Random Traffic Through Nick's Brain

Personality Quirk

A general, mild warning to people. A good friend / someone I think I communicate well with triggered this quirk yesterday. I realized she didn’t mean to, so I clamped down on said quirk. But I realized that I should warn people in advance…

Anyway… If I think you’re taking shots at Dina (that aren’t meant in jest / fun, like a lot of the things our asshole-friends and asshole-selves are), I may get protective. You’ve been warned.

If you’re not actually taking a shot, my apologies. If you are, you get what you deserve.

Of course, constructive criticism is welcome. While I work on not getting mad, I’d appreciate it if people try and use a teaspoon of sugar to help the constructive criticism go down when it comes to this topic.

Tidbits

Someone emailed me the other day and would like to use our sand castle picture for stamps for their wedding invitations. Cool.

Dina danced C1 at the barn on Friday. I think she did well. She was lost sometimes, wrong sometimes, and relied on her recovery skills at times. On the other hand, she stood her ground and corrected other dancers, including me. All in all, a very good showing on her part in my opinion.

There are days where I’m just not fit for polite company. Sorry. These are the days when the only people I want to hang out with are the ones I’d be willing to strangle, or give a large piece of my mind.

Meta-Cognition

So… this is a subject that fascinates me on many levels. I like learning. I like learning about learning. Apparently, I also like learning about learning about learning. The chain stops here. I’ve thought about learning ^ 4 only as a mental exercise to see how meta I could go, as opposed to for love of the subject itself. I also like teaching others, and thinking about self-improvement when it comes to teaching.

I’m decent at certain things, and would like to teach those things to others. Sometimes I can, sometimes I can’t. I haven’t figured out the full pattern yet. It doesn’t always seem correlated to how good I am at it, nor how long I’ve been doing it.

Some things I just grok, or at least, think I grok, but can’t express. Digression: Maybe I don’t grok the word grok… maybe grok implies being able to communicate it to those willing, ready, and able to hear it.

Anyway… back to the rambling topic at hand. It also fascinates me because, well, learning how I learn will hopefully make me learn better… (where better can be faster, more in depth, so as to be a better teacher, or just plain more fun). And… as y’all may have guessed by now… I’m a bit stupid about wanting to do certain things better.

Some people learn by front loading. Others get overloaded that way. Some need a solid foundation, a long break to let the foundation settle, and then can learn at an astounding pace. Some prefer a steady pace.

I’m one of three callers / teachers for Dina’s C1 class. There are 6 learners. It is interesting sometimes to take a step back and watch myself learn, and watch the dancers learn.

Watching (at least) 6 different people learning, some slowly, some quickly, at a set / desired pace, and figuring out how I can improve my teaching to fit in with both the constraints as well as the individual learning styles and difficulties is simultaneously fascinating, difficult, and frustrating.

On a personal note, some time ago, I realized that I don’t like learning certain things certain ways, even though those ways may be more efficient.

I could learn something in 10 hours if I did it on my own, but 20 hours if I did it in a group setting. However, the solo mode is notably less fun, so there’s a good chance that I’ll abandon it. So, I’ll take the less efficient (time-wise, and possibly group dynamics wise, as I’m definitely an introvert (in that dealing with people, no matter how much I like / love them saps my energy)) route to learning in order to get it done.

There are other things where going the solo route is definitely the way to go for me, as I feel constrained by the group. Unfortunately this means that I won’t have as deep an understanding of things, and it may take me longer to come up to speed. It’s sometimes worth the aggravation (both to me personally, and to others who have to suffer through my ineptitude while I come up an extended learning curve) to do things this way.

OK… many more thought are still swirling around in my little brain, but… they’re not yet dense enough to be put on paper… more on the topic in a few days, months, or years… who knows…

Posted in Personal. This entry's comments feed. Comment. Trackback.