Just some quick notes on what’s going on now:
- Peaceful Warrior was great. My teacher’s Zen and martial classes saw it together on Sunday. Everyone loved it. The audience as a whole seemed very appreciative. Hopefully, it will stay in theaters a few more weeks and the word-of-mouth approach will bring more people to see it.
- I’m doing fairly well in Spanish, now. I can make myself understood on a variety of topics, although I make tons of mistakes, and understanding spoken Spanish is still pretty difficult. I can read simple books, like The Alchemist (El alquimista, en español) fairly easily. On the other hand, books like El arrecife, are still quite intimidating.
- I’ve begun studying Catalan as well. Catalan is the everyday language of most people in Catalonia, Valencia, and the Balearic Islands of Spain, as well as of Andorra, a small part of France, and one city in Sardinia, Italy. Catalan is very cool! It sounds something like French, but without the nasalized vowels. It’s almost a cross between Spanish and French. Pronunciation rules are regular, though more complicated than in Spanish, but actually pronouncing words seems to be easier to me. Catalan uses an L like the English L after vowels, single S’s are voiced between vowels just as in English, and it has plenty of schwa sounds so you can relax a bit instead of having to keep every single vowel pure. Also, Catalan words are amazingly short for a Romance language, and often even shorter than words in English. Consider: bo (good), vi (wine), mà (hand), nu (naked), xei (lamb), mòn (world), net (clean).
- I got a press kit and CD in the mail today to review a movie called “Simple Things.” I might not have time to do it till the weekend, but I’m looking forward to it. When I was in college, a friend of mine said I should become a movie reviewer. Well, after doing a number of reviews on this site, I guess I am one of sorts… still, WTG is just a modest personal site and blog; I never thought I’d be contacted by a media company to do a review! Move over, Ebert! 🙂
- My car is in the body-repair shop for a few days. (It got hit while parked a little while back.) So some more opportunity for car-pooling or bike-riding to work.
- I am happy. I am very happy. I hope you are, too.
Good to hear life’s well.
And yes, you do write fantastic movie reviews… anytime I see a movie with even slightly-spiritual themes I think: “I wonder if Jon’s written about this yet!”
Vaya con dios
What kind of bike do you ride to work, Jon? I’m thinking of getting a bike this summer to ride on the rail-trails.
You do write great reviews, Jon! I’m looking forward to seeing Peaceful Warrior.
My bike is a Gary Fisher Capitola. Rugged, thick tires for commuting on pieces of glass, etc.
Your happy post made me happy too, and for that I thank you 🙂
Peace and Many Blessings!
Wow, I was searching the web right before a presentation I’m doing tonight on “Mystical Christianity” and came across your “Wild things of God” website… full of lots of good stuff. I also got the giggles… “Wild things” really resonates with me; my doctoral dissertation was on “Wilderness Spirituality.” Anyway, I noticed that you’d incorrectly given Wayne Dyer credit for a quote from Pierre Teilhard de Chardin ?We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.? Dyer says it a lot, but Chardin was the original.
Thanks for the correction, Janet! I’ll fix it soon.