Category Archives: Random Musings

2020

Well, that was a year. Or eight. I lost track.

When the pandemic shut us down in March, my brain kind of went with it. I’m still trying to recover.

But, time kept ticking along. I had to do some things the hard way as people ordered records. That got easier later in the year when I regained access to a lot of records I usually need access to and had lost in March. Then I started working again. I finished off some work that clients had been waiting for. Record orders got easier.

Everything went to hell more in July when my mother passed away. I had no idea it was coming. She didn’t die of covid. She avoided getting treatment for something diagnosed months earlier, avoiding the hospital to avoid covid exposure. So yeah, she died because of covid, but not from it. I didn’t go to the funeral in Florida just as the pandemic was taking off there. Since I wasn’t unexpectedly traveling, I claimed her Find a Grave page moments after the obituary went online.

I inexplicably stopped reading books for a few months at that point. I had a goal to read 12 books again. Last year, I fell short of that goal by one. This year, well, it depends how I count them. I read 11 physical books and one on Kindle, because it was the third in the series that I didn’t own. And I’m about 2/3 through another. I’ll get that finished in another couple days or so.

2020 Books

In genealogy, I haven’t done much work on my own family research this year, that I can remember. I’ve done some more indexing work and I did some work for clients. I also have 150 emails in my inbox, some are from people asking for research. If you’re waiting, sorry. I’m determined to get them dealt with sooner rather than later. You will eventually hear from me.

After the summer, Dad sent a couple boxes of photos (and some other stuff). I got the two big photo albums (1960s to 1981), the album with the photos other relatives gave her, and a whole bunch of loose photos that she had stashed all over the place. I have been digitizing them for months. I have finished everything but the second big album that I just started. Some of the loose photos were my grandmother’s and my great aunts’ that Mom had. There were some interesting finds. I have many new favorites, but one is of my parents before they were married. I never saw a photo of them before their wedding. (I mean, it was in the album and I might have, but didn’t realize it. It would have been decades ago if I did see it.)

Dad and Mom, September 1963

The stuff that made 2020 suck will continue at least until January 20th, so today isn’t a big turning point. And vaccinations will take longer too, before we can get out again. According to the Utah “plan”, I’ll be in February or March. We’ll see. I can’t wait to get out of here. I haven’t left my house for anything but food and a few other necessities since March 10th, my last trip to the FHL. Those were the days.

2021 Goals

What’s up for next year? Procrastinating is my enemy.

  • Catch up on all those back-logged emails. This will also hopefully involve a lot of research for clients. And don’t let it get stupid out of control again.
  • Keep digitizing the photos and I have some plans for organizing all my photos better. And I need to scan in all of my own and pass some through MyHeritage to see if it can de-blur them.
  • Keep indexing records and getting them online. There’s always more.
  • Read another dozen books. More would be nice. I’ve already cut back on computer games, so I should have more time for that. Maybe start doing audio books to get in more.
  • Travel. I need to travel. I really want to go back to Europe and find more records. When can I get out of here?

I Have A Lot Of Books To Read

I don’t usually share this kind of thing online, but I decided to write it up anyway. You see, I hadn’t read a book in years.

Oh, I read a lot. I read news online, blogs, genealogy magazines and journals. I’ve even read some books on Kindle, though I tend to skim those.

But I hadn’t read a physical book that was sitting on my shelf for years. I’ve lost interest in some of what I had and had gotten rid of them without ever reading them. But I still have plenty left.

So I decided it was time to read books again. I set a goal for twelve books in 2019, one per month. The last book I can remember reading was pretty long and it took me a month, one chapter per night.

I read eleven. I failed. Somehow I stopped sometime around the summer and took a while to start up again. But I’m proud of those eleven. I even rushed to get one more in since I started writing this post about ten days ago, and finished it a few minutes ago.

2019 Books

I read two genealogy books, or rather one genealogy and one genealogy-ish. Two books were about Utah. Three were from the shelf of books I’d kept back to junior high school that I loved and wanted to read again. (I didn’t love them as much the second time as an adult though; they’ll be donated now.) One was actually a lecture, but it was bound like a book and I got it from the free book sale at the library, so it counts. Several of the books were chosen deliberately for being easier reads. They were still books in my house that I needed to read, so they count just like the others.

In any case, I finally read some of the books in my house and getting myself doing that again was the ultimate goal more than the count. I have a lot more to go. Since I didn’t hit my goal, I think I’ll set the same goal, but in the hopes that I read more than twelve, next year.

