The Great Wood, Ramscombe

snoopy image of the day

tumblr: on languages

Happy New Year, best wishes to everyone!

peaklass

sea butterflies, Limacina helicina (Gastropoda: Limacinidae)

source

Special.

#pascalcampion

The Grim Reaper, sculpture by sculptor August Schmiemann at Melaten Cemetery in Cologne, Germany

A short list of things I think everyone should try or do at least once in their life that will make you feel more alive. Not all of these are applicable to every person, but it’s a summary:

Take a dance class of any style with a semi-serious instructor for at least 4 classes worth

Write a work of fiction, of *any* length and *any* quality

Learn a least a bit of a language that isn’t your native one. You don’t need to become anywhere near fluent, but try and get a bit beyond yes, no, and where’s the bathroom. If you’re from a country where most people are bilingual already, that doesn’t count! Get bits of a language with which you are truly unfamiliar.

In the same vein, make peace with subtitles and start consuming music, TV and movies from cultures that aren’t your own. If your country imports large amounts of media from a specific other culture or cultures (American movies in foreign markets, for example) that also doesn’t count! Get some feelers out to begin to take in content from a culture that you don’t already have a lot of knowledge of.

Try at least one less common/less “exercisey” and more fun type of physical exercise such as roller blading or roller or ice skating, gymnastics, trampoline, rock climbing, aerial silks, pole dancing, surfing, etc

Learn a hobby or craft that produces a physical finished product and produce a single, complete object - regardless of quality - that you can hold in your hands and say that you made.

Look up a how it’s made video or YouTube video on how an item that’s interesting or relevant to you is made

Give one type of thing - media, hobby, sport, whatever - that you’ve never been interested in or never tried because of some preconceived perception an honest shot and see if your perception was correct. Sometimes it won’t be, sometimes it will be, but it’s valuable to know.

Rearrange the furniture in a room in your home

It’s about NOVELTY, babey! Get some enrichment into your enclosure!

When architect Richard Kaplan, an ardent conservationist, found the structure, he decided to keep as many of the beams and rafters as possible. The floor boards are pine stained dark. An antique table serves as the bar.

Living Barns: How to Find and Restore a Barn of Your Own, 1984