Continous Learning from My Kindle

Following a previous post where I shared some new discoveries in the English vocabulary, brought to me by the Kindle dictionary, here are some more. (For how to make the best out of your Kindle, see another previous post.)

As I was reading Jennifer Egan's Look at Me on my Kindle, I made a note of all the words I had to look up. The novel was a pleasure to read and the language was inspiring. Of course, a writer's talent does not just lie in the vocabulary they use, but in how they use it - and I love how Jennifer Egan has used some of the words below.

Gyre - to whirl, gyrate.

Axiomatic - self-evident or unquestionable.
Maelstrom - a scene or state of confused and violent movement or upheaval; as a noun, a powerful whirpool. And the word comes from modern Dutch!

Curmudgeonly - in a bad temper.

Accoutrement - additional item of dress or other items worn by a person for a particular activity.
"America's conspirators were no different from overlords elsewhere in the world, encased within bulletproof casts and crusts of bodybuards, all the usual accoutrements of oppression and injustice." 

Meager - lacking in quantity or quality (even when you've been hearing a word often, it's interesting to find out its specific meaning.)
Lithe - thin, supple and graceful (just like the word itself!).
Bailiwick - one's sphere of operations or particular area of interest. (In law, the district or jurisdiction of a bailiff.)

Enjambment - the continuation of a sentence without a pause beyond the end of the line, couplet or stanza. In Jennifer Egan's case, it is used quite poetically: 
"He'd bypasssed that enjambment of sensation along with the beach itself."

Shrapnel - fragments of a bomb.
"... so that these bullets of memory could assault him, enter his flesh and release their shrapnel of foolish and unreliable nostalgia."

Scrim - a thing that conceals or obscures something.
"A scrim had appeared between them and it frightened Moose."

Yes, Moose is the name of one of the characters, isn't it wonderful?

Social Media for the 40-Somethings: Facebook

I'm turning 40 next year. That makes me part of Generation X. We're the ones who didn't quite know what we wanted.

Now we are followed by Generation Y who, I am told (and I sense) have been born into a completely different world. The main differentiator: advances in technology. Specifically: the Internet. So, if you belong to Generation Y, look away, because this post will be of no interest to you.

I am writing this for those people who are around my age, or older, who are wondering what all the fuss is about socila media and whether they are missing out on anything by not using these new applications. I will only talk about Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn (quel surprise!) because they are the ones I've come to understand and in some cases, even love. I am posting in March 2012 - it will be interesting to see for how long this remains relevant.

So, here is how I see and how I use these three phenomenoms. "I" being the key word here and helping me to make my first point: pretty much the same as with anything in life, find out IF they can be of help to you; find out HOW they can be of help and use them if they can make your life better.

FACEBOOK
It took me ages to join the Facebook club. I resisted it and I resisted it. For one, I've always been careful with whom I call a friend and Facebook has completely robbed the word of its original meaning.

I joined around November 2011, to try to promote my books and improve my search enginge ranking (i.e. my google presence). I don't think I've managed to make this work at all but Facebook has surprised me in other ways.

I run my Facebook presence a bit like I run my social life: I am very picky with whom I interact. I will accept a Friend request from almost anyone I know, because I appreciate people reaching out. (Before I continue: the way that you build your social network on Facebook is by either sending a request to someone to be your friend by clicking on a button on their profile page or by accepting a friend request that someone sends you.)

I have connected with people I was not close to in my "younger days" but who formed part of my childhood and as such, I am fond of them; I have connected with friends of friends and got to know them better; I have connected with people I've grown fond of late in life, when distance and different lives will not allow us to be close offline.

I've had really pleasant surprises when people I never expected to reach out, have; with people supporting my projects and getting involved; commented on my posts etc.

Still, I mainly approach it with a professional focus - sharing information related to my industry; sharing blog posts and asking my FF (that's Facebook Friends - glad this term is emerging) if they can review or try out my stuff. Then again, I've always involved my friends in my professional life in some form or other, so I'm back to the beginning, I use it pretty much as I operate in real life.

