That’s What She Linked #8
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhTaNHYWRZ4]
• Remember your high school prom? This beautiful “promposal” is worth a few tears.*
• Girls, can we please stop chasing guys? More and more of them becoming passive aggressive pansies because we’re letting them, and this needs to stop. It’s their jobs to chase us!
• Something I’m sure muchos de nosotros already knew about: Bilinguals do everything better:
Bilingualism improves decision making, boosts creativity, staves off Alzheimer’s, [lets people] better able to focus on their assignment, [protects] against the adverse cognitive effects that are associated with poverty, [and may even] provide cognitive resources to excel in school and give [kids] more opportunities later in life….
Want more evidence of the advantages of bilingualism?
Brain scans show that … bilinguals employ far more of the neural landscape when expressing themselves….Bilingual brains are fitter, too…. Bilingualism enhances attention and cognitive control. Also, bilinguals are better at learning additional languages, even if those languages bear little resemblance to the ones they already know.
If you–or your kid(s)—aren’t/is learning a second/third… language already and you still don’t know whether you/they should despite ^those^ reasons, then I don’t know how else to convince you of the absolute importance of being bi/tri(…)lingual!! (Just in case: These four grown bi/trilinguals give you even more reasons ;).)
Changing topics!
• These Weird Ways to Burn 200 calories are hilarious! Who knew you could burn’em after just 2.5 hours of surfing through TV channels? Haha.
• What birthday traditions does your family have? This video–starring the great John Green–goes through 27(!) birthday traditions from around the world. He says that only Mexicans practice one of those traditions, but the truth is many Latin American cultures do. Also, Quinceañeras are not just Mexican ;)–but no, I didn’t have one :(.
• This clip from Last Week Tonight, a new satirical news show (think The Daily Show + The Colbert Report) is one of my faves. Heck, the show itself is stupendous!
• 6 Lessons for Writing Irresistibly Magnetic Blog Post Headlines
• “You’re 100% in charge of your life. Stop bitching”: Gary Vaynerchuk tells it like it is
• Have you watched any of the “Kids React” videos? My fave has been Kids React to Rotary Phones. This Kids React to Walkmans one is also great. (Growing up in the 90s actually made many of us smart, y’all–I feel bad for those kids!) Can you imagine how kids 30 years from now, who’ll most likely be able to talk to hologram versions of their contacts–or even just communicate with others using only their thoughts–will react to “smartphones”? :/
• This Father of the Bride Speech IS so funny!
*In case you’re interested, here’s the story behind that promposal.
What cool things have YOU come across lately??
I was juuust talking to my mom about whether my fiancee and I plan to teach our (future) children Lithuanian. Since we both speak the language, it’s kind of a duh, of course! thing. But it will definitely be hard. Especially since both of us learned the language from our American-born parents who learned it from THEIR parents. (my dad has spoken the language his entire life and hasn’t ever even BEEN to Lithuania – crazy, no??) And it kind sucks that the Lithuanian language itself isn’t really the most useful language, if you know what I mean. I’m jealous of how often you get to use Spanish! But regardless, I COMPLETELY agree with you that raising kids to be bilingual is so so SO important and valuable. :)
xox
I think it’d definitely be worth it to teach Lithuanian to your kids, Giedre!! >> 1) It may not be useful NOW, but who knows about the future? 2) Multilingualism (regardless of the languages spoken) gives speakers a ton of benefits (like the ones you saw above) and 3) Wouldn’t it be cool for them to have that skill they can brag about to other kids? Haha yes, it would.
Thanks for stopping by, dear!! Hope all the wedding prep’s going wonderfully!
I wish I was bilingual! I tried learning French but was shot down by a teacher so I gave up. I have so much respect for people who can speak more than one language!
Well, that teacher sucks. Give it another try! I bet your French-speaking Canadian neighbors will thank you :).
Thanks for your comment, Alex! Love your new blog!