Mood:  chillin'

I'm not sure the Bean really ever recovered from the sporadic posting over the holidays.  I do like to have a post for every work day, even if they only hit RSS readers on Wednesdays.  I am trying, but my normal writing routine has been thrown way off.  Why, you ask?  I have finally hit my second wind on my language learning.  For any of you who may think this sound familiar, let me outline how my self instruction usually plays out.

• Firstly, I become absolutely obsessed with lots of energy, goals and dedication.
• If I'm serious about what I'm doing I might not have a few lazy nights where-in I have to force myself to stick to my plan--it takes three weeks to build a habit, they say.
• Eventually, kicking myself in the butt a couple of times will actually commit me to it.
• But then there will be a vacation, or overall upset that will keep me away from my chosen study for long enough that I totally get over feeling guilty for not doing it.
• And then it is like starting all over again, except that there is an added task of review that makes it all the easier to avoid.
• Enter the second wind--if I manage to get this far I am obsessed all over again and overfill all my free hours with study.

Like I mentioned in relation to the iKnow site, the in class practices of guilt and reward for work make this whole sequence fade away into a simple follower mentality.  We are never taught to teach ourselves, and so it is often ridiculously hard to do so.   While I am still so very satisfied with I know!, even after they admonished me for not studying often enough, I have been playing around and researching other online options that would give me a variety of inputs like tutorials, writing and correction, reading comprehension, chat and friends.  

Oddly enough many of these sites, especially the social ones, are in beta mode just like I know! (now Smart.fm).  

• http://www.babbel.com/ --(European languages) although I am constantly given the message that tutorials in German are not yet available, I enjoy the vocabulary lists and quizzes that are available.  This is my favorite of the sites I have tried to get my German on, but it still doesn't compare to iKnow course ware.  Where it far exceeds is in the socialization (I probably say that because I made a friend).  Babbel allows you to ask others for help and make language exchange connections without forcing it.  I quite enjoy the requests I get to check someone else's English work, even if I never exchange with that person again.
• http://www.palabea.net/ --BETA (European languages) focused primarily on getting you in direct contact with a language exchange partner or a language school.  I was unimpressed with the few study aids that were offered, but this is in Beta, so its bound to develop further. One small detraction is that there is no way for a user to delete their own account--this is a pet peeve of mine.  I have tried out a lot of social networking sites and I find that the ability to remove myself on my own is comforting even if I never use it.  On the other hand, the help I got in this arena was very quick and accommodating.
• http://busuu.com/ -- (European languages) mix of vocabulary list/lessons, mini quizzes and texting with native speakers.  I am somewhat irked that I cannot complete a list/lesson without posting on the forum and then texting with a native speaker. The mix of inputs is good I think, but shouldn't be forced. There are also a couple of features for paying members only, that I can't report on, because I'm cheap.  ***UPDATE:  I may be completely hooked on Busuu  now.  The writing requirement for the lessons just took some getting used to and I found a way to get past the chat.  Eventually I will try this as well.  Two things now have me hooked.  I made a friend, and for each lesson set completed my little garden picture filled out more and more.  I'm all for the intangible and symbolic rewards, and getting those email notifications that I have a message waiting for me gets me on the site often--which just leads to doing more lessons.
• http://www.mangolanguages.com/main -- (European languages + Brazilian, Greek, Russian, and Japanese)  Mango offers free introductory lessons, but requires membership for anything further.  The lessons are much like what you might get from listening to Pimsleur with written accompaniment.  There is very little interaction and a lot of repetition.  Consequently this would be a good way to start if you had no prior study in a language.  
  
• http://www.phrasebase.com/english/ -- BETA (Large language selection) This is a forum focused social learning site.  There are areas for web classrooms and lessons that are, as yet, not fully developed.  The phrase and word lists have promise but are also not complete.  However, unlike some of the more structured sites the words and phrase lists are open for user alteration.     
• http://www.livemocha.com/ -- (Many languages) this social community records your progress and interaction with a 'mocha points' account.  Slick internal design including the ability to create personalized flashcard sets to use and share with other language learners.  There is a writing portion to the exercises much like Busuu, although, I think it is a bit more difficult.  It certainly took more agonizing from me.  Also included in the lesson plans is a verbal section where other users can listen to your pronunciation and give you tips.  This is both awesome and problematic.  I know nothing personally about my computer mic set up and so have not completed this part of the lesson.  I think it may be worth a good headset, though.