Happy New Year!

Hello MailChimp

Goodbye (and good riddance), FeedBurner.

This blog has been running on FeedBurner for a long time. I don’t know all that FeedBurner does, but I was using it to send emails to my subscribers. Google basically abandoned it years ago, but I was slow to leave.

When I noticed an email arrive weeks after I posted to the blog, I was a little concerned. When another arrived one month after posting, it was time to move on.

If you’re reading via RSS feed, like with Feedly or some other program, nothing has changed for you.

If you’re getting this by email, you’ve been transferred to MailChimp. Let me know if you see any issues. MailChimp sometimes needs tweaking.

I’m Still Here

Did you miss me? Holy cow, have I been busy.

A woman approached me rather oddly a month or more ago at the Family History Library. She returned a couple times and finally figured out she recognized me from my blog, and mentioned she liked reading it.

“Thank you. I haven’t written in a while.”

But that was OK with her.

I wanted to write just after that, and yet I didn’t. One of the difficulties I have with this blog is that I often write posts that take a long time, like the Nitpicker’s Guides to WDYTYA, but I feel guilty spending so much time writing on my blog when I’m behind on my client work, most especially writing their reports. I haven’t been behind for a bit, but I’ve been busy helping the IAJGS Conference.

That’s right, they pulled me in again.

So tonight is my flight to that conference. I’m just taking a random few minutes in the middle of packing and last minute prep to write a quick note to my readers. I’m sure I have some left. You wouldn’t have deleted me from your feed if I disappeared from it. :-)

And, as always when this happens, I will try to write more. I have a conference next week, so that should give me something to write about. Maybe some short bits. Those are easier to write and publish anyway.

OK, back to the prep work. My main computer is a desktop, so there are things I can’t do once I leave. See some of you in Orlando.

I’ve Been Doing Genealogy

What’s been happening at IDoGenealogy.com? I’ve been doing genealogy. I haven’t blogged in a while, so I figured I should say something.

1. I’ve been trying to finish up my Bernie Sanders research. I’m very sad he lost the primary. I think I’ll survive. I was trying to get one last piece of information before finishing up that post, when I realized that there was more for me to do in Polish records. I still have to do that.

2. I wanted to write about WDYTYA. Rather than a blog post for each episode, I had things I felt like I needed to say about the last three episodes of the last season. I still need to write that.

3. I’ve been busy with some client work. I’ve gotten a few clients lately that needed research (as opposed to digitizing or just look-ups) so I’m happy about that, but I don’t blog about their families. I still have one waiting for a report and another waiting until next month for me to get started.

4. I’ve been trying to get a new family newsletter issue put together. I have so much stuff for it, but I haven’t gotten it all neatened up yet. I don’t know if that will happen this week, and then it will have to wait a few more weeks until I can get back to it.

5. I’ve been doing unpaid work for the past few weeks in preparation for the IAJGS Conference. I am quite behind in my prep for the lectures I need to give. One of them needed a whole lot of genealogy research conducted, and I’m still working on it.

6. And next week is IAJGS. Of course I go to that conference every year. I’ve been researching for it (see #5) and I need to get things finished up and my presentations put together in the next three days. I think I can do it.

And that’s where I am now. I expect I’ll be blogging from the conference as I usually do, so my blog will finally be active again. Hopefully that will get me going with the other blog posts I need to get written. But at least now, anyone following my blog knows I’m still here and where I’ve been lately.

Utah Caucus 2016

Getting away from genealogy for this post, I got home a little while ago from voting in my caucus.

What’s a caucus? It’s what happens when the state is to cheap or too lazy to have a proper primary vote, apparently. The caucus is run by volunteers, whereas an actual vote would have the mail-in voting, which I am signed up for. It would have saved me four hours tonight.

In 2012, there was a vote for something by ballot, then we were all in the high school auditorium and chose precinct delegates for the county convention. I was the only person in my precinct, so I got the job.

One hallway. Imagine this kind of crowd filling every hallway of an entire school. And then some.
One hallway. Imagine this kind of crowd filling every hallway of an entire school. And then some.

This time, there was a long line. It started down the block, snaked around the school hallways, passed two other lines, went out the back of the school, and split into those two lines, which then snaked around again. We had to pick a line based on our house district, but the map was at the front door and they rushed us past it.

And the web sites were all crashing while people in the line were trying to verify they were in the right place. I was lucky that I looked up my district before I left home, though I had to count on the lines not moving from four years ago, which they hadn’t.

