Learning styles

Following Nancy's steps I finally figured out my own learning style. I could never make up my mind so far. Well, the answer from the quiz did not come as a surprise: I belong to the vast majority (50-70% of the population) who combine learning styles. My scores were:

• Visual: 2
• Aural: 5
• Read/Write: 6
• Kinesthetic: 4

Thank you Nancy.

P.S.
My computer has got a new hard disk.

Hard disk failure

Well, some of us learn lessons the hard way. At least now and then. My hard disk has broken down. Just like that, without any warning. And yes, I'm one of those who keep forgetting to make a backup of their files. I haven't made one for more than a year and the last one disappeared. Yes, months of work have gone into thin air: the coursebook I was writing for my fist year students, one third of my MA thesis, a corpus of research articles covering a time span of 35 years, at least 5 more specialized copora, one of which went into tens of millions of words. Not to mention all the text resources I had carefully collected for materials writing. I hate to think of it.
My mind plays tricks on me: all the files still exist in my memory - I still know where to look for a particular file, what the texts look like, etc. I don't like changes that happen overnight. Turning a new leaf. Starting everything from scratch. I prefer building slowly over the long term.
I somehow hope that computer specialists will be able to recover at least some of the files. Mind you, it'll hit my pocket. It's a lesson that I hope I've learnt now.

Summer readings

I was ill for the past five days and watched the telly extensively. I was impressed by some of the programmes that BBC World has broadcasted lately, especially the ones in the series Africa Lives on the BBC. Educating, enlightening, and deeply moving.

So today, when I finally managed to sit long enough at my desk, I visited BBC World online to check whether there’s anything more about this series of programmes. I managed to find a couple of things. But just like ususal, my information hunt on the web lead me astray to other topics.

I came across an article ("Catholic podcast makes waves") about a catholic priest who blogs and uses podcasting for communicating about religion (Vatican is waiting to see what’ll happen).

Then I found another one ("Rewriting the rules of publishing") about an online publishing venture called Lulu. What
they basically do is this: authors upload their manuscripts onto the site and these are then printed individually anytime someone wants to buy them. The book or CD is then posted to the buyer. 20% of the price is kept by the publisher, 80% goes to the author. Unfortunately, Lulu is still US based, but they promise to set up business in Europe in six months. If the project team I’m part of (we introduced problem-based teaching of English in Slovenia) doesn’t get the funds to publish our book, Lulu might be our choice.

I couldn’t help and check the latest developments on the Learning English site. I haven’t visited the site for months and I was amazed by the goodies: learning quizzes, vocabulary and listening exercises, interactive activities and especially the Keep Your English Up to Date by Professor Crystal. Good hunt. And now I've got to dash off.