Something borrowed, something new

There's that phrase that an apple a day keeps the doctor away (I guess if you keep throwing it at him he'll eventually never come back, so it could make sense?  haha, just kidding, I know what it means), but my dad is a firm believer in the "learn one new thing a day to keep the old age and empty mind away," philosophy.

In fact, he used to ask, "what's something you should do every day?" and up until probably six months ago my siblings and I would confusedly answer, "pray?  read your Bible?  brush your teeth?" and now we're finally smart enough to know the answer.  Phew.  But anyhow, it's a good philosophy.  I approve.

Which makes it nice when I read my magazines.  I know I've gone over this before, but yes, I read children's magazines.  Muse and Cricket are my go-to publications, especially now that I've decided that Time and Christianity Today probably weren't worthy ways to spend my time.  True story.  

I've been feeling recently like maybe I'm growing out of Cricket (it's aimed at 9-14 year-olds, if that's any sort of clue), but this month's issue had a really interesting article about Louis Braille.  Everyone knows who Louis Braille is, and I always thought he was pretty brilliant (when I was a kid, braille seemed like the best thing ever: reading in the DARK?  how much better could life get!?) but I didn't realize until I read the article that he was basically shunned for inventing such a "travesty."  After all, thought the world in those days, wouldn't a series of dots just magnify the differences between the seeing and the sight-impaired?  The sentiments were so strong against braille that the blind school where Louis was taught as a child (the same place he developed braille between the ages of 13 and 15) and taught as a teacher in his adult years actually banned braille.  True story.  The school had a book-burning and said that braille was absolutely not to be used.

Yikes.

But after years of championing his method, the school finally allowed braille to be used, and the world at large became more accepting thereof.  Of course, Louis died shortly thereafter of TB, but hey, at least he saw it happen in his lifetime, right?

Anyhow, I thought it was fascinating.  And it made me glad to be reading magazines for small children, because they have useful information packaged up in easy-to-read articles.  Oh, and last month?  Muse had an excerpt from a book about that computer, Watson, who won Jeopardy.  It was really good and did a good job of explaining how algorithms work.  Never thought I'd be able to say that.

So anyhow, my piece of advice is this: if you're aiming to learn one new thing a day but haven't a lot of time or motivation, learn from those who have already dumbed it down for children.  It's more fun that way.  And, in the case of Muse, just might involve a hefty dose of pie-throwing.  It's just their thing.  Trust me, it makes more sense then their obsession with hot pink bunnies!

Mega magazine pressures

I enjoy reading magazines, because of their ability to have current-type articles without the pressure of the constant updates of newspapers (which usually make you play hide-and-seek with their articles anyhow, what does that even mean, “continued on C4,” anyhow?) and internet resources. But magazines are very difficult for me to read, which means that I’m very picky about what magazines I read.

Words are basically amazing, as I’ve said before. I appreciate that words have a direct effect on me, and recognize their sway over me. So what’s the deal with magazines? Well, it’s like this.

When I read, I like to concentrate on what I’m reading. I like to start at point A and read all the way until the conclusion of the piece, presumably point Z. But in a magazine, there are little pictures, sidebars, timelines, sometimes they make you switch to entirely different pages to finish reading what you’ve started (sometimes it upsets me that they make you pay to read something that makes you play hide-and-seek with pieces of their magazine), and often they have corresponding inset boxes, just in case you need little extras on what you’re reading.

When I read magazines I have to either read straight through the entire article and go back to read the extras later (which is difficult, because my word radar knows I’m skipping over sections and yells at me), or I can look through the article first, read all the extra things, study the pictures, and then flip back and start the main text of the article once I’m finished reading all the bells and whistles. But when I do that, most of the time I have no idea what the side boxes are even talking about, seeing as I generally haven’t read the main article first, which usually directly relate to the extras.

It’s a tough call, which is usually why I have to skip magazines altogether. I make an exception for kid’s magazines (like Highlights, Cricket, Muse, or Ranger Rick) and Christianity Today and Reader’s Digest. Sometimes, if I have time and feel like proofreading, I’ll read Time.

Wow, that basically killed my whole point. That’s kind of a lot of magazines, more than I thought I read. Goes to show how little I realize about myself.

Actually, I know a lot of people who read a lot more magazines than that, if you’d believe it. But hey, if you don’t have time to read a book, and feel comfortable having to mentally skip all over pages like that, then magazines are as good as the next thing.

Till I get old and forgetful, however, I think my disdain for skipping around from box to box will insure many a tense magazine-reading sessions. I hope I'm a very happy old person, that's all I can say.