small sustainable notes

recently I refreshed my memory on accelerated-learning & language-learning strategies. I haven’t looked at this stuff in a while. It’s been an adjustment, learning to live on my own and have a 9-5, making myself a tad more comfortable materially & financially. I don’t have as much energy as I did before when I lived at home, and on top of that I have more #firstworldproblems that a 29 year old independent female faces. In terms of learning a language in an accelerated manner, I first applied these newly-learned techniques to my solo russian and french language aquisition beginning in 2013. I would look at the french podcast transcript many times [at the library procrastinating on my college homework] after exposing myself to the conversation sans transcription just as many times. This is spacing [exposing yourself to the material in intervals after first exposure]. Not only did I do spacing, but I did it by exposing myself to the material in different ways, with and without audio, with and without the transcript. I would also incorporate movement into my podcast listening. I would walk from the dorms to the Main Street of Lander, Wyoming or one of the arboraceous side streets far away from campus with the foreign banter simultaneously playing in my ears. When I wished to remember a new word, I would write down the associative imagery that I created, using paper lists & paper flashcards [after coming up with an imaginative picture]. This act of molding information that’s unmemorable [in this case, foreign vocabulary words] into memorable is called ‘mnemonics.’ Using ‘location-based mnemonics,’ I would put that into a space in my mind, a so-called “Memory Palace” or “Memory Castle.” Using my newfound knowledge of this device called the ‘loci-method,’ I would write down my own personalized memory palaces by traveling physically to various places around Lander with my pen & paper [I even wrote one down in a random memorial for US Veterans not far from the campus cafeteria]. I hopped from place to place like the ‘energizer’ bunny, excited for more novelty and discovery. Using these words, I would also talk to native speakers online to get that instant real-time feedback [feedback loops being a highlight of accelerated-learning]. After reading Susanna Zaraysky’s “Language is Music,” I listened to more french & russian music, with or without lyrics, employing more audio & written exposure to the alien sounds of french & russian pop artists. I would listen to music while walking as well, on and off campus in Lander, Wyoming & Richmond, Virginia. When I wasn’t in college, I would also run on the treadmill, around my neighborhood, around downtown. A few times, I reviewed my current set of words while sprinting on the treadmill. A literal “learning-sprint” [as opposed to a metaphorical one]. One of the hallmarks of accelerated language-learning is to learn words in a non-boring way [because that is how our brain works]. That’s why my musical & auditory brain lended itself more to acquiring pronunciation through listening to poppy sounds [that also offered an escapism from my present reality]. Another hallmark is performing “active-recall.” I would do this by saying out loud the words while recalling them using my “Memory Castle.” After realizing that these mnemonics strategies & rapid learning techniques effectively work based on my own experience, I don’t learn a language without it. I don’t drill words into my brain with the expectation that they will “stick.” I no longer learn words by rote-memorization. I no longer learn a language without practicing immediately [either with myself or with a language-partner]. Practicing the language in an intentional way, exposing the information to my brain several times and over many intervals, using the spacing technique, doing feedback loops instantly, performing “active-recall,” using mnemonics, & connecting the foreign information with pleasant memories/experiences/locations is what I choose to do now.

