Learning Properly

I've been going back to my music lessons recently. I had a long hiatus from the BBL Fine Arts program I was in while I was stuck in the hospital.When we want to learn a new skill or hone one we recently learned, most of our minds will conjure up the phrase "practice makes perfect." In most cases, the statement holds true. A piano player that practices for an hour a day will almost certainly play with more proficiency than a piano player who never touches a key of a piano until the night before a performance. The statement holds true for more than just piano players. Take your pick of some sort of skill and/or profession and the phrase still holds true. I'm sure we've all experienced the rare cases of beginner's luck that will sometimes triumph over practice and experience, of course. There's even a saying in Cantonese that roughly states that "A person's plan cannot beat the heaven's plan." Even though logic and experience will point to one outcome, you will never know if a different one will occur. Sometimes, pure dumb luck will beat the seasoned pros. But tying back to me going back to saxophone lessons, there was something a instructor said that stuck with me. This may be a phrase that everyone except for me has already heard, but it was new to me, so it made a lasting impression. I went to a a percussion session for anyone to try to see if they wanted to join the drumline we planned on forming. In my current state with a slow and partially dysfunctional left hand, I didn't feel like I really wanted t join (and ruin the sound of the drumline). 

Halfway through theThe percussion instructor told us to stop for a moment and asked us all a question. He asked "What does practice make?" A few of us (myself included) promptly answered "Perfect", since that's what we've heard all our lives. But then, a few of the percussion instructor's regular students shook their heads when we said "Perfect." The instructor then told us something along the lines of "No, practice does not make perfect. Practice makes permanence." I contemplated this for a moment and arrived at the conclusion that the instructor was correct. If you practice something but you do that task incorrectly during practice, it'll become your default. When you're put on the spotlight and asked to perform that task, you'll default to the incorrect way since that's what you're familiar with. Old habits die hard, so we should all make sure the habits we build up are good ones.

The Flexibility of Swear Words

I wasn't really sure what to write about for my next blog post, so I started brainstorming ideas. Then, this one happened to cross my mind. I know it’s something that won’t appeal too much to Ms. Majerus. It's something I have thought about and marveled at before though. It's the fact that curse words/ swear words/cuss words can often be used as almost any part of speech (noun, verb, pronoun, adjective, etc.) Now comes the fun part: trying to show this without explicitly saying the word itself. I’m sure we are all capable of filling in the blanks, without needing a blatant example that shouldn’t be used in a learning environment, wouldn’t sit well with the teacher, and would more than likely get me into some form of trouble.

I’ll do one with censorship and hope I’m not reprimanded for my blogpost? *shrugs* Think of the word “Sh*t”, for example. It can be used in almost any place in a sentence. It can be a noun, when someone is called a “piece of sh*t” for example. “SH*T!” can be used as an exclamation when something bad happens. It can be used as a verb when someone is in the process of a bowel movement (sh*tting, taking a sh*t). It also works as an adjective (ex. “This is some pretty sh*tty weather) and is used in many different expressions and/or phrases e.g. sh*tface, sh*t storm, talking sh*t, etc. These were just examples of one of the many curse words out there, and most of them are also just as flexible as the word “sh*t”. It’s almost a shame that words this flexible and usable are frowned on in society. :p