And then, the other lines didn’t move. They would move in small batches, like they took 10 or 20 people at a time. Then we would stand. And it was cold outside. And then the sun started setting.

Winner of the door decoration contest. I was joking they should have had a contest and we would vote at the end. This was the only decorated door.
Winner of the door decoration contest. I was joking they should have had a contest and we would vote at the end. This was the only decorated door.

Someone said “I have a fireplace,” so I asked, “Did you bring it with you?”

They finally got everyone inside before it was dark. At least, they got my line and many people behind me inside. Our line snaked through two more side hallways that they opened up for us. More people were still outside and they were brought into the gym to sit and wait. We passed them in our last half hour.

With me in line was a 20 year old young woman who was voting for the first time who had been at Bernie’s rally at This is the Place Park last week. Behind her was a couple, one wearing a red U sweatshirt. He left while we were outside and came back to find us inside. He brought back hot chocolate, enough for all four of us.

I had almost arrived at Beehive Elementary school at 6pm when the caucus was supposed to start, but the traffic was mad. After taking a turn through the full parking lot, I picked a street and headed away, finally finding somewhere to park. So I was in line before 6:30pm, and I voted at 10pm. It was supposed to be 6-8:30pm.

After filling out my ballot, I asked about the caucus and was told it was in the gym, but I already knew the gym was just the end of the line, so I was out of there. I participated in the caucus four years ago and didn’t feel the need to wait until probably midnight for this one.

I finally saw this wall about 20 minutes before I voted.
I finally saw this wall about 20 minutes before I voted.

I used to laugh and wonder about the incompetence of places that made people wait for hours, never expecting to be in one.

Here’s what I learned, some after I got home. That part I mentioned earlier about having a caucus instead of a primary, that’s on the state.

The state and county web sites crashed under the weight of people looking up their polling places — or in our case, the district number.

The voting process was stupid. They verify you on the list with your ID and hand you long form to fill out. So everyone stops right there and fills it out, with just the one vote at the bottom after all the identifying information (which they already have) and half a dozen questions about what we would volunteer for. There wasn’t even a ballot “box” to put it in, we just handed it back.

What I think they should have done?

  1. Put that form online and let people fill it out in advance. That would have saved so much trouble. Or ditch the long form and let us vote with less handwriting.
  2. Expect that when a single rally, for just one of five candidates, draws over 14,000 people, that the voter turnout is going to be high.
  3. Do not put multiple districts at the same location. Just trying to figure out what district we were in after trying to figure out the polling place was nuts.
  4. If the 2012 caucus filled the high school auditorium, why was the 2016 in an elementary school? They went from a bigger school to a smaller one on a minor street that was overcrowded with cars like it’s probably never seen before, and a major shortage of parking. Some people suggested they should have had us in the Olympic Oval. There was probably plenty of room there, and parking.

Update: I just read this from the Salt Lake Tribune: “Democrats wanted the state to run a full primary, but the GOP-led Legislature declined when the Republican Party said it preferred a caucus.” Yep, kind of what I figured.

A Memory, Because of Leonard Nimoy

Leonard Nimoy at the Las Vegas Star Trek Convention 2011. Photo by Beth Madison, found on Wikimedia Commons.
Leonard Nimoy at the Las Vegas Star Trek Convention 2011. Photo by Beth Madison, via Wikimedia Commons.

I haven’t blogged on the usual themes in a while, but I didn’t want to save this one for Monday.

With lots of tributes going around the Internet on the day of his death, I just watched a video of Leonard Nimoy in which he explains where the Vulcan hand salute came from. Here is the video.

Growing up, I watched a lot of TV shows that I don’t remember. I remember which shows, but none of the episode content.

One that stands out is Star Trek which I used to watch with my dad. I had to watch the whole series as an adult to remember any of the episodes, but I know I watched them as a kid.

And then came college, when Star Trek: The Next Generation came out. Well, it actually started when I was 14, but I didn’t watch it until college. At the time, it was playing on several stations, several times per day. While flipping channels, I saw something just before a commercial break and I had to know what happened next. I was immediately hooked.

I didn’t watch sooner because Dad was loyal to the original show. He insisted that Kirk was the only Captain of the Enterprise. (Psst, hey Dad, what about Pike?)

It turns out, however, that we must have watched the pilot, at the very least. As the series finale approached, I had to rent the pilot to be sure I had seen it, as I knew they were closely related. And I remembered that the station was actually an alien, so I had obviously seen it before.