• http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/--I don't know about you but I love the BBC online--the history, the news, everything!  So of course, I was tickled to find they had a languages area as well.  They do not represent all the languages you might want to study but it is worth stopping here to see if they've got what you are looking for.
• MIT OpenCourseWare--has a hefty list of online tutorials and study guides on a fair few languages and the cultures that go with them.
• http://www.internetpolyglot.com/--advertized free language lessons online. I haven't yet completely explored here, but browsing through, I see a lot of extensive vocabulary lists with sound functionality for a very large range of languages. 
• http://abacus.bates.edu/~kofuji/ --A Bates University Japanese course with excellent materials lists the way only Academia can build them.
• http://www.about.com/ --has loads of pages on Languages as well.   I have mainly used the page for Japanese (http://japanese.about.com/) and it is really wonderful. 
  
• http://jisho.org/ --Japanese phrase and Kanji dictionary.  This seems to be the best online Japanese/English dictionary there is out there.  It is not always so good with full sentences, but indispensable for Kanji meanings. 
• http://dict.tu-chemnitz.de/dings.cgi?lang=en;service=deen --German/English, German/Spanish, German/Portuguese dictionary.  I believe it was created to primarily serve German speakers learning other languages, which is most likely why its such a good dictionary for English to German.  Although more focused on certain languages, the best course work and dictionaries I have found were not originally made for English speakers learning other languages, but for the other way around (like iKnow). 
  

Mood:  happy

It is finally here!  Richard Schmidt of DoomedMovieThon has released his "Chow Down:" a Stephen Chow marathon review spectacular.   I was there for it, and it was a wonderful movie-thon--amazingly devoid of moviethon hangover.  I still find it hard to gush over Stephen Chow without sounding like a fan lunatic, but I have made some previous attempts.  Please read the awesome article, and maybe you will understand how the greatness of this comic/actor/director.

Previously on the Bean:

News that makes me happy:  beauty and the commedic genius

Stephen Chow

Mood:  sharp

There are a few things that Texas elementary schools gave me that I am finding, as I speak with more and more people as an adult, were pretty unique.  One was a disgust for the idea of drugs like heroine and cocaine--like what I had for the movie Cabin Fever after seeing it in the theaters.  That's another story for another day and most definitely the strongest message they hammered into us impressionable minds.  Another was a fear of St. Patrick's Day.  I think Texas primary schools just served as a harbor for really sadistic teachers--like the gym coach that was OBSESSED with cross-country running.  Anyway, on St. Patrick's Day a couple of teacher's special students would be enlisted to run around each class and pinch everyone who didn't wear green.  Charming custom, yes, but put in the hands of children it was a horrible, bruising affair.  Funnily enough I had forgotten today was St. Patrick's day and I just happened to wear green anyway.

I am still struggling with my own standards for post frequency here on the Bean, and I am afraid this week won't conquer whatever unproductive mood is keeping me from just doing it already.  I am off to library conference circus school this week.  I will try my hardest in all my doodling classroom boredom to come up with some awesome things to talk about.

Mood:  happy

Rock and Rule entered my brain around the time that Heavy Metal and Fire and Ice did, but it left more of an impression.  In a world where humans have destroyed themselves and smaller mammals have evolved to fill the anthropomorphic void, rock and roll rules the world and opens glowing and unstable portals to other realms through which angry, bulbous demons scream.  Mok -- god of rock-- 's character design still influences my drawing today. 

I am happy to say after years and years of searching and coming up woefully empty, UNEARTHED cinema released it from obscurity and brought it to my, and my Dad's, DVD collection.  Funnily enough, the founder of UNEARTHED used to work at an awesome rental store that my husband frequented just down the street from us.  The store is sadly closed, but Rock and Rule is open any time I want it to be on my TV.  And yes you see correctly on the DVD cover the names Debbie Harry, Iggy Pop, Cheap Trick, and Lou Reed doing the music vocals.  