In the middle of West Virginia on my way to Charlestown, I started really questioning what I was doing. There was a truck on fire and a backup on the highway as I was squished in bumper to bumper traffic. The mountain state felt like it was closing in. I had already drove through southern Virginia on I-81, into the Appalachian corner to White Sulphur Springs West Virginia and the 1-64 Welcome Center. The only company I had were my dolls and my stuffed animal monkey sitting on the front seat. I took them out and put them on the stone bench so they could see the blue ridge vista with me. 26 years. The state where I learned how to create AR apps using Google ARCore [their developer platform] by taking a course through the self-learning platform “Coursera” at a local dunkin donuts in suburbia. There, I also ran on the local middle school track to 2010’s russian music, where I taught myself python programming, russian, & accelerated-learning strategies simulatenously, where I drove to pet-sitting client’s homes and ran with their dogs, where I would create flyers for several of my service-based business ideas etc. I thought I was going to be a local piano teacher, a french conversationalist who would meet learners at Starbucks, a mobile developer in Reston Virginia, a personal home organizer in northern Virginia, an international studies major in Richmond Virginia. A few months ago, a plane passed me above, while I was pulling weeds and trimming vines in Warrenton, Virginia on a 10-acre isolated former farm, under a spring sky. West is where I will get full independence, full #adulting skills. Where I will no longer be served eggs benedict by my mom. Where I will do everything myself and everything depends on me. Exciting! As I walked in the Holiday Inn Express outside of downtown Charlestown, I realized that I had truly left, my vehicle proudly pointed west, towards the Beehive State. The two previous years largely consisted of hoarding my savings with jobs that I did not entirely enjoy. I had put my head down for a higher value [a comfortable move]. Arborist assistant, pet-sitter, yard worker and weed-puller, special-needs after school babysitter, a runner with dogs. Out of West Virginia, its rapids running alongside the highway and under the bridge of Charlestown, I drove to Kentucky on my way to Louisville. After passing the Daniel Boone National Forest, I stayed in a La Quinta. I enjoy rewarding myself with films, so when I achieved the goal of moving out of Virginia, I finally let myself watch the film “Buffaloed” starring Zoey Deutch. Sadly, and preferring slower travel, I didn’t go into downtown as I was in a hurry to get to Utah. I took my morning walk in Papa Johns’ park before getting back into my car. Nashville was my next stop. Chose another Holiday Inn Express, this time near Vanderbilt University in Midtown. As I walked into the lobby, I saw a country guitarist playing and heard the buzzy restaurant noise. Vanderbilt campus was outside my window. That next morning, it being a block away on West End Ave, I brought my paper journal to “Three Brothers Coffee,” which easily became one of my favorite coffee shops I’ve visited. Observing the bikes hanging from the ceiling, I got my cappuccino and wrote out my feelings towards this road trip. This very long road trip. The spot reminded me of this bike cafe I went to in The Plains Virginia; “Happy Creek.” 20 minute drive from my house into the virginian country, over the bridge, past another farmhouse. I don’t even remember what I was reading in the cafe, but I remember the feeling [our brain remembers how things and people make us “feel,” even before the “what”] Now that I think about it, I wish that I knew Pet Shop Boys’ “West End Girls” earlier. I could have listened to it while walking on West End Ave. A hot Tennessean day, close to the Parthenon in Centennial Park from Three Brothers, I decided to walk over there, crossing a little into the park. In midtown, I was walking north towards downtown. I remember a hipster walking as well, reminding me that it’s a city with an influx of millennials. This was one of the cities I was entertaining moving to. Also, Fargo North Dakota for one day [because I listened to my mom who loves the cold weather]. Louisville as well. There was also a cool bike-styled bnb in Louisville that I wanted to check out there but never did. In Nashville though, I checked out some stores on 21st Street in the Hillsboro/West End neighborhood. Next stop on my tennessean musical tour was Memphis. Further down south, after some rest stops and listening to Kacey Musgraves, Muddy Magnolias, Miranda Lambert, Larkin Poe, I drove into the vintage city, observing the brick peeled off the buildings’ walls, the murals. It was evening. Came back to my hotel and watched a strange sci-fi film while eating barbecue. Next morning, I drove over to Beale Street. Popped into a record shop, perused some jazz albums, then headed over to the Mississippi River to walk on the bridge. I loved the feeling of being in a place where so much music has been produced and created! So many ideas and sounds!! Passed by Sun Studio on my way back to the motel, but never went to Graceland. Just like Charlie Sexton’s “Graceland.” Fort Smith Arkansas, Oklahoma City, Texas, then the landscape changed from truly eastern to western. Now I definately knew that I was in the west. It was beginning to get dark on the two-lane highway, on my way to my friend’s in Santa Fe. Next morning, I took a shower, in the backyard read Susanna Jones' “Earthquake Bird” then drove into downtown to practice being a “flâneur.” Visited the states’ smallest house..an adobe house the size of my room back home. Got huevos rancheros at “The Burrito Company.” The following day I spent in bed, with my windows open letting in the august desert breeze, reading more of “Earthquake Bird” until I shut the book. Farmington, New Mexico. Dark by the time I made it to the northern town, driving alongside the rocks, I stopped into a Comfort Suites. No more danger. The next day was my long haul into Utah. There was Monument Valley, the red rocks of Southern Utah, the arch formations from dinosaur days. Passed through Moab, then two hours later, the pine trees appeared, the rocks started to turn gray, no more orange-painted canyons. Remember distinctly a motorcycle while taking the I-15 towards the capitol of Utah for the first time. Turned east in the salt lake valley to my new rental. This was where I was setting up camp for the next year and a half.

