How to spend a day

The sun burst from behind the clouds and my sweatshirt became unnecessary during my walk to the river this morning.The father told me his ten year son was still learning how to cast. He had one fish that got away this morning and now was waiting for a big bite. An old fisherman, who looked like an Oxford professor smoking a pipe, was more circumspect said, "just passing  a good time.”

We went to the tire shop where Michelin tires were on sale for the tire change of our car. 

Cheri and I left our car in the garage and we walked to the elementary school, about a mile away, where our first grade grandson and the his class have a musical presentation. The first graders sang, danced and told a simple story on how to find happiness. What’s the key to happiness? The students were dressed like different animals. The lion asked the question, “why am I not happy?” The elephants, leopards, monkeys, laughing hyenas, and other animals gave him different answers. What’s fun? What’s happiness? In the end they found the answer:  friendship and friends. The children were fabulous. Our grandson was dressed  as a leopard and carrying a leopard stuffed animal.

After the presentation we went grocery shopping with our daughter and with her first grader and  6th grader who goes to the same school and allowed to leave her PE class and to attend her brother’s and  first graders’s musical extravaganza.

Then back to the car shop to wait for our car. Cheri and I brought our books. She reads Never Say Die by Susan Jacoby, the book for discussion, for her annual reunion with her 5 college friends next month in Sedona, AZ.I brought along Charles Darwin’s Voyage of the Beagle.

We returned home 2 1/2 hours ago.

Chess and cheese

Half of the day today I reviewed my 8 chess match games trying to find the best moves to send  to my opponents.  The other half  I watched the U.S. Chess Championship live in the Internet. I read only a part of Middlemarch and the Cat’s Eye.

Later in the afternoon Cheri and I attended an informal cheese making and more of a social function in the house of Anila, one of our club members, who is a former chef, formerly owned an Indian restaurant and who makes her own cheese at home. One other club member, Mike, who is a chemical engineer, taught the class. He demonstrated how to make chevre and burrata cheese. He emphasized the detailed measurements of the ingredients and temperature. Mike explained the science and art of cheese making.

Anila showed how to make paneer cheese. After it was finished, she sautéed it with cumin seeds, turmeric, fresh garlic, green pepper and green onion and almost looked like scrambled eggs. We ate it with the pita bread and the French bread.

Before the cheese making Anila prepared Indian tapas of 2 types of chicken kebabs with 2 different types of sauces, home made paneer cheese made earlier in the day, pita bread and French bread, olives. Another member brought prosciutto. We had pinot noir from Napa Valley and Oregon and one pinot home made by our chemical engineer.

Chess and cheese making in one day. An extraordinary day.

Creativity and Grit

I was listening to Jonah Lehrer, author of  "Imagine: How Creativity Works" at NPR  KQED Radio City Arts and  Lectures on the way home from my club meeting this evening. He talked about creativity. During certain moments of the day one’s creativity is at its highest or lowest. He talked about what spurs and sustains creativity, when does it happen.  The other part of Lehrer’s talk was the value of grit.  Lehrer mentioned the Grit Test developed at Penn by Dr. Angela Duckworth, a University of Pennsylvania psychology researcher. 

I found one article titled Grit: The Top predictor of Success  by Josh Linkner with excerpts below..

Grit: The Top Predictor Of Success

by Josh Linkner| 12-12-2011

http://www.fastcompany.com/1800541/grit-top-predictor-of-success

Excerpts:

“How ironic that a back-to-basics approach carries the day: It turns out that good old-fashioned grit is the number one indicator of high performance.

Research defining grit as perseverance and passion for long-term goals found that as a trait, grit had better predictability for success than IQ. The experts break it down and list these attributes as the building blocks of grit:

• A clear goal
• Determination despite others' doubts
• Self-confidence about figuring it out
• Humility about knowing it doesn't come easy
• Persistence despite fear
• Patience to handle the small obstacles that obscure the path
• A code of ethics to live by
• Flexibility in the face of roadblocks
• A capacity for human connection and collaboration
• A recognition that accepting help does not equate to weakness
• A focus and appreciation of each step in the journey
• An appreciation of other people's grit
• A loyalty that never sacrifices connections along the way
• An inner strength to help propel you to your goal

More important than a go-get-'em-tiger pep talk, you can actually build, screen for, and measure grit. The Grit Test, developed by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, is a simple questionnaire that helps you determine your Grit Score. It's worth four minutes to find out how much mojo you and your team have so you can get about building more of it.”

 I just finished reading BaBel No More, a search for the world’s polyglot, extreme polyglots, by Michael Erard.  He wrote: “I went looking for living hyperpolyglots to interview. My research took me first into the library, then to Europe. In Bologna, Italy, I was the first person in decades to look at the archives of Cardinal Joseph Mezzofanti, a 19th-century linguistic wonder.” 

He was seeking the “secret” of how the polyglots learned so many languages. There was no secret. Part of their success is plain hard work even doing and enjoying the banality of copying, reading, memorizing, talking.  

(all the photos were taken last Sunday at Doran Beach)