on it. I should have known better.

Some people can move from one universe to another when they look at particular patterns. The universe that the heroine travels to (and back from) is developmentally medieval. That’s the fantasy part.

Part of the plot is the a re-run of a character realising they were born to some massive destiny. The rest is politics, economics, violence and romance mashed together into a thriller. I’m not really one for thrillers, and this probably hampered my enjoyment of the book; the plot tangles were getting a bit thick for me to follow in places. Still, Stross’s normal exciting pace is kept up almost throughout, and the book is littered with intriguing ideas.

If you’ve read Srross before, you’ll probably like it, although it’s not as good as The Atrocity Archives or Singularity Sky. If you haven’t read any Stross yet, and you like scifi full of impressive ideas, I suggest you first start with Accelerando, which is available online for free.

Division of Labour

I’ve just moved my Oracle stuff over to a separate new blog, Learning Oracle. Only suitable for the seriously technically inclined!

The Gym in January

Or, to paraphrase Frank Sinatra, “How did all these people get in my gym?”

I’ve been going to the gym three or four times a week for the last six months or so. I expected that January would be bad, and so it is. At peak times there’s no room on the mat, no spaces on the cardio machines, and the free weights area is crowded. During the week I’m trying to go before noon or after two thirty, or after seven thirty in the evening. I’m off to the gym as soon as I’ve finished this post, since I figure the resolutioners won’t be out at the weekend.

I expect it will be back to normal in a month or less. I’ve never seen any figures - and I imagine that the people who have them don’t want to publish them - but I reckon that a lot of gyms make a killing from signing people up in January who stop coming after a few weeks. I don’t know what the marginal cost is to the gym of a single visit (although at my gym guest passes are a ridiculous £15) but I bet they’d have problems if all of their members started using the services they’d paid for.

Weight Control

My first resolution for this year was, “Get to a weight of, at most, 11 stone or 10% body fat, whichever is the sooner.”

A few months ago my weight was heading towards 14 stone (89kg). That was where I snapped and decided to get back into shape, even if I can’t run. I’d been at the gym several times a week, but I was still eating badly, so that was where I started. I calculated my basal metabolic rate as about 1800 kcal / day, and cut my diet back to that. Simultaneously, I increased the amount of aerobic exercise I was doing (mostly swimming), after which I started losing about 2lb / week.

I’ve lost about a stone and a half right now, and feel much better for it. I’m not sure what the right end point is for this diet, but if I can get to either of 11 stone weight or 10% body fat I’ll be happy. If I stay on track that should be in about three months’ time.