school had just ended that june, 2011, while I sat out on the back deck, basking in the bright beams, reading the memory techniques book that I had found in the basement. In retrospect, I should have been partying or going out but I was overly excited ingesting more information within these tattered '60's leaves.

A couple years later, I learned about one of my favorite mnemonic tools; the “Magnetic Memory Method” from the writings of Anthony Metivier. Then I read “Moonwalking with Einstein” which taught me about the “Memory-Palace” device or “loci-method” [where the person stores mental images in places in their mind using familiar, remembered locations]. Sharing the simple strategy to my former classmate at a little liberal arts college, inside the small town bookstore on the Lander Main Street was an enjoyable experience. I used the strategy for myself, with the French vocabulary that I had learned from listening to a French podcast. Since he expressed interest, I was sharing it with him.

Fast forward, walking my dog around the suburbs of Virginia, I was listening to an episode of the “Magnetic Memory Method” podcast, the guest being the “super-learner” and accelerated-learning expert, Jonathon Levi. Dashing with my dog, I remember him talking about how he accelerated his study of golf [by employing these rapid learning strategies], even after one lesson and the teacher thought he had been playing for a while! I even remember the place where I learned this [reinforcing that our brain really does store location-based memories]. Timothy Moser, another mnemonist from the podcast, was a case-study, for me, in utilizing these techniques successfully, as he talked about his acceleration of his Spanish comprehension.

In 2016, I decided to learn the russian language and I knew that I would just utilise the memory palace template for new words. I even used it for grammatical tables but learned that I had complicated it. Keeping a simplistic system, with plenty of “white space,” & allowing my multiple memory palaces “stations” to be spaced out, has been a constant process.

In conjunction with applying these techniques to russian, because I was in school again, I wanted to learn how to study effectively. I came across Cal Newport and Scott Young's blogs, specifically about rapid learning and effective study techniques for students. It wasn't just about memory, or accelerated-learning, but also about how to take sparse, personalized notes and acing exams. I introduced myself to the concepts of “deliberate-practice” “active recall” “practice-loops” and “retrieval practice” [which I was never taught within the walls of the stifled school system].

In 2020, I read more of Scott Young's blog posts on how to learn specific subjects and the science of learning [as I was going through a course on coding and a list of russian words at the same time, something I do not recommend]. Standing at my standing desk, I would spend three hours there, learning 50 minutes at a time and taking breaks.

I've experienced frustration numerous times with the current system. All of these exposures about new methods of recalling information and inputting it for long-term retention [which are actually ancient] came about because of this emotion. I was frustrated with the snail-pace progress I was making in French, so I used the mnemonic tool of the “Memory Palace.” I was frustrated that when I went about to learn something new, that it was taking such a long time. So I learned about accelerated-learning and Jonathon Levi's “superlearning” in order to apply them. College didn't share with me how to study well. Raised on rote-memorization, I was frustrated that I kept forgetting french and russian words, so I just stored them in a memory palace.

my worn soles hit the sidewalk pavement of downtown richmond virginia early morning, before the city started to wake up for the day. Before the sun skidded against the concrete. 2017 was a fruitful year for finding songs to memorize. This was still the early days of learning my second language, russian, and after speaking for a time with my russian language partner, Victor, from Krasnodar. This time it was an upbeat russian pop song I was running to, to release pent-up frustration and loneliness. I was in the city all by myself, two and a half hours away from my parent's home, pursuing an international studies degree at Virginia Commonwealth University. My choice.

