Joined Duolingo

This may be old news for some, but I found the website Duolingo.com that seems like it’ll be really helpful for learning Spanish. It’s as effective anything I’ve used to date and it’s free! They also have French, Italian, German, and I think they’re working on others. I’m not affiliated with them in any way, I just wanted to put this resource out there for people.

See more progress on: Learn Spanish

How to do NaNoWriMo

"By giving you no choice but to press on, NaNoWriMo heads off most of your excuses and forces you to see what you're capable of writing."

How I did it: I was talked into it by a friend who had done it the previous year. I had an idea that I'd been toying with for some time so I dove in and worked hard at it. It ended up taking 1-2 hours a day to hit my word count quotas, but I made room (while going to grad school, no less!) Unless you're in a very serious crunch time in your life, I think this is doable. 

Lessons & tips:

• Signing up on the website, while not essential, is extremely helpful. There are lots of resources there and connecting with other writers can be motivating. In my case, I found that watching my numbers go higher on the bar graph kept me wanting to do more. 


• Have a decent plan but don't be afraid to deviate from it. There are books and websites (that one's for the snowflake method, one approach that could help you get started) to refer to. 


• I found that the scrivener software made organizing my novel much easier. There are even promotions for it so that you can use it for free during nanowrimo and then buy it later at a discount if you complete your 50,000 words 


• Be realistic - This is a good first step, but you probably won't be able to ship off the end product of your nanowrimo to get professionally published. If you want to go all the way, you'll need to do a fair amount of editing and beefing up of your manuscript before it's ready for prime time.  


• It's ok to suck - I had to give myself permission to write without worrying if it was good or bad. At the pace of NaNoWriMo, this is pretty essential. You will have all the time you want to take to make it better later.   

Resources:

See links above

• Scrivener Writing Software 


• Nanowrimo.org website 


• Various Books and Blogs 

It took me 30 days.

It made me Excited

See more progress on: Do NaNoWriMo

How to learn a language using the internet (Link to Lifehackninja)

I thought this would be worth saving. It looks like there are great alternatives to buying rosetta stone.

Lifehack Ninja

Writing: 5 Tips for Writing Kick-Ass Characters

5 Tips for Writing Kick-Ass Characters

I thought this was an interesting read, thought I'd reblog it here. Enjoy!

AFI Top 100 Movie: The Gold Rush

The Gold Rush is a 1924 film featuring Charlie Chaplin in his famous “Little Tramp” role. In brief, he travels to the Yukon to participate in the titular Gold Rush, but is quickly caught up in the sort of zany antics you might expect from an old timey slapstick comedy.

I caught this on Netflix Streaming before it expired on the 15th. I’ve never watched a silent film before but it wasn’t as painful as I might’ve imagined. A few things struck me. First, it’s clearly impossible to experience this movie the way it would have been experienced in 1924. For one thing, many of its jokes felt really cliche, but I suspect that many of them were more original at the time and have since been reused to exhaustion. Second, whether the film was always of poorer quality or whether it’s the result of degradation by the time the film was transfered to its present form, the graininess and seizing pace of the film speed made many of the scenes unintentionally creepy. I found this fairly distracting particularly during the scenes in the isolated cabin. Third, the social standards have shifted so much in the last 90 or so years that it’s hard to understand whether the villain is seriously out of line or just mildly dislikable by 1920’s values. That last point has been kind of a recurring theme as I’ve gone through some of these older movies.

In all, I thought it was a satisfying film, and it’s impressive what Chaplin can do without dialog. For the cultural experience alone, I recommend giving this a shot at some point.

See more progress on: watch the AFI Top 100

AFI Top 100 Movie: The Maltese Falcon

I’m down to 66 movies left on the AFI top 100. Last night, I saw the film noir classic “The Maltese Falcon.” I thought it was pretty good, and it’s easy to see how it inspired many of the detective stories that have come since. When I watch the older movies on the list, I find myself fascinated by the little things specific to the era – The dressed-up fashions of the 1940’s, the pre-internet technology, the old-timey manner of speaking, and the more paternalistic attitudes of what a “manly” character should be. The history lesson seems to stick with me better than the particulars of plot. I was amused how often I thought to myself things like “wait, he can’t just talk about that on the phone, they can trace that,” before realizing that those technologies didn’t exist yet. I know that this is still the idealized Hollywood version of reality, but a culture’s ideals tell you a tremendous amount about the culture nonetheless.

See more progress on: watch the AFI Top 100

My Progress on the AFI Top 100

I’ve been poking at this list for a while so I thought it’d be worth putting my progress here. I’ll update as I see more.

