Why are words embarrassing?

As you may have seen from my 2011 years aims I am trying to write a song a month for the year to recap on my previous passion for writing songs. One of the things I have finally got round to using is a moleskin music notebook that my sister gave me as a present a few years back. I haven't used it until now as it is note based and most things I had wrote were chord and lyrically based and so I didn't need to use it. However recently I realised I could still use it for this in addition to normal note writing as such I have started carrying it around with me in the hope of capturing a moments inspiration.
During a class a student noticed my notebook and asked what it was, I had no problems explaining what it was and felt completely comfortable about him looking through at the notes that had been scribbled in place. What struck me was that if I had written some lyrics in this book then I would have hated him looking through it! For some reason my words embarrass me.
As you may remember this isn't unique to song lyrics it is also present in my blog post and I frequently feel uneasy knowing friends have read what I have written and are dissecting ever word I put down in a post.
What compounds this strangeness of this situation is that really, words are even the most common from of communication we have. What we DO actually reveals a lot about ourselves, what we value, and what we think about issues and people.
So why are words so embarrassing?

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My good friend Andrew Brims [over on Brimming over blog] is starting a new Vlog series next week. I whole recommend it.

Speak to me

One of the greatest things in blogging is when someone comments on something you have written. It shows that this person hasn't dropped on your blog, realised they have made a mistake and then left without even reading what you put.

Unfortunately I have never really been blessed by an abundance of comments on this blog, I did have some minor success when I was on wordpress and blogging about political things, but since the move over to blogger and changing the main topic of post there has been a rapid reduction in the amount of comments I have received on here.

So I want to encourage you to write comments. I don't care if they are literally just to mention that you read the post or if they completely disagree with everything I have written but please do write.

Or if you don't fancy writing a comment but would rather ask me a question then you can choose to ask a quick text based question [with text response] or a text message and a video response using the appropriate service bellow.

I love speaking foreign languages

If you know me pretty well then you will realise just how strange the statement I am about to make is....

I enjoy learning/speaking foreign languages.

I'm not sure exactly how this happened as it never use to be true. At school I found French frustrating and frequently skipped German lesson by fanning regular illness [how NO one seamed to pick up on my regular Tuesday and Thursday stomach aches really is beyond me!]. Of course this was no doubt compounded by the difficulties I faced being dyslexic (though I don't use this as an excuse).

However since starting to teach English an incredible metamorphosis has occurred to bring me to the point of saying the statement above.

I suppose I had always enjoyed finding out the routes of words and debating post-modern logic of relative meanings of words for individuals rather than a fixed abstract truth [a position which I still hold to, though there are general rules]. At the same time I had also always enjoyed learning about people from different background and finding out about people and so I suppose being able to communicate in their language allows for this possibility to occur. In fact, If I hadn't learnt Russian whilst I was out here, then the circle of people I could communicate with (and the level) would be very limited indeed.

The moment of true realisation came when I saw that on facebook some of my friends had set "languages" as one of their interests and I started to think. At first my gut reaction was "Urrrg" and then as I thought I realised that I do love to speak in foreign languages and have in fact tried to revive my German and French [and even learnt some very basic Spanish] whilst I've been out here!

and so I will say it again.

I love learning and speaking foreign languages

2011 Aims: January update

Here it is, update number 1 for the new years aims 2011. How have I done this month

1.I will give at least a 10% tithe in addition to any other giving I will do.

Decembers was given away and January shall hopefully be given as soon as I am paid it. 

2. Making Prayer a stronger habit. 

As usually there has been success and failure here, I have noticed some great improvements and some great failures. I could go into great length over the details of these success and failures but I think it would be better to focus on next months goals. I will put a picture of the city up on my wall to focus prayer on. I will use meal times as a focus for prayer. When ever I have a meal I will use that to thank God for providing all my food/needs and for his Son.

3.Use skype more to chat to people back home/Britain

There has been a noticeable increase in Skype activity but this has mainly been with people based in other countries actually! I am not complaining and for this to be fully successful it partially relies on people from England being on Skype. As such for next month I have already arrange a couple of "skype dates" (as I have heard them called) and will try and arrange a few more soon with some different people than last month. 

4.  I will improve as an EFL teacher.

The young learners course has continued and I have an upcoming assignment for it! In addition I have started my "teaching methodolgy and the church" series which aims to lay out a post on EFL teaching methodology [or an aspect of it] and then apply it to teaching in a church. This should help cement my understanding of EFL methodology

5. I will improve my Russian.

I have increased the amount that I have been practising with people around me. A particular highlight of the month has been using Inductive logic to work out why I had heard a different case being used than I expected. I suddenly remembered that on other occasions I had also used this case there as well in sentences which I also didn't understand why I was using it. All of a sudden it made sense.
In addition to this I have finally worked my way through one of my Russian language CD sets [completely] and so now I am going to start a second. As for devoting time to study... the start of the month didn't really see this occur though there has been an increase as the month has warn on. It is still not to the level I would like and this is something I shall have to push forward with more.

6. I will write more songs.

Well this month it wasn't really a song I wrote and it is an old one I wrote a while ago but I'm just warming up.

In addition the second months song has started development though is going to be a bit different.

7. Host a weekly meal at my flat.

Not achieved this since I've been back. I have however cooked my [almost signature dish now] Chicken and Chorizo Paella which was received well and I am trying to figure out a new dish to become an expert at as well. 

8. Regular and higher quality blogging.

Despite a shaky start I have managed to get at least a post on Monday and Friday...with the exception of last week. My favourite of the month has to be on teaching methodolgy.

9. I will get involved with some form of charitable work in the Ukraine.

This has been the most disappointing failure of the month. I honestly think I have put in very little effort in the search. Writing this post has however promoted me to search online again for some charities. It has raised the question about whether it is good to just get involved with any old charity or perhaps I should be more picky? what criteria should I use to distinguish this with? Basically I should have thought about this more before writing it!

10. I will make a Public video each month
Unfortunately my initial idea for a video failed to emerge this month, However one has been recorded and now needs to be uploaded [a big problem with slow internet and no internet currently at the school. As such expect it within the next couple of days.

That's the update. As you can see I really didn't do too well with a few things so I'm going to have to put in some extra effort for this month. If you want to offer any help/advice/ideas then please do.