User talk:MAP91

Hello, MAP91, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful: Introduction The five pillars of Wikipedia How to edit a page Help How to write a great article Manual of Style

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Mandarin tips
MAP91, I applaud your interest in Mandarin Chinese. Oddly enough, I grew up on Long Island many years ago, studied German (and Latin) in high school, and listened to many of the same bands you say you like. In my first year of college (at Brown University) I took intensive Mandarin. The class met six days a week (including Saturday) at 9:00 a.m., and we had mandatory daily sessions listening to tapes in the language lab. It took dedication, and I earned a good grade, but by the end of that year of hard work, I could barely say the most basic things and knew maybe 300 characters. My progress in European languages was much faster. There was no way I could have made even that feeble progress in Mandarin without daily immersion. Therefore, I urge you not to attempt to learn Mandarin through self-study alone. I think that it is a recipe for frustration. The tones alone are nearly impossible to get right without frequent coaching from a native speaker. Then you will need to commit to studying the language for at least five years before you can begin to follow native speakers in conversation or to read any text other than teaching materials. If you really want to master the language, you will need to spend a year or more in a Chinese-speaking environment, such as a Chinese city or Singapore. I have made a couple more suggestions for learning Chinese on the Language Reference Desk, so please take a look. Good luck! Marco polo 01:00, 5 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Marco, Thank you very much for the help. I know you are right regarding learning Mandarin.  Hopefully, someday soon, I'll be able to take an extended vacation to China (maybe 6-12 months) and take some language courses with a native speaker before I go.  Regarding Long Island, where exactly did you grow up?  I live in Franklin Square, about 2 miles south of Garden City.  Also, where did you take Latin?  I am curious because they teach Latin in all the Catholic schools, and maybe you went to a high school that I am familiar with.  Are you familiar with Chaminade HS in Mineola?  As you probably saw in my user page, I'm a sophomore there.  I've always wanted to go to either Brown or Dartmouth for college, so in that regard, congratulations on attending Brown.  I've been up to Providence two times, but on those days I happened to see the bad side of the city.  My grandparents, parents and I went to Newport for a week, and we took the RIPTA shuttle to Providence.  The only good area of the city I saw was the Gallery mall.  I'm sure this is not the true character of the city, but I just wanted to share those thoughts.  I've also been up to Hanover, NH to see Dartmouth.  It is a totally different environment than Brown.  They are both excellent colleges though.  I would like to major in Engineering or Architecture.  So far I'm undecided.  I know both colleges are very tough to get into, but I'm going to give it my best shot.  That sounds like an excellent Mandarin course you took.  It may be time-consuming, but I think it will be well worth it if I ever get the chance to take it.  Are you fluent in Mandarin now?  Have you ever honed your skills in China?  I won't be able to visit there for a while, so I guess my learning Mandarin will have to be put off for some time.  I guess German is enough for a while :-).  Thanks again for your help!


