"Tiny's interpretation of Aurora -- the princess of Sleeping Beauty -- is uniquely her own, a dazzling blend of classically pure movement with minimalist post-kitchen staging, her kinetically challenging partner a day-glo superball," we wrote last fall in a caption to this image, which -- in the way of one thing's leading to another -- focussed our thoughts in a post of fond remembrance of our maternal grandmother, JuJu, the woman who introduced us to the world of the dance by suggesting Margot Fonteyn as the name for our first Madame Alexander doll.
"In college, I was one of those people who sat at the very back of the room during lectures, swinging my leg restlessly, doodling and smoking," writes Neo in an artful post on alternative learning styles:
Ah yes, kids: smoking. We used to be allowed to do that in classrooms. I was never much of a smoker -- I really didn't inhale -- but I liked to light up, and to amuse myself by making perfect, long-lasting smoke rings, like the old Camel's ad in Times Square (mine were much better than his).
The point of all this is that I'm most definitely not what is known as an auditory learner. A speaker has to be riveting--and, preferably, very, very funny--to catch my attention . . .
On the other hand, when I'm reading or writing, I concentrate hard. Time tends to pass very quickly, but my mind does not wander. I've been known to try to fix a problem with a single line of poetry for what I would estimate to be ten minutes -- but then, when I look at my watch, two hours have somehow passed.
"I used to experience the same sort of concentration back in my ballet dancing days," she writes, launching a grande jeté into a perfect post, "Dancer from the dance." It got us to thinking about our own preferred learning style, which has a lot to do with thought processes and connections stimulated by the visual image. From our comments at her blog:
As with you, "A speaker has to be riveting--and, preferably, very, very funny -- to catch my attention." That's why podcasts -- even ones whose interviewers and subjects are of great interest -- don't much appeal unless there are transcripts.
The "flow" nickolaides finds during drawing and gardeniing is familiar to me when I discover and/or create the perfect graphic image to accompany and expand upon a blogpost I am working on. Often in the middle of organizing my thoughts, the image comes to me, I find or create it and and then put it into the draft, where it seems to help me hone in on the point I am trying to make.
There's nothing like a sympathetic blogger's thoughts to concentrate the blogging mind.
Update: For more sympathetic catbloggers' thoughts, head on over to the 100th Carnival of the Cats at Bloggin' Outloud.
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