What am I doing now?
Written 27 August 2026
Learning
- how to swim. I started at the end of February. Currently I float well but add arm strokes and it can get a bit chaotic. Guess I have to keep practising...
- how to speak German. I'm reading a novel, Emil und die Detektive, with my niece at the moment. She is doing German for her final of high school. It's been fun learning 1930s Berlin slang and talking about life without 21st century technology like mobile phones, digital payments and the internet with someone who has never ever experienced life without these things.
- how to speak Spanish. I'm at the very beginning stages of learning Spanish and have been enjoying it. Started because I've been talking with Spanish speakers from Colombia, Cuba, Venezuela and Peru...
Reading
- book 19 Visions in Death of the In Death series by J. D. Robb. Complete escapism for me: crime/police stories set in 2050s New York City with romance/erotica elements. I love reading a series because I don't have to think too hard about what to read next when I finish a book, I can just go on with the next book in the series. In this case there are 60+ books in the In Death series...
- Neoreaction a Basilisk
- How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell
I'm realising I'm not very good at reading non-fiction, I start off strong (i.e. read the introductory bits and maybe the first chapter) and then get distracted and stop. I keep on with whatever novel I'm reading or pick up some other non-fiction instead and repeat the process.
Watching
- Midsomer Murders. Just finished episode 3 of season 14.
- Ted Lasso. (Season 4)
- Silo. (Season 3)
- Widow's Bay. I don't normally enjoy horror but this is also funny and I can cope.
Other
Every Wednesday I volunteer in a class for adult learners of English. It's part of the Adult Migrant English Program (AMEP). There is a paid teacher in the class, whom I help. The students are from all over the world and I really enjoy talking with and helping them. On Wednesday afternoons I help in a different class which gives adult learners of English space to learn how to use a computer. I've been volunteering with the AMEP since Easter last year and have been finding it very rewarding. (This is also where I've been hanging out with Spanish speakers. My Spanish is about as developed as their English, but as a language learner too I can empathise with the difficulties they're experiencing trying to learn English. Although for me it's learning for fun, for them it's necessary to help them function more effectively in Australian society. I also get to use Mandarin, Cantonese and Indonesian with some of the other students.)
I've also been helping one of my other nieces who's studying Mandarin at uni. Once a week she calls me and we go through a reading in her textbook. (I also helped her when she started learning Mandarin in high school. We don't just do language work, we also chat, so it's been good.) (Yes, I have a lot of language-related activity these days. I love it!)
"A /now page shares what you'd tell a friend you hadn't seen in a year."