Back in those days, there were lots of smaller Star Trek conventions. A few ran in South Florida and for a few years, I went to all of them that were within a few hours’ driving distance.

At the time, I had a Star Trek themed bumper sticker. I remember it was green and said “My Other Vehicle is a Federation Starship”. I was driving south to Fort Lauderdale for one of the conventions and I noticed another car on the highway with a Star Trek bumper sticker. I passed the car, the car passed me, back and forth a couple of times.

We both pulled off at the same exit, as I expected, and pulled up next to each other at the traffic light. We looked at each other and I smiled and waved.

The guy in the other car waved with a Vulcan salute.

Whoops. I quickly changed finger position before the light turned green.

And I’m pretty the main actor at that conference was Tim Russ who played Tuvok, the Vulcan on Voyager. (Yes, I liked Voyager too.)

One of my favorite tweets today has a genealogy twist to it.

Leonard Nimoy’s Twitter account is retweeting many messages sent out today, but his final tweet…

Thank you Leonard Nimoy for the memories. Live Long and Prosper.

Europe 2012 – Day 5 – Trains

Another adventure with mixed results dominated the day.

First, I drove back to Warsaw. I wanted to get a record at the Jewish Historical Institute, but I hit traffic too often and didn’t quite make it in time. I circled around and around and around and finally found a spot to park, then visited several Jewish historical sites. One building was under construction and completely surrounded so I couldn’t even see one of them.

I returned the car to the airport (I’ll skip the gory details of that ordeal) and took the train back to Warszawa Centralna, the central station, to head over to Konin. I tried to buy a ticket, and someone even helped translate for me, but I don’t know what the ticket agent gave me. It wasn’t a ticket for what I wanted. Eventually, once the train was mostly empty, a conductor asked for my ticket and I had to buy one. I sure hope I don’t see a charge for that “other” ticket later.

What bothered me most though, was realizing 90 minutes into the two hour ride that there were electrical outlets; my phone was dead. I plugged it in and booked the hotel online about an hour before I got to it.

The train station was pretty barren with two exits. I took the wrong one first — there were no signs. Eventually I went back through and found a taxi to get to my hotel. Weird keys here. And I’m wondering if this is a truck stop.

I hope I have fewer transportation problems tomorrow. I only have one day for two archives and the civil records office. I anticipate not enough time for all three, but it’s Friday and it’s all I’ve got. Sadly, at multiple times, I find connections or don’t for the same trips; I’m not seeing anything for tomorrow right now. More complications.

Europe 2012 – Day 1

I should call this minus day one and not count it, but I am in Europe, so here goes.

This post will be filled with the nitty gritty details of my journey here. I haven’t really been anywhere yet, so skip it if you only want to know about seeing Europe and doing research. This one is kind of more about venting.

I didn’t sleep at all last night because I wasn’t close to being ready. I do that far too often actually when I fly somewhere. Driving, I just leave a little later. I still have things to do to plan for the trip I’m already on.

Amazingly, and to my own surprise, I was able to pack for a month in two carry-on bags. (I figured ten days of clothes was good.) I called for the shuttle and took a flight to JFK. I was three rows from the back of the plane and all the small children were back there. And yet, the flight was fine. The elder gentleman sitting next to me was friendly enough. And I guess most of the kid noise was drowned out by the engine noise. We even arrived a little early.

At JFK, it started going downhill. There was a shuttle to my terminal but there was no sign about it where there needed to be. I had about 30 minutes left of my two hour layover, after walking through the terminals, to check out the Delta Sky Club. I got some free passes for it a while back. The clerk let me in without keeping the pass since my time was so short, but they expire soon anyway so when else will I use them? (When arriving early to SLC, would be the appropriate in hindsight answer.) I was not impressed, then took the bus to the new terminal.

Because I pay attention to things, I saw the sign about one carry-on and checked it. The flight was very long. I dozed off many times but never got any real restful sleep. They served breakfast before landing but surprised me with dinner too, which I missed because I was half asleep. Exiting the plane, I saw a guy with three bags. I guess nobody enforced that sign much. I should have ignored it myself.

And then, I was in Europe. If I haven’t mentioned it enough, this is my first time off the American continent since I was 12, and that was the only time back then. After a walk through the airport, I got to customs and stepped into the shortest line, which moved at least eight times slower than all the others. And I’m not exaggerating about that. I now have an Amsterdam stamp in my shiny new passport.