Mood:  chatty

Originally published in French, Sky Doll by Barbara Canapa and Alessandro Barbucci, got a lovely, glossy, English publication by Marvel.  It is a three issue story about an escaped sex bot who sets out in search of greater meaning and freedom.  For me, it brought images of Rock and Rule all mixed up with ....... more Rock and Rule really.  If you haven't been introduced to Rock and Rule, I promise to fix that shortly--I've been meaning to in any case.  This series also gave me the one moment in my entire comic shopping life where I went looking for the next issue and actually found it on a shelf in a comic shop, just waiting for me.  I'm usually too late finding out about a series to be on top of stuff like that.

Mood:  chillin'

I am only being slightly misleading--I spent much of last weekend catching up on my graphically augmented reading.  Now that our cheap pressboard shelving is warping with the weight of a rather robust book collection my stacks of books by the couch were increasing in size and number a little too much for my liking.  Reading some of the graphic novels and manga that were interspersed in each pile allowed me to relieve the congestion just a little bit.

Since its a peculiarity of mine to wait until I am an old hat within any particular geekiness, I am not going to talk about the manga I fully enjoyed over the weekend.  I've only been reading manga titles for a few-five-six-ten years now, but I have been reading US, UK and Canadian (I'm sure) graphic novels since before puberty.  I have bribed and begged my parents to take me to neighboring cities to comic stores for what would always turn into full day trips.  I've had serious conversations with my Mom about what makes an adult comic an adult comic and why she should go behind the curtain in the comic shop to get me the latest issue of the series I was reading.  My comic box is structurally supported by duct tape.  I may not be the best collector, but it's in my blood now, so on with the show.

The Umbrella Academy by Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba was the third title I read in my graphic marathon.  I chuckled, I laughed out loud, I backtracked a page or two just to make sure I was getting it right, and when I was done I wanted to read the stories that filled the flashback gap from the beginning of the story.  Glossy and fully colored (still not something I'm completely used to) this is graphic novel candy, but with cleverness and substance--kind of like Flintstone's vitamins.

After the Umbrella Academy I picked up Fables:  legends in exile by Bill Willingham and Lan Medina.  I am a sucker for new takes on old stories, Grimm, Aesop, Shakespeare, so it's actually surprising that I avoided this series for so long.  I may have to collect the whole set now I've read this.  The continuing lives of the characters outside of their stories, and, in this volume, outside of their world were both crazily divergant and completely acceptable. 

I picked up the Vesuvius Club by Mark Gattis and Ian Bass first after putting down the manga, and, I have to say, the two states of mind are not compatible.  I originally plucked this from the shelves of a comic store treasure chest in Virginia Beach because the little blurb/review on the back was written by Stephen Fry (previously), and after that first try I was hoping to heaven that Fry wouldn't be wrong.  After Heaven LLC, and The Umbrella Academy, I am happy to say my mind had unwarped from the six volumes of manga I had read and was fully prepared to digest the Vesuvius Club.  I laughed aloud, I was aghast, and I did indeed want more.  This is an awesome detective story in the mad genius style of Sherlock Holmes scifi noir.  

I always wondered if the irreverant, symbol laden, imaginary world of religious figures fiction ever had problems finding an audience.  I mean, people who fervently ascribed to a religion might be offended and people who fervently denied it might not be interested.   Heaven LLC by Wayne Chinsang and Dave Crosland then is for all those non fervent people in between who can afford a hearty guffaw at the expense of sacred mythologies.  I know that's me, and if that's you too, then this graphic novel is for you.  On second thought, though, Dogma was popular right?  Maybe there is no problem with audience.  Perhaps we are all less fervant than I thought we might be.

Mood:  energetic

Every since I first heard about it I have been itching to see Sita Sings The Blues and some icky rights issue popped up and deprived us all of something awesome.  But no longer!  The movie in its entirety will be shown on NYC's PBS this Sunday.  This might be the only time I've ever wished I lived there.  For me, and all you other folks who don't live in NY, there are now options to see the whole thing online.  I'm so excited about camping out in front of my home computer that I couldn't even wait to view it myself before blabbing about it here.  There will probably be a follow-up to this.

Mood:  happy

I made a stop by the art store this weekend and indulged, just the littlest bit, in the best marker I have found so far.  Copic Markers Sketch series do everything I want them too without the annoying and weird side effects I have experienced with other markers.

A little back-story.  I am a cheapskate when it comes to my drawing.  I sketch frequently and tend towards a graphic simplicity that results in large amounts of drawings that aren't going anywhere.  While I like to draw with mechanical pencil, I like the permanence of a final inking (mainly in black and white), and I do this all on plain old printer paper.  See?---mechanical pencil, copy paper=cheap.  Since I work on such cheap surfaces I have found it hard to find a marker that can stand up to the type of inking I require while not floating around on the paper like pigment in water.  Enter the Copic marker.

