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Spent all of yesterday in putz mode. Meaning: I did absolutely nothing.
Wrote 1,000 words on the Clarion story.
Introduced perky Bard student character into Clarion story through membership in an imaginary Friends of the Livingston Legacy group.
Realized I was unconsciously mimicking a kind of Connie Willis/Doomsday Book tone, and that unless I wanted perky Bard student to interact in some fashion with Eleanor in some kind of magical fusion of past and present – the Moberly-Jourdain incident, anyone? – it was not what I was after.
Removed perky Bard student character from Clarion story.
Sigh…
Went off to tutor Summer.
Summer is floundering. Badly, I think. Having problems with biochemistry.
“I can help you with anatomy and physiology,” I told her, “but you’re on your own with the biochemistry – I was never any good at it.”
Confusing words like “when” and “one”, and “less” and “last” in spoken lectures. Again – this doesn’t matter in ordinary conversation when you can derive most of what you need to get in any given conversation from context. But it does matter if you’re a medical intern and expected to retain every bit of information.
I asked Ed: “So how much of the conversation at dinner do you think that Summer understood the other night?”
He was perplexed by the question. “Well, I think she understood all of it. She held up her end quite well! As her English language tutor, you should be congratulating yourself.”
But I know Summer and her reactions really well, and I figured she was understanding maybe 65%. When I asked her that question yesterday, she confirmed it: “Sixty-five percent. Maybe 75%.”
Not good enough.
So, I’m having her listen to podcasts of This American Life. Because they’re interesting, because they’re entertaining, because they may sharpen her facility at understanding Americans with a range of regional accents.
I understand the pressure she’s feeling to take the USMLE – her husband is having problems finding a job, and they desperately want to stay in the U.S. – but October is too soon.
However, it’s not my place to tell her that. It’s my place to help her learn English as well as I possibly can.
I’ll take another stab at the Clarion story today. My goal is to spend three hours every day until either August 21 (end of Write-a-Thon) or it's finished. Those three hours a day may or may not yield any actual writing.
I’m still thinking external narrator. Marlowe in Heart of Darkness, or the Kipling stand-in in The Man Who Would Be King. But perky is the wrong tone. Maybe some deadly self-serious, hip young artist who’s reluctantly dragged to a fundraiser for the Friends of the Livingston Legacy, perhaps. Who falls into conversation with a very old man who tells him the story of Eleanor, Alice, and the ghost of Elliott. The old man will maybe be the son of Jane, the little parlor maid who’s being trained to wait on Alice.
There will have to be some kind of hook ending – magical moment when the past becomes the present, and the hip young artist/distant narrator has some epiphany. Yada yada yada. I have no idea what that epiphany would be.
Wrote 1,000 words on the Clarion story.
Introduced perky Bard student character into Clarion story through membership in an imaginary Friends of the Livingston Legacy group.
Realized I was unconsciously mimicking a kind of Connie Willis/Doomsday Book tone, and that unless I wanted perky Bard student to interact in some fashion with Eleanor in some kind of magical fusion of past and present – the Moberly-Jourdain incident, anyone? – it was not what I was after.
Removed perky Bard student character from Clarion story.
Sigh…
Went off to tutor Summer.
Summer is floundering. Badly, I think. Having problems with biochemistry.
“I can help you with anatomy and physiology,” I told her, “but you’re on your own with the biochemistry – I was never any good at it.”
Confusing words like “when” and “one”, and “less” and “last” in spoken lectures. Again – this doesn’t matter in ordinary conversation when you can derive most of what you need to get in any given conversation from context. But it does matter if you’re a medical intern and expected to retain every bit of information.
I asked Ed: “So how much of the conversation at dinner do you think that Summer understood the other night?”
He was perplexed by the question. “Well, I think she understood all of it. She held up her end quite well! As her English language tutor, you should be congratulating yourself.”
But I know Summer and her reactions really well, and I figured she was understanding maybe 65%. When I asked her that question yesterday, she confirmed it: “Sixty-five percent. Maybe 75%.”
Not good enough.
So, I’m having her listen to podcasts of This American Life. Because they’re interesting, because they’re entertaining, because they may sharpen her facility at understanding Americans with a range of regional accents.
I understand the pressure she’s feeling to take the USMLE – her husband is having problems finding a job, and they desperately want to stay in the U.S. – but October is too soon.
However, it’s not my place to tell her that. It’s my place to help her learn English as well as I possibly can.
I’ll take another stab at the Clarion story today. My goal is to spend three hours every day until either August 21 (end of Write-a-Thon) or it's finished. Those three hours a day may or may not yield any actual writing.
I’m still thinking external narrator. Marlowe in Heart of Darkness, or the Kipling stand-in in The Man Who Would Be King. But perky is the wrong tone. Maybe some deadly self-serious, hip young artist who’s reluctantly dragged to a fundraiser for the Friends of the Livingston Legacy, perhaps. Who falls into conversation with a very old man who tells him the story of Eleanor, Alice, and the ghost of Elliott. The old man will maybe be the son of Jane, the little parlor maid who’s being trained to wait on Alice.
There will have to be some kind of hook ending – magical moment when the past becomes the present, and the hip young artist/distant narrator has some epiphany. Yada yada yada. I have no idea what that epiphany would be.