My next flight boarded and it was less than two hours in the air. They gave us two sandwiches each. Seriously, US airlines are pathetic in comparison to the KLM service; the number of meals, drink service, the long flight even had warm towels for everyone multiple times just like I’d only seen in movies.

Warsaw is not a large airport. At least, it didn’t seem like it. After the bags went around and no more came out, there was a line at the missing baggage office, all from my flight. That’s right. I packed two carry-ons, checked one, and it didn’t make it to Poland with me. My first lost bag ever.

I was planning to use a bigger bag and check it, carefully packing a few clothing changes in the smaller bag, but once I realized I could go with two small ones, the second bag only held what it needed. I do have a few extra shirts, all my Androids and their chargers, my camera, and a few other things. Several hours ago, the KLM web site said they’d initiated delivery to me. It’s almost 4am. Are they waiting for sunrise? Not cool. Their Twitter person said someone would contact me. Then they said they would forward it in the morning. That had better be really, really early.

Now, about this hotel… It said it had a hotel shuttle when I booked it, which is why I came so far out from the airport. They changed the listing already. My taxi driver had trouble finding it even with a map. It also doesn’t mention the lack of air conditioning. Actually, I don’t see that listed for my next hotel either. It’s raining too, but not cooling off enough for me. That’s bad for sleep, but sleep is bad for this trip. I don’t have time for sleep or weekends.

What else went wrong on day one? My bluetooth keyboard refuses to pair with all of my Androids suddenly. I brought all my charger cables, but only one for two devices, and it’s the two I use the most. They’ll just have to take turns. I only brought my USB cables and not all the plugs, but one device actually needs its own plug and won’t charge. I haven’t eaten and I got hungry around 11pm in the middle of nowhere. Breakfast is in 4 hours. I still need a SIM card for my phone.

(Future note: take the plug for the biggest device. And do some doggone testing first.)

But those really cheap American to European adapters work just fine.

I think I’ll just kind of start over tomorrow. After breakfast, I will take the train to the city center and get started on my plans. I just booked my next hotel but not the rental car.

Also, when I got to the Warsaw airport, I followed the signs to customs and thought I took a wrong turn when a door just opened with no guard. No customs here for me. No Poland stamp. Too much European cooperation. I stepped back and took a picture. Hey, it’s better than pictures of my planes.

image

You may have also noticed that I’ve been trying to learn some Polish. I don’t know why I feel weird trying to speak to them. Maybe today. I eventually turned on the TV just to listen. So weird. US shows. Not captioned or dubbed how you might think. They play the original audio but a man overlaps it with a translation slightly louder.

Wait, I do have one other picture. I had a window seat only on the last flight. I took a picture of my view for most of that trip.

image

I didn’t have my camera ready as we approached for landing. Pretty. Lots of green and all orange roofs.

Gosh, that was a lot of venting, wasn’t it? I’ll balance that a little more.

HEY, I’M IN POLAND! :-)

The Journey of Learning Other Languages

… and a review of one method in two languages.

In anticipation of my first European Research Trip, I have been trying to learn Polish. I actually started with Russian, but switched pretty early, realizing that I would probably be in Poland longer. How am I learning to speak Polish? I’ve tried a few things.

First, I went with Pimsleur. The problem is that I don’t do listen and repeat learning well. I need to be able to read what I’m saying. In addition, while Pimsleur starts by teaching some useful things, it then gets into the more ridiculous. It teaches how to ask for directions, but the only answers it teaches are “here” and “there”. Not helpful. When it gets into food and drink, it teaches beer and wine. Um, no water? It also takes either three or four lessons until it teaches how to say “I am an American”, for a female. Seems a little sexist there, since it teaches the male version right away.

Second, I tried Rosetta Stone. This taught some general vocabulary, then went into a few phrases with no explanation of the grammar — Polish words change depending on where they are in a sentence, and I need real instruction. When it insisted that I learn how to say “the boy is under the ball”, I knew it was teaching me some very useful phrases. Yeah. I did learn that flash card-type learning actually works for me though, because I did remember a few of those words for a very long time.

I didn’t know where to go from there, so I turned to the Internet. I found some videos on YouTube that taught the numbers, the months, and just some general how to speak in Polish lessons, including conjugating verbs. I typed in some sentences I thought would be useful to me in Google Translate, and I loaded all of this into Quizlet, downloading those flash cards to my Android. I worked with those for a while, but it kind of faded away.