Even on cheap paper with no tooth this marker gives me the control I want and can get from a felt tip pen with the wide swaths of pigment I need from a marker.  EXCELLENT!  And completely worth the price.  I suppose it helps that I don't do much color work as this keeps me buying black and grey, but maybe someday. 

Mood:  cool

My Sunday afternoon was blessed and defined by Saibogujiman Kwenchana (I'm a Cyborg, but that's OK) , a movie staring Su-jeong Lim of a Tale of Two Sisters and Bi Rain a Korean singer, dancer, actor who's popularity is skyrocketing in the US and Asia. It is a comedy, romance, fairy tale set in a mental institution where the doctors are as crazy as the patients and the best help the patients get comes from each other.  Entering into the worlds and delusions of each patient constantly undermines the validity of the real and sane world, but the mental institution itself is a kind of insanity.  Only in Amelie/Charlie and the Chocolate Factory day dreams could a mental institution like this exist.  Go see it if you can, you won't regret it.

Mood:  happy

Alright, so, a year or so ago when the senior editor for Mail Me Art mentioned that my submission to the project might be chosen for the book they were compiling I was excited and flattered and happy and excited.  But thinking that maybe I was a last choice or an alternate or something possibly I wanted to get my hands on it before I told you guys I'M IN A BOOK!  And I did just that--it arrived yesterday evening and there on page 125 is me IN A BOOK!

If you've never heard of the Mail Me Art project it went something like this:  artists were asked to decorate the outside of a package/envelope with art so that the art might be seen and handled by every postal employee between the addresses of the sender and the Mail Me Art home.  I found out later that this wasn't such a new idea to cover envelopes with art as many of the participants were used to doing stuff like that.  I had always had more straitlaced views of the postal system, but you can rest assured those are gone now.

The contributors to Mail Me Art are varied and wonderfully skilled.  Even before and after page 125 I love flipping through the volume and seeing all the amazing ways they covered their envelopes and packages.

Last time I was in a book.

Mood:  bright

LeEMS on TV has officially taken place.  One media outlet, millions to go, right?  My anticipatory mortification proved a little overboard, 'cause I have to say, even I thought it went pretty well.  That's a pretty awesome editing department they have.

So, now that it's aired, the episode info is up on the HGTV site now and oooh looky--is my name and website.  And you know what's really cool--in a world where people are actually considering their future children's google-ability (still don't quite understand that), my name happens to be crazy rare on the internets, so you look for LeEtta Schmidt, and you get me.   LeEtta Gross would previously bring me up at like the 8th hit.  Though I suppose doggedly sticking with my website as it wall flowered a tiny corner of the virtual party helps too.  I think she's at least got a better dress than she did at first.   

Mood:  chatty

Its time for one of those rare trips into my professional brain.  As I was working the other day I came across something that had me absolutely flabbergasted.

First, a little background:  OCLC is a shared catalog that lists the holdings of libraries all over the country and beyond.  Not every library is in it, but its enough to find just about any book you'd ever dream of.  The public side of this massive system is Worldcat/Firstsearch, and I was here when I found a record for a blog. 

I am well aware that anything can be cataloged, and I suppose that by cataloging web material into library systems, libraries can fight back against the giant shadow of Google that we're constantly told to be afraid of.  But, but.....really?  I expanded my poking around a bit more and found cataloged in Worldcat/Firstsearch a website and blog about a book club.  Is it just me or does this feel like spiraling into a worm hole? 

Is this bad?  I dunno really.  Librarians are all about indexing and organizing and this could be a normal evolution of that in an environment that is increasingly online, but we should also be about helping the patron to the source as quick as possible.  I find that when people look at a library catalog--especially one with little request buttons and links to Interlibrary Loan services--they tend to request the item the long way around and may not find out till the following day when library staff have had a look at the request that they could've accessed the material last night when they first heard of it.  This lag time is not good.

I have, however, forgotten to praise Worldcat for their public initiative.  A while ago Worldcat.org was launched as a public access multilibrary catalog.   What previously was only accessable to signed in library patrons can now be used by the general web-going public.  This is huge as databases like this are usually subject to contractual agreements and a whole lot of money and consequently can only be accessed by members of institutions that pay for them.