1. MOVIE YEAR
   1 CITIZEN KANE 1941

2- -THE GODFATHER1972

3- -CASABLANCA1942

4 RAGING BULL 1980

5- -SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN1952

6- -GONE WITH THE WIND1939

7 LAWRENCE OF ARABIA 1962

8- -SCHINDLER’S LIST1993

9 VERTIGO 1958

10THE WIZARD OF OZ1939

11 CITY LIGHTS 1931

12THE SEARCHERS1956

13STAR WARS1977

14 PSYCHO 1960

15 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY 1968

16 SUNSET BLVD. 1950

17THE GRADUATE1967

18 THE GENERAL 1927

19 ON THE WATERFRONT 1954

20 IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE 1946

21CHINATOWN1974

22 SOME LIKE IT HOT 1959

23 THE GRAPES OF WRATH 1940

24E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL1982

25 TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD 1962

26 MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON 1939

27 HIGH NOON 1952

28 ALL ABOUT EVE 1950

29 DOUBLE INDEMNITY 1944

30 APOCALYPSE NOW 1979

31 THE MALTESE FALCON 1941

32 THE GODFATHER PART II 1974

33 ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST 1975

34 SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS 1937

35 ANNIE HALL 1977

36 THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI 1957

37 THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES 1946

38 THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE 1948

39DR. STRANGELOVE1964

40THE SOUND OF MUSIC1965

41 KING KONG 1933

42 BONNIE AND CLYDE 1967

43MIDNIGHT COWBOY1969

44 THE PHILADELPHIA STORY 1940

45SHANE1953

46 IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT 1934

47 A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE 1951

48 REAR WINDOW 1954

49 INTOLERANCE 1916

50THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING2001

51 WEST SIDE STORY 1961

52TAXI DRIVER1976

53 THE DEER HUNTER 1978

54MA*SH1970

55 NORTH BY NORTHWEST 1959

56 JAWS 1975

57ROCKY1976

58 THE GOLD RUSH 1925

59 NASHVILLE 1975

60 DUCK SOUP 1933

61 SULLIVAN’S TRAVELS 1941

62AMERICAN GRAFFITI1973

63 CABARET 1972

64 NETWORK 1976

65 THE AFRICAN QUEEN 1951

66RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK1981

67 WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? 1966

68UNFORGIVEN1992

69 TOOTSIE 1982

70 A CLOCKWORK ORANGE 1971

71SAVING PRIVATE RYAN1998

72 THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION 1994

73 BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID 1969

74THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS1991

75 IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT 1967

76FORREST GUMP1994

77 ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN 1976

78 MODERN TIMES 1936

79 THE WILD BUNCH 1969

80 THE APARTMENT 1960

81 SPARTACUS 1960

82 SUNRISE 1927

83TITANIC1997

84 EASY RIDER 1969

85 A NIGHT AT THE OPERA 1935

86 PLATOON 1986

87 12 ANGRY MEN 1957

88 BRINGING UP BABY 1938

89 THE SIXTH SENSE 1999

90 SWING TIME 1936

91 SOPHIE’S CHOICE 1982

92GOODFELLAS1990

93 THE FRENCH CONNECTION 1971

94PULP FICTION1994

95 THE LAST PICTURE SHOW 1971

96DO THE RIGHT THING1989

97BLADE RUNNER1982

98 YANKEE DOODLE DANDY 1942

99TOY STORY1995

100 BEN-HUR 1959

See more progress on: watch the AFI Top 100

From 100 onward (Reading List)

I set up my Shelfari (on Amazon) account a few years ago and loaded it down with every book I remember reading in its entirety in my life. Last year, I got to 100 books total. Yes, I counted stuff like Dr. Seuss but I tried not to abuse that. To be fair, it did count the entire LOTR set as one book, so I stand behind my decisions. At any rate, I’m trying to get that number up to 125, though I’m going to be realistic about my approach and try not to rush things since I’ve got so much else going on. If you’re reading this post at thetenofswords, you can see my up-to-date Shelfari list at the bottom of the page. As of this posting, I’m working on the following books:

- The Quest NIV study bible (The footnotes and asides make it much more approachable than the straight text, even if it is aimed at teenagers)
- Paradise Lost by John Milton – This is one I’ve been meaning to read since high school. I’m stubbornly attacking this and a few other “chore books” among my more enjoyable reads. As an aspiring writer, I think there’s value in reading the classics just to get an idea for how other people write.
- The Tao of Jeet Koon Do by Bruce Lee – Although I’m not actively practicing martial arts, I want to take the philosophical approach in this book and apply it to my other pursuits until I can get into martial arts again.
- Intuitive Biostatistics by Harvey Motulsky – Working in a biomedical science lab, a foundation in biostatistics should serve me well. This book is pretty readable given the content so I’m hoping it’s not going to be too painful.

It’ll probably take me a while to get through these, but I’m planning to get on a streak of easier books after I get some of these figured out.

See more progress on: Read 125 Books (on Shelfari)

Setting up a workshop

At John’s suggestion, I picked up a book on forging called “Wayne Goddard’s $50 Knife Shop” and I’m starting to go through it. I don’t expect to actually get started for $50, since I may need to spring for more portable options for some of the equipment, but it’s a decent starting point at any rate. I’m not sure how I should move forward yet, but I’m thinking the way to go is going to be to find someone in PA who is willing to offer some mentorship and access to their facilities. In the longer term, I’d like to accumulate my own equipment and set up a workshop of my own. I doubt that I can operate a forge in an attached garage, so I’m going to have to either wait until I have a more suitable home or I’ll have to put together some kind of mobile unit that I can cart to a park or something. That last option might be impossible without a pickup truck, and might be really impractical anyhow, so I guess we’ll see what makes sense.

See more progress on: forge knives

P = 0.0166: At Long Last, a Finding

For better or for worse, a PhD in the biomedical sciences requires a certain amount of luck. In my case, that luck has been a long time coming. Today I got to report my first solid piece of reasonably novel data, and from here I ought to be able to build my thesis around what I’ve discovered. As much as I’d like to go into the gritty details, I’m going to wait until I’ve published to disseminate the information so that I don’t jinx myself or end up eating my words later. What I will say is that persistence and endurance appear to be much more important to the completion of a PhD than outright intelligence or productivity.

See more progress on: Get a PhD