Memrise.com was brought to my attention next. I started learning vocabulary in Polish and I even went into French for a refresher. Well, refresher might be an understatement. I am still using the site, but no amount of vocabulary was going to teach me the grammar and how to put together sentences. Having learned French in school, that one wasn’t the problem. It was still the Polish I needed.

My final destination was another audio method of learning. Again, like with Pimsleur, I needed to read, so I typed as I went.

I had briefly listened to a bit of the beginning of the Michel Thomas Polish Foundation some time ago and thought it was also teaching useless vocabulary. This time, I listened longer and realized that it was actually a terrific way to learn a language. Because I’d been trying to learn for so long, I already knew some of the words it was teaching.

And here is where I begin my review.

The Michel Thomas method involves listening to a recording between a teacher and two students. The teacher teaches a few words then asks the students to compose sentences from them. As the third student, they suggest you pause after the English to compose the word or sentence in the new language before the other students answer. Groups of words that are similar to English are taught together. Grammar rules and sentence structure is explained. You are not supposed to read or write, though there is a booklet with the vocabulary.

The Polish Foundation course was wonderful. The teacher was a native speaker, the students were intelligent, there was time to pause before they spoke the answers. It went into conjugation, future tense, and paste tense all in the eight hour foundation course. It did not mention the cases in Polish, which still confuse me. I did not have the booklet when I started, so since my only Polish background was in reading vital records (and the previous attempts to learn), I typed as I learned.

By the third CD, I felt like I was falling behind and not remembering things, so I began to repeat. I did the first three again, then after completing each CD, I would play it back a second time. I really wanted to learn the language well.

As I began the Polish course, and realized how much I was learning so quickly, I looked online to see if there was more. Among other things, I came across a site that gave the French course a bad review. But since I was going to France on this trip, I decided to try it too.

The Polish course was by far superior to the French.

Having taken French in high school and college, I had a head start. I had also been working with French in Memrise, though not as much as the Polish. I had the booklet for this one before I began, so I could read as I went.

The French teacher was Michel Thomas himself, who is a native Polish speaker. He pronounced words oddly to teach them, over-exaggerating constantly. He also pronounced English oddly, and a few times, I couldn’t understand what he wanted me to say. On many occasions, he had to stop and think about what sentence to ask next, as if he hadn’t prepared the lesson. Especially in the later lessons, he would just spew off a list of vocabulary words or sentences, not even asking the students to respond. That is not the way you are supposed to learn with this method, so it didn’t do much for me.

The French students were terrible. The students often jumped in with the French so there wasn’t time to pause the recording before they began. The female was especially dense, and French is much closer to English than Polish, so it should be easier to learn. She often repeated things after the male student and the teacher, many times. As the lessons continued, there were fewer and fewer times when I heard her voice, until she came back again near the end. She did not listen very well, struggling right at the beginning.

Probably because the students were doing so badly so often, when asking for a sentence with more than just a few words, the teacher often repeated the English while the student was trying to translate, one or two words at a time. The Polish never repeated like that, except for very long sentences with multiple phrases.

Because I mentioned it about the Polish, I’ll point out that the French lesson taught the future tense in two different ways, just barely touched on the past tense, and did not complete the conjugation lessons. The informal “you” does not exist in the French Foundation.

Even with the drawbacks of the French version, the method is still valid for learning another language. Because I had that school background, it made the French easier for me. Someone learning from scratch might have a slightly harder time learning some things correctly the way he taught. I completed the Polish Foundation before beginning the French Foundation. I went on to the French Foundation Review, which was the Foundation chopped up, just the teacher without the other students, stating the English, then pausing before stating the French. I enjoyed it much more without waiting for the other students, but the full course is still needed first, unless you already have the vocabulary and grammar rules it teaches. Upon my completion of the Review, I have just returned to the Advanced Polish.

After that, I don’t know if I will go on to any of the other French lessons. There are Advanced, Advanced Review, Builder, and Vocabulary; I believe they should be played in that order.

I also have the Russian lessons ready to go, but I’m not sure if I want to get into them before this trip. Russian and Polish have many similarities and I will likely confuse them a lot. Maybe I’ll listen on the plane, or the trains; I probably won’t get much else done on the long journeys.

Uczę się mówić po polsku.

Je peux parler français un peu.

Now that I’ve learned how to type those Polish characters, and got them working in WordPress with a bit of nudging, I’ve got to figure out the French ones too.

Anyone else out there bilingual or trilingual or more? How did you learn the other languages? Any other tips for me when I’ve run out of these lessons?