Mood:  happy

I used to visit the movie theaters two and three times a week, seeing movies more than once, seeing things I wasn't really excited about just because I wanted to see a movie, any movie.  That time 's long gone now and partially because of my ever towering list of projects, and the fact that watching movies at home allows me to divide my attention and never not being working on something, and the ridiculous price increases of movie tickets, I have become more and more picky about what I want to see.

Coraline was what I wanted to see last weekend because I had read the book by Neil Gaiman and loved the book, and now that I have seen the movie, I love the movie.  I am so glad I didn't miss this one in theaters.  First off, we saw it in 3D.  I honestly don't remember seeing anything in 3D besides the Hitchcock mini movie in Universal Studios.  Coraline in 3D is awesome.  The character designs fit wonderfully into the imagined visuals that I worked up while reading the book with some extra hypnotic eye fancy thrown in.  The music is beautiful and a little creepy--I will be getting the soundtrack very very soon, I think.  It is an all round great theater experience and though I will be getting the DVD as soon as I can, I don't suggest waiting for its release to see this movie.

Mood:  bright

Are you ready yet?  I will be one of the crafters on HGTV's "That's Clever!" Thursday morning at 8am.  It was two years ago now that I got signed up for the show and was taped happily crafting in my cramped little apartment.  I have no idea what it'll look like--I don't even know what I looked like two years ago, but I do remember what I was wearing. 

Slightly off topic though, have you noticed how being a crafter has gotten a bit of a bad reputation.   I mean, maybe my ideas of it are old fashioned and too reminiscent of crochet toilet paper holders and cozies of all sorts.   I know there are awesome people making awesome things, but I still tend to cringe a bit at saying I'm a crafter.  Well, crafter I am this Thursday, anyway.  

Tampa Bay Online even had a little blurb about the show and yes, they spelled my name wrong, I'm used to it.

"LOCAL HGTV: In January 2007, a HGTV crew filmed local artists creating their special craft for a show. Those artists are finally getting their time on TV when they are featured on "That's Clever," a half-hour series highlighting contemporary crafting that airs weekdays at 8 a.m.

This morning, Jennifer Ault Fernandez of Brandon will demonstrate how to make a doghouse necklace. On Thursday, Letta Schmidt of Tampa will embellish a book cover with image transfers.

Other artists to be featured in future episodes include: Feb. 24, Barbara Melby-Burhans, casting paper; Feb. 27, Maggie Green, beaded daisy art; Mar. 5, Mike Sherard, papier mache marlin; Mar. 6, Sana Doumet, unity pin; Mar. 10, Dominique Martinez, steel mirror; Mar. 11, Josh Sullivan, robot CD case; Mar. 17, Vickie Brunner, hands hat; Mar. 20, Cindy Arriola, frog painting; Mar. 23, Ellen Errico Schon, quilt-inspired collage; Mar. 24, Stephanie Schorr, ceramic wall sconce; Mar. 25, Michele Palenik, fused glass collage; Mar. 26, Boo Ehrsam, T-shirt magnet; Mar. 27, Kimberli Cummings, tango dancer vase."

Mood:  cool

There are lots of reasons why I am currently plumbing the depths of my memories to create a list of all the books I've ever read.  I don't suppose that I will be completely successful, but I at least want to get as many titles and authors as there are vague plot lines floating around in my head from long ago.  Even I think this project is a little crazy, but its one of those things that I get wrapped up in on a whim.  I have to say I'm doing pretty good--better than the first time I worked on it getting just under three hundred titles that was then lost in Google Notebooks, then found, then lost again--its probably my fault.   All that's neither here nor there because what I want to talk about is Loganberry Books a bookstore in Ohio.  

While conducting my vague plot reminiscences I stumbled upon the Loganberry Books Stump the Bookseller.  I'm sure there are other forums to get help from people who might know what your talking about when you only have a sliver of an idea, but Stump the Bookseller has popped up repeatedly in my searches for strange stories about separated twins, virtual rock stars, and red wizards.  I realized that I was doing a diservice to it by simply using it as a mine for my potential forgotten titles, so I'm talking it up to you guys.  I want to visit Loganberry books someday--anybody who lives near it should wait for me though.  Go and keep this place in business!