I'm keeping my number of FF small and still I'm sure I'm missing out on some shared gems, because of the sheer volume of updates there are. Still, it's a nice little place to hang out when you feel like doing nothing. Give it a try if you've stayed away, but think about your profile name, study your privacy settings and always log out after use.

Next Post: Social Media for the 40-somethings: Twitter.

Kindle and A Love of Words

At the age of 14, I had the choice of either continuing my education in English, or switching to Spanish.

The reason why I took my 'O' and 'A' levels and not BUP and COU (if you know what I'm talking about, please don't give away my age!) was my love for the English language. Well, that and the fact that in the English education system you were able to choose a lot more what you wanted to study. But mainly, I knew that I wanted to study in English.

My first written language is English. I do make mistakes and I do make things up, but hey, some say that I'm creative. I was never one to look up in the dictionary every word I didn't understand, as long as I got more or less what it meant from the context. That is until I got my Kindle.

The Kindle has an integrated dictionary in it. It's great. If you don't understand a word, you place the cursor next to it and voilá, there's your meaning.

While reading Jennifer Egan's Look at Me, I looked up 26 words, which I thought are worth sharing. I'll list 13 of them in this post and 13 on the next post. 13 is quite a nice number, probably because so many people stay away from it. It's kind of lonely, so let's be nice to it.

13 Words from Look at Me I couldn't define before.

Absconded: left hurriedly and secretly.
Inexorably: impossible to stop or prevent.
Cowed: submitted to one's wishes by intimidation.
Obfuscating: making obscure.

(By the way, these four were on the same page!)

Dousing: pouring liquid with it.
Ruefully: expressing sorrow or regret.
Denuded pate: stripped of its covering, head.
Brandished: waved or flourished as a threat.

Amanuensis: a literary or artistic assistant, in particular one who takes dictation.
Benighted: in a state of pitiful or contemptible intellectual or moral ignorance.
Anomie: lack of the usual social or ethical standards in an individual or group.
Audial commingling: auditory blend. (What a great word, "commingling".)
Gouge: groove, hole.

I have to share the context of the last word with you, quite beautiful.

"He imagined she was looking right at the gouge of his loneliness, which he felt able to hide from everyone but Mimi."

For more Kindle words, see a later post. 

Did You Miss Me?

I've been away a bit from Blogger and I feel a bit guilty.

A bit like when you meet someone new and you keep talking about them to your best friend, who feels just a little bit jealous of the attention the new person in your life is getting, but has to wait 'till the initial excitement passes and you return to them. (A bit like my love affair with the Kindle: it hasn't ended but it's gone from its Passion phase to a more content, accepting kind of phase, just as predicted by one of the comments.)

My new friend is Squidoo.

I had never heard about this site until I read a book about marketing ebooks. It's really neat (as the Americans would say). It's like a web within a web, where you go when you know exactly what you are looking for. Instead of pages you have "lenses" and they are made of one page, with lots of different bits to them.

And the Squidoo guys maintain it so that there is no junk, no get-rich-quick schemes, so there is a little bit of quality control.

If you take part, you get points and you go up levels etc. A lot, lot of thought has gone into making this a completely engaging experience and creating a huge following. Check the About Us page if you want to find out more about the group of brains behind this creation (headed by Seth Godin).

So, here are the lenses I've created. Have a look and let me know what you think.

www.squidoo.com/kindle-zen-using-your-kindle-to-make-your-life-easier (couldn't escape this one, really.)

www.squidoo.com/inside-spain (expanding the A to Z of Spanish Culture theme).

www.squidoo.com/leadership-tips-for-managers (trying to simplify leadership).

www.squidoo.com/leading-at-a-higher-level  (part of Squidlit, pages dedicated to books).

Squidoobeedoobeedooooooo!