Nerf wars and a side of snowballs
Not getting sick, learning languages, and showing up for people.
Howdy! A hearty welcome to Traipsing About, my newsletter about reclaiming creativity and ditching tired personal paradigms. No bot writing here—credit is mine for bad jokes, goofy drawings, blurry photos, and blantant typos.
First, some excellent personal news—I got the all-clear on activities from my cardiologist after a treadmill stress test! My heart is all healed from the myocarditis from last fall. HOO-RAY. Such a relief.
Meanwhile, amidst all the fear and uncertainty splashing around the world, I’m trying to focus on the bright spots of light.
For instance, I’m currently winning an ongoing snowball vs. nerf war battle against some neighborhood kids (silly video), a friend just had a healthy baby, Chelsea’s bro got engaged, and two other friends just snagged their Italian citizenships!
Speaking of that…
Flashback: If this were 1210 in Italy and I were a monk writing this newsletter, I’d make ink from soot, write in Latin on vellum with a quill, and scrape any errors off with a knife—the original backspace! Holy Schneikes is Substack easier…
Straight from the Traipsing Quill this week:
Turbocharging language learning using AI.
Getting sick sucks, but this helps!
Traipsing About Spark quotes
Traipsing Tidbits: passions, ping pong, (anti)drowning, dinner tunes, expat picks!
In case you missed it: Last week I published the first in a series of questions that I’m asking myself about self-awareness as part of a new weekly project. One of my favorite bits of wisdom: make sure your psychological center of gravity is in your real and immediate world versus online.
How AI is helping me learn foreign languages faster
In recent months, I’ve dug into how AI can help me learn languages faster. In summary: it provides a powerful boost…and also (sadly) still requires consistently sitting down to study—no brain chips yet!
For any serious language learner, not using AI means you’re probably wasting time.
How I’m using AI to turbocharge my language learning
Using AI dramatically speeds up my process for adding custom-tailored concepts to my learning flow. It also means that I’m seeking out and inputting new information into my flashcard program (Anki) that would have taken too long to create/import in the past.
This means I can easily attack weak spots, dialing my learning in specifically for my needs.
The result? I’ve noticeably decreased my errors with certain grammatical concepts (e.g. with “por” and “para” in Spanish) and tackled compound verb tenses that I’d ignored before, such as pluperfect or subjunctive.
Looking to dive in? See everything I’m doing, plus ChatGPT prompts in the full blog post! 👇
Begone, viruses!
Part of the joy of my recent myocarditis/heart injury is that I’ve needed to avoid viruses this winter—flu, covid, whatever—while I healed.
So far, I’ve managed to stay healthy with a few simple tactics. I’ll take whatever edge I can to avoid reverting to shouting across fences like early 2020!
A few ideas:
Use nasal sprays (←links to studies) to prevent viruses from taking hold: Before heading inside with other humans, I spray a couple shots of NoWonder (formerly Enovid) nasal spray up the ol’ schnozz. Profi is another option with promising research. According to this doctor’s Instagram video, studies show even saline nasal sprays are effective at shortening sickness duration!
Follow up actions: If a friend or someone at the PT office was hacking away, then I’ll gargle with Listerine when I get home and either do a Neti pot session or another round of NoWonder.
Lastly, Aura N-95 masks still work: If I’m walking into a doctor’s office during flu season, my mask is on.
I plan to continue these into the future during virus season, especially during travel (gawd I hate being sick on trips!). With spring break coming up and flu kicking people’s butts this year, maybe you can dodge a bug too. Best of luck.
Traipsing Spark
My current working name for my self-awareness project: Traipsing Spark. Think of it as a 2-min jolt of ideas every Thursday!
This week’s question: How can I best show up for people in my life?
Bring people up: From Anne Lamott’s Stitches:
This is who I think we are supposed to be, people who help call forth human beings from deep inside hopelessness."
D’s note: You know those people who make you smile just thinking about them? I find it’s often because they manage to embody both humor and curiosity while still being real. How can we adopt that?
Value everyday moments: From the book of essays I Miss You When You Blink:
A special occasion or location can give you something to remember and show off, but it’s the everyday that makes up real life.
D’s note: Sure, trips and special events are important. But being present in the mundane moments creates lasting bonds and memories—think of just hanging out with your school buddies with easy, low-friction energy.
This also reminds me of the concept of “no quality time, just time.” Driving the kids to events or cooking with our spouse is quality time! Also, I love the concept of “errand friends,” people you can do the mundane with and still have fun.
It’s not always easy: From Adam Grant’s Hidden Potential:
"If personality is how you respond on a typical day, character is how you show up on a hard day."
D’s note: Conversely, as Blaise Pascal said, "The virtue of a person is measured not by his outstanding efforts but by his everyday behavior.”
My takeaways this week after reviewing dozens of quotes:
Showing up for people is a mix of undistracted presence, good humor, dropping expectations about results, and focusing on doing the right thing vs. the easy, applause-winning option.
Traipsing About Tidbits
🎹🔥My monthly article for adult piano learners was about rekindling my passion for piano after a (relatively) lackluster winter.
🏓⚡Cuz sometimes you just gotta watch amazing table tennis rallies!
🏊♂️⚠️Outdoor swimming season approaches, so it’s good to know drowning doesn’t look like drowning.
🎶🍽️ This woman curates dinner party playlists on Spotify the old-fashioned way, no algorithms invited!
🌍✈️I’m surprised to see how low Germany (#50/53) and Italy (#47/53) are on this list of expat nations, countered by Spain and Portugal near the top.
Anyway, I’m outta ink again this week and need to a) make a fire and then b) scrape up soot to get more, so that’s the end of this newsletter.
Onward!
Dakota
Thanks for reading Traipsing About! I appreciate your time and attention in a world where it’s a precious commodity.