With only 6 days of my 365 Days Of Adventure remaining, I really want to make the most of every opportunity!
For today’s adventure, I took my very first lesson in Old English (Anglo Saxon) and it was a lot of fun 🙂 . I studied both German and Old Norse at university, and there are huge similarities between these languages and Old English.
Today’s taster session was enough to get me interested in taking my studies further. (And, I think it will help my storytelling too!)
In today’s video you can watch me speaking my very first words in Old English!
Today is another squeeze-one-in day. I’m busy with work all day and running a webinar tonight. You might be saying to yourself “Well, take a break then. Have a day off from your adventures.” But it doesn’t work like that for me.
Even when my day is so full that I can hardly breath, it’s the adventure that gives me the gulp of air I need. Even when I don’t feel like doing an adventure (and there have been a few days like that over the past year, the kind of days where life has been a little tougher than I’d expected), I still do it. You know why? It’s because I’ve learned that I feel more alive, more present, more resourceful and more grounded as a result of leaping into an adventure – even if the adventure is only for a couple of minutes.
So for today’s adventure, I catching my breath in a Hindi language-learning adventure. On today’s video, you can hear me say “Hello! My name’s Jane. Pleased to meet you.”
Today I learn how to count from 0-10 in Finnish. I find the rhythm of the language mesmerising. The rhythm seems to be the key to learning and remembering this language.
For some reason, today’s words seem uncannily familiar. To be more precise, they “feel” familiar. I’m going to pay attention to this feeling and walk a little deeper into the Finnish forest 🙂 .
For today’s adventure, I’ve learned some basic Finnish phrases. I used Finnish Pod 101 to help me out. What surprised me about learning the phrases is how helpful rhythm is when speaking Finnish 🙂 .
You can hear me speaking Finnish in today’s video. I’m using the familiar form of language and I’m saying : Hello. My name is Jane. Pleased to meet you. Do you speak English? Bye!
When people hear about my 365 Days Of Adventure project, one of the most common things they say is, “That’s really inspiring, but I just don’t have time for that kind of thing.”
The whole emphasis of the project has been on having a micro adventure everyday. Some of those micro adventures have added up to become mighty big adventures. I’ll also admit that some of my adventures took me a little longer than others ~ in fact, writing the chapters for my unromantic romantic novel seemed painfully long at times (what with all those tragic deaths and no romance whatsoever) 😛
For today’s adventure, I want to show you that it is really possible to integrate daily adventure into your life without it taking too much time. At the moment I am super busy with work, and I’m also keen to tie up the loose ends from some of my larger adventures. And yet, I still have the impulse to break into new adventure territory every day.
My 365 Days Of Adventure project has reminded me that I love to learn new things – and that learning feels really adventurous. When I’m learning something new, I’m pioneering. When I’m learning something new, I’m not sure if I’m going to succeed, I’m not sure if I’m going to bump up against my own edges. When I’m learning something new, I’m learning more about myself.
And now that I find myself in a very busy period, to keep the spirit of adventure alive, I’m going to feed that spirit with learning. A wee taste of learning will be enough to keep the spirit alive. It’s as simple as that!
For today’s adventure, I’m learning some basic Hungarian phrases, helped by Hungarian Pod 101 . What I like about these language-learning videos is that they say that you’ll learn something in less than 3 minutes. My inner adventurer gets excited by that invitation 🙂 . Is it really possible for me to do this? As I’m watching the video, I can feel the thrill of adventure and I can feel the fun of learning too.
You can see if I managed to learn some Hungarian in today’s video. I’m saying “Hello. My name is Jane. Nice to meet you! Do you speak English? I don’t speak Hungarian.”
If you know what brings you to life, I wonder what would happen if you spent 3 minutes a day “feeding” that thing? And if you don’t know what brings you to life, I wonder what would happen if you spent 3 minutes a day experimenting and exploring… until you discovered what brings you to life?
I think my renga project must be getting to me : for today’s adventure, I learn some basic phrases in Japanese :). I used a brilliant YouTube video to help me to learn the following phrases :
1. Nice to meet you / hello [something you might say when you meet someone for the first time – and the kanji for this phrase are in the image on the left!]
2. My name is ….
3. It’s a pleasure to meet you [said when you’re bowing]
Whilst my year of adventure is coming to an end, I am exquisitely aware of something new beginning in me. I’ve felt it for a while, and I’m not even sure I can put it into words yet, but it has something to do with my haiku adventure and something to do with trees and something to do with Japan.
As I’ve been doing research for my book, Seventeen Syllables : Cultivating Presence Through Poetry, I’ve become fascinated by the haiku form and its origins. The modern haiku form is most closely associated with the seventeenth century poet, Matsuo Bashō.
In 1686, Bashō composed one of his best-remembered haiku. Historians believe that this poem became instantly famous.
古池や蛙飛こむ水のおと furu ike ya / kawazu tobikomu / mizu no oto An ancient pond / a frog jumps in / the sound of water
For today’s adventure, I’m going to recite this haiku in Japanese. It’s not only considered to be the most famous haiku poem written by Bashō, it’s also considered to be one of the most famous haiku in the world! I learned how to recite the poem by watching this brilliant video on YouTube.
Goodness knows where the impulse for today’s adventure came from! If you’ve been following my adventures, you’ll know that I don’t plan ahead, I just wait for an impulse to arise every day. When the impulses arises, I follow it. The impulse to learn some Welsh took me by surprise, but I followed the impulse and thoroughly enjoyed the experience.
In my attempt to learn some basic phrases, I stumbled across a guy called Jingle Jeff on YouTube. I thought he was fabulous – even though his show is obviously meant for toddlers, it was perfect for me!
Gosh. Editing is a tougher than I thought 😛 . Today’s adventure has been all about editing my book and this round of editing has been completely grammar-focused. I am actually surprised that I got out alive. Grammar and bone-ghosts seem to have a lot in common 😛 .
The editing is still not complete and I’m heading into my fourth and (fingers crossed) final cycle tomorrow. What makes me giggle (well, okay , I’ll admit it. I’m too grammar-garotted to giggle just now) is that the Faerie Thorn story actually took me fourteen hours to write. Guess how long the editing has taken?……….
With only 6 days of my 365 Days Of Adventure remaining, I really want to make the most of every opportunity!
Humans Resourced 