Mirkwood Reflections

I decided to learn Chinese. Yes, I realize it is one of the hardest, if not THE hardest language to learn. So - why did I choose it? For the past 10 months, I have been teaching English to Chinese children online. This job has been a joy and an eye-opener too. I have learned a lot about the Chinese people and their culture. For instance, one of my students has a new baby brother. When I asked Baby's name, my twelve-year-old student did not know. Or maybe he just didn't know what to say. So, I did a bit of research and, from what I can tell, new babies are not given public names. I think Baby gets a name that only the parents use. One source calls this a "milk name" which is generally abandoned after Baby is officially named. Seems that everyone else just calls the child Baby, or Baobao in Chinese. My interest was piqued just a few months into my new endeavor. I wanted to be able to understand! Since I can only speak English to my students, I cannot use them as...

I have thoughts to share. Really I do. But when I start writing them down, I judge every one. That's not interesting. That's not insightful. That's not original. That's not even grammatical. Why am I so hard on my own writing? I read lots of other people's words. I used to read many blogs. Before I was so busy, I spent lots of time reading other people's writing. I read books, magazines, blog posts, Facebook posts - all kinds of things. Most people don't worry very much about their writing, at least from the evidence. I teach writing. My goal is to help students write concisely and correctly. I sometimes feel like a fraud because teaching writing doesn't leave me time for actual writing. But this year is going to be different. I am going to write daily. Why? Well, I can blame NaNoWriMo this past November. My daughter asked me to write her some fanfiction. I'd never written fanfic before, especially not in the Harry Potter wizarding world. I did...