 * MAP91 22:01, 5 March 2007 (UTC) Mike


 * Mike, my real name is Mark, though some friends do call me Marco. I grew up in Bay Shore (South Shore, Suffolk County).  I was on the debate team and remember that Chaminade had an excellent team.  They were our rivals.  I have never visited Dartmouth, but I have a friend who teaches there.  She doesn't like Hanover much, because there is not much to do, and it is rather boring for her.  If you like skiing, though, or hiking in the warmer months, I'm sure it's nice, and the upside might be that you have little to distract you from your studies.  I was very happy with my education at Brown, and I also mostly enjoyed Providence.  It has a lot of the advantages of a bigger city but is very contained and walkable.  Downtown is a bit drab, except during WaterFire.  But the area around Brown is quite lively.  Wikipedia even has an article on Thayer Street.  Near the beginning of my senior year in high school, I took a tour of colleges that I was interested in (all in the Northeast).  I had a blast, but my best impression was of Brown.  The best things about Brown are 1) It is big enough to have the resources of a university but small enough that you have much the same experience as at a small liberal arts college.  (I think the same is true of Dartmouth.)  2) It attracts a lot of very intelligent students.  I think that at any college, you learn as much or more from your fellow students as you do from instructors.  (Dartmouth is probably similar.)  3) The New Curriculum requires you to take responsibility for your own education and encourages creativity and experimentation.  (See the section on the New Curriculum under Brown University.)  In this, Brown is different from Dartmouth and all of the other Ivies and indeed from the vast majority of colleges in the United States.  It is really the New Curriculum and the Providence setting that give Brown its special character.  As for Mandarin, I am embarrassed to admit that I gave it up after a year.  I did well, but I realized that I would need to commit to five or more years of hard study to begin to be competent in Mandarin, and that I would need to spend time in a Chinese-speaking place to acquire the mastery that I already had of German at that point.  Also, I wanted to pursue other interests.  From time to time, I think about taking it up again.  Best wishes.  Marco polo 01:47, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Adoption
Hey there, MAP91. I responded to a few of your comments at the Language reference desk (go look, quick!), and I'd be more than happy to adopt you, if you're interested. Head on over to my talk page and tell me what you think. The Jade Knight 06:55, 8 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I am sure that The Jade Knight has a great deal to offer, and I will not mind if you want to be his adoptee. But since you invited me to adopt you, I thought that I would make myself available, too.  I'd be happy to help in any way that I can.  Marco polo 01:30, 9 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Ok Mark, thanks for the support. I am happy knowing I have you there if I need any help.  Regarding Brown, I took a look at the new curriculum, and it seems like an excellent program, one which I would enjoy using.  Thanks again!


 * MAP91 02:00, 9 March 2007 (UTC) Mike


 * Well, consider yourself adopted. If you have any questions about Wikipedia, or need any help with anything at all, or just want to chat about language or video games, leave me a message and I'll get back to you.  The Jade Knight 04:13, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Learning Norman
There is actually not currently a full course in Norman online anywhere on the internet. There are, however, a great many learning materials available—glossaries, games and quizzes, grammar charts, vocab lists, all sorts of texts, etc. The two most represented dialects that I have seen are Jèrriais (which is the dialect I am learning) and Cotentinais (most of the materials for which are all at www.magene.com). I know that they're developing a course on Norman at the Magène site, but it's more the sort of "short and sweet" thing you'd find on BBC, not a full-fledged course designed to give proficiency. It's also, now that I think about it, designed for francophones (and is thus in French). If I ever forget and assume you can read French, forgive me and remind me that you're an Anglophone. Just about everything on Cotentinais will be in French. Most things on Jèrriais will be in English—though a lot of the older materials (such as the gigantic Dictionnaire Jersiais-Français) are in French. There's also a (fledging) Wikibook on Norman, but that is also written in French.

If you eventually decide to get serious about Jersey Norman (Jèrriais), you'll probably want to buy some of the materials available for purchase—"Learn Jèrriais" (a multimedia CD) is excellent for learning pronunciation and some vocab, and there is a Jèrriais-English dictionary out (and they're supposed to publish the English-Jèrriais dictionary this year). The standard "lesson book" on Jèrriais is Lé Jèrriais Pour Tous, which I would not particularly recommend—while useful, it is not particularly well-written, and I expect that it would likely confuse a new language learner such as yourself.

So, in short, there is no course for Norman online that is accessable to you. I would, however, like to develope one. If you want to learn the language, I'd be glad to write up materials for you—and maybe that'd motivate me to work on this course. Otherwise, my plan would be simply to teach you via the medium of Instant Messaging, aided by the many materials available online. I find that this is a fairly effective way to learn because you get instant feedback on everything, and a chance to practice the language immediately. Anyway, do you have an instant messaging client? (AIM, MSN, GMail, Skype?) The Jade Knight 04:13, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

OK Jade Knight, thanks for adopting me. I think Jèrriais is the way to go for