“The first thing I do is I dress for airports. I dress for security. I dress for the worst-case scenario. Comfortable shoes are important — I like Clarks desert boots because they go off and on very quickly, they’re super comfortable, you can beat the hell out of them, and they’re cheap.
In my carry-on, I’ll have a notebook, yellow legal pads, good headphones. Imodium is important. The necessity for Imodium will probably present itself, and you don’t want to be caught without it. I always carry a scrunchy lightweight down jacket; it can be a pillow if I need to sleep on a floor. And the iPad is essential. I load it up with books to be read, videos, films, games, apps, because I’m assuming there will be downtime. You can’t count on good films on an airplane.
I check my luggage. I hate the people struggling to cram their luggage in an overhead bin, so I don’t want to be one of those people.
On the plane, I like to read fiction set in the location I’m going to. Fiction is in many ways more useful than a guidebook, because it gives you those little details, a sense of the way a place smells, an emotional sense of the place. So, I’ll bring Graham Greene’s The Quiet American if I’m going to Vietnam. It’s good to feel romantic about a destination before you arrive.“
“I never, ever try to weasel upgrades. I’m one of those people who feel really embarrassed about wheedling. I never haggle over price. I sort of wander away out of shame when someone does that. I’m socially nonfunctional in those situations.
I don’t get jet lag as long as I get my sleep. As tempting as it is to get really drunk on the plane, I avoid that. If you take a long flight and get off hungover and dehydrated, it’s a bad way to be. I’ll usually get on the plane, take a sleeping pill, and sleep through the whole flight. Then I’ll land and whatever’s necessary for me to sleep at bedtime in the new time zone, I’ll do that.
There’s almost never a good reason to eat on a plane. You’ll never feel better after airplane food than before it. I don’t understand people who will accept every single meal on a long flight. I’m convinced it’s about breaking up the boredom. You’re much better off avoiding it. Much better to show up in a new place and be hungry and eat at even a little street stall than arrive gassy and bloated, full, flatulent, hungover. So I just avoid airplane food. It’s in no way helpful.
For me, one of the great joys of traveling is good plumbing. A really good high-pressure shower, with an unlimited supply of hot water. It’s a major topic of discussion for me and my crew. Best-case scenario: a Japanese toilet. Those high-end Japanese toilets that sprinkle hot water in your ass. We take an almost unholy pleasure in that.”
“I’ve stopped buying souvenirs. The first few years I’d buy trinkets or T-shirts or handcrafts. I rarely do that anymore. My apartment is starting to look like Colonel Mustard’s club. So much of it comes out of the same factory in Taiwan.”
“The other great way to figure out where to eat in a new city is to provoke nerd fury online. Go to a number of foodie websites with discussion boards. Let’s say you’re going to Kuala Lumpur — just post on the Malaysia board that you recently returned and had the best rendang in the universe, and give the name of a place, and all these annoying foodies will bombard you with angry replies about how the place is bullshit, and give you a better place to go.”
This post is long overdue, but it is certainly necessary. If you are
reading this post, I am assuming you are what I call a ‘long-haul’
language learner. This means that you have committed to a long term
relationship with your language either for several years or till you’re
buried in the ground.
“Why are you telling me this?!” asks the slightly confused reader.
Well, I say this because I want long haul language learners to understand something important.
There are essentially two major kinds of language learners,
those who are learning a language for a short term purpose (like short
term travel) and those who learn for long term purposes (like to work as
a translator or moving to a new country). First category
language learners are the learners who have no long term interest in the
language. Their main interest is to learn as much of the language they
need to survive for a short period of time, then when they return home
they will promptly forget the language
These are the only language learners who have legitimate cause to learn a language quickly.
Let me say that again. These are the ONLY language learners who have a
good reason to learn a language quickly. If you are a long haul learner,
you do not have any reason to learn a language or languages quickly.
Learning a language fast implies that there is an end. If you are a
long haul learner and speak to some translators, they will tell you
there is no definitive point where they became a fluent speaker, they
are constantly learning and growing their language skills everyday, and
always encounter some new material they must learn. Just like in your
native language, your language learning didn’t stop after you learned to
speak fluent English around the age of 5 or 6 and it doesn’t end at 20
or eve 30. You are always learning even your own language. There is no
end to language learning, so STOP RUSHING! You’re only crippling
yourself.
If you really want to learn a language more efficiently focus
on improving your language learning methods to increase RETENTION not
speed. If you half-ass your way through your studies (not
saying that all of you do) then you will forget what you learn, causing
your language acquisition to take longer. You’ll have to keep going back
to review what you forgot everytime. Who has time for that
foolishness?! Despite what is being marketed to you all over the
internet, you can’t really become fluent in a language in three months
(especially Asian languages). Unless, of course, it is your job to learn
languages and you don’t do much of anything else with your time. That
rules out more than half the population there! Language learning is a
skill, and like any other skill, it takes more than 5 minutes a day to
get good at. You must work hard, toil at understanding grammar and
vocabulary and learn through mistakes.
Language learning is a journey and there is no end. So stop rushing
yourself, comparing yourself and putting yourself down because there are
still things you cannot express. This is normal and even expected. So
take your time, learn things deeply and make the most out of your
language learning instead of trying to race to the bottom.
shebberina 