Funnily enough, I quickly fell out of love with that idealistic goal and decided to just use that much needed isolated independence with learning things that lit me up like a matchstick. I rarely went to class [after a time, I didn't go at all]. One of the many things I did do though, was walk & run next to the James River to russian and french artists' songs. I would soak up the sounds like a sponge. I remember running across the high bridge, above the rapids, and as someone who is afraid of heights, it is not something I would do if I wasn't high on imagination. I was pursuing learning in a phonetically creative and escapist way. I wasn't used to this, after spending so much time in the stagnant feeling of the classroom. I hated each time walking into that dark, window-less space [to learn those same languages] with dread. But here in the bright light, alongside the flow of the river, hearing the rapids, the cobblestone walkways of Shockoe Bottom, past my favorite cafe “Urban Farmhouse,” past the mural of “Whisk” bakery, the city landscape of downtown, the hills of Church Hill, or up on the high vista of Libby Hill Park, I felt like I was in Moscow or the south of France. A long way from my current reality, where I felt my mind disorganized, stuck, and worried. As both a solitary learner and an auditory learner with a penchant for pitch, I have an ear for recognizing differences in sounds which makes music so personally effective for learning.

Elena Temnikova, Serebro, Olga Buzova, Vremya i Steklo, T-Fest, Elvira T, Potap & Nastya, Yulia Savicheva, Max Barskih, Camélia Jordana, Vanessa Paradis, Alizée, Yelle, Cœur de Pirate were some of the artists I listened to at that time, 2017-2018. After I read the book that changed language-learning for me, “Language is Music” by Susanna Zarasky.

Now I can still listen to these songs in conjunction with pleasant memories while I add new ones to my repetoire.

I've been in Salt Lake for almost three years. When I first moved here, much of my time consisted of establishing a side hustle and living off of my savings in a matter of months. Kept getting distracted instead of imperfectly starting it.

I chose to get a 9-5.

I've always had an entrepreneurial bent [but in order to make money yourself, you have to have a marketable skill!]. When I lived in Virginia, I would go to people's houses to pull weeds/other yard work for them [after advertising my job history on Nextdoor and Craigslist]. My favorite job was working on a lady's yard for a little over a year because I could set my own hours, work independently, sweat in the sunshine, and charge what I know I am worth.

In regards to learning projects, I've taught myself how to write novice code in python [with the intention of becoming location-independent], wrote a few blog posts documenting my russian language learning, progressed through an AR app creation video course, learned through podcasts what the business world is like on a larger scale, learned about numerous tech career avenues I could explore, advertised my French conversational knowledge through posting ads on local Starbucks bulletin boards, posted my 'Meowtel' cat-sitting business card all over Northern Virginia pet-friendly businesses, cold-emailed some web developers I found on LinkedIn and Instagram & offered to buy them a coffee, personality typology, how to #adult, how to travel and work abroad, emailed a few entrepreneurs/writers I really admire [who I heard on podcasts], learned about freelance writing/affiliate-marketing/biz-creation, documented my python learning project on social media, learned about women in STEM [particularly in the VR/XR/AR space], emailed my resume to Northern Virginia tech businesses, & taught myself effective learning methods.

While memorizing russian & french pop song lyrics [for pronunciation purposes].

Here in Salt Lake, I continued to learn how to start a business, as well as different side hustles I could possibly start here, continued learning french & russian, learned how to become a sustainable traveler, reviewed the accelerated-learning strategies from before, learned the basics of the keto diet, the sympto-thermal fertility awareness method, zero-waste swaps, the current dating market/ethos, the menstrual cycle, how the french philosophy lends itself to effortlessness and how I can implement that in my own lifestyle in salt lake.

But I had to put more enjoyable pursuits on pause in order to focus on learning how to settle into a new state, how to live on my own, while moving jobs and rentals.

New phase: go back to what worked for me! Now I can have fun again.