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I moved to Buenos Aires, Argentina almost two months ago.

I don’t know Spanish, so learning it has been a goal of mine, despite being able to get along here with a remarkably small amount of it at your disposal. I’m passionate about the written and spoken word, so it’s been a fascinating and gratifying adventure.

The adventure hasn’t unfolded in the way that I expected, though. Instead of just learning Spanish, I’ve been learning about accents, dialects, the peculiarities of the language, and the language (vocabulary, for example) itself.

It’s natural to want to learn how you say certain phrases in Spanish and think that you can call it a day, but I’m seeing that this will lead to a very poor mastery of the language.

Put another way, I’m not able to “trade” my English words and phrases for Spanish ones.

After so many of my questions were met with, “it doesn’t work like that in Spanish” (paraphrased), I started thinking more deeply about what I was missing. I also started to “relax” and get a feel for the texture and idiosyncrasies.

With enough of the right practice and simply noticing things, I’m able to teach myself a bit of Spanish along the way because of the mental framework that I’m developing. I’m now able to — very quickly — determine that someone didn’t learn Spanish in Argentina by how they say certain words.

It’s similar to how you’d pick up on a midwest accent or if someone is a non-native English speaker.

The whole experience is pushing me to reconsider how I approach the unknown, and how my existing mental models can both help and hinder the gaining of new knowledge.

As with many things of this sort, there’s no cute bullet list (despite my love for them) that I can pass along to help, you just have to [::motions with hands::] feel your way through it and learn from your mistakes.

That’s my approach, anyway.

Saludos!

I recently made the following changes to my schedule:

1. Sleeping in until fully rested.
2. No meetings during the week.
3. Breaking my day into task-based sections.
4. Taking a daily break for a walk and snack at a local cafe.

I think I’m onto something, and I’ve noticed the following results:

1. I get more work done.
2. I enjoy my work a lot more.
3. I complete tasks more rapidly.
4. I need fewer breaks when working.

Constant course correction seems to be the name of the game.

Also, these banana muffins I’ve been on lately.

Amazing.

My friend Chris proposed a writing challenge this afternoon, and I accepted.

I won’t tell you what’s at stake (not because it’s interesting or scandalous, or involves breaking the law or public nudity, but rather because secrets are fun), but I will tell you that I’m back (and alive, as it turns out).

I’ve got a lot to tell you.

Chat soon.

My friends Shelah and Shamilia are both using their art and passions to bring healing to communities in Haiti and Rwanda (respectively).

Sustainable Theater Program, by Shelah Marie

This August, I will be facilitating a month-long Sustainable Theater workshop for the youth served by T.E.N. Global‘s community center in rural San Rafael, Haiti. By the end of the workshop students will:

• Understand the traditional playwriting structure
• Learn how to compose and edit original material
• Be able to transfer original writing into performance
• Have a published original play script

With this workshop, I hope to do three things:

• Provide an alternative paradigm for education and learning
• Validate the participants’ creative spirit
• Incorporate the students’ published work into the body of contemporary theater

Your donation will help bring this project to life and facilitate much-needed healing through art practices. I’ll be keeping very close track of everything I’m doing on my blog so you can see exactly how the work progresses.

Visit Shelah’s IndieGogo Campaign Page →

Theatre in Education for Reconciliation, by Shamilia McBean

So you may or may not know, I’m working on a masters degree that lets me meld my passions for theatre, community and social change in the field of Applied Theatre.
I’ve been learning so much and now I have the chance to actually -do- the work where it counts!

Enter: Project Rwanda, an exchange between my Masters program and the Kigali Institute of Education (KIE). They’ve invited us to share Applied Theatre methods with Rwanda’s teachers in training to be used in classrooms across the country for post genocide reconciliation.

Visit Shamilia’s IndieGogo Campaign Page →

I couldn’t be any more biased in promoting these projects (I’m incredibly proud of my friends), but this is my blog so I can do it unapologetically.

So if the projects resonate with you, please spread the world.

And donate if you’re inclined. Thanks.

It has become customary for people to solicit feedback on ideas with “thoughts?” but I find it to be a bit lazy, obnoxious, and ineffective at times.

I realize that Tweets sometimes require statements to be truncated, but I don’t believe the same limitations exist in many other places…

My grouchiness on the topic aside, the best way to get an unhelpful answer is by not asking a specific question. Asking a the right question puts you halfway to the answer that you seek.

I’ve lived in Harlem for more than a year now, and I enjoy it quite a bit.

It’s a neighborhood rich with history and culture, and it’s in the middle of what many are calling the “Second Renaissance”. Next Tuesday, TEDxHarlem comes to the historic Apollo Theater.

Get ready for a day-long conference that seeks to understand, celebrate and empower the informal methods of social innovation that grow organically in Harlem and throughout communities around the world. The conference day is broken out into four movements designed to explore the newest ideas in innovation and expose you to concepts and dialogue that are exciting, engaging and inspirational.

Tickets can be purchased here.

How long does it take you to get your head back in the game?

In the same way that top athletes maintain focus when competing by not allowing bad plays or incidents to derail them mentally and emotionally, you must resolve to let your failures from the past (even from yesterday) to remain in the past.

You do your tribe and your art a disservice by beating yourself and preventing your own progress.

Shake it off, you’re late.

You have to teach people how to treat you. This is done in a few different ways:

• The respect that you command (body language in person, confidence in voice on the phone, etc.)
• The respect that your work commands (are you well-known for your art? that matters)
• Drawing lines as necessary

It’s easy to apply this to situations in the workplace and relationships with others, but it’s equally true in dealing with customers and mechanics and even strangers.

Does this mean you need to walk around with a chip on your shoulder or on alert for the moment you’re disrespected? Of course not. On the contrary, I think a large part of the proper perspective involves ignoring things that others might get upset over.

Once you reach the point where you’re focused on your art and goals and making progress, it’s easy to determine what’s a distraction and what’s worth fighting for.

I attended a workshop this past weekend that involved several small public speaking opportunities. On one of my last turns, I performed a poem I wrote back in 2005. It’s a special piece to me, and one that I’m proud of.

The response was overwhelmingly positive, and it felt great sharing it with those who know me just for my marketing and engineering sorcery. (The attendees of the workshop were all friends of mine, but none of them knew about my quasi-artistic past/interest.)

It doesn’t mean that I’ll be publishing poems on the blog every week or that I’m rebranding myself, but being in a posture of facing fears is always the right answer (despite knowing I wasn’t going to be booed off stage, the fear of embarrassment was real).

Yesterday, I wrote a recommendation for a friend on LinkedIn. It was my pleasure to do it, I meant everything I said, and I hope it leads to her securing some solid business in the new year. She in turn wrote one for me, so my profile was enhanced a bit in the exchange.

Recommendations are powerful, and not enough of us are proactive about procuring them from clients. Trading recommendations only took a few minutes, which got me to thinking…

Why don’t we incorporate recommendation-writing into our normal routines? I realize that not everyone has a LinkedIn account, but an email works just as well. So we could start by spending some time every week writing brief recommendations for individuals we’ve worked with recently, moving on down the line to those we’ve worked with in the past.

And once we’re all caught up, we can simply make this a part of the process following collaborations, contractor engagements, and the like. It requires little effort to accomplish, and can be used by the recipient for years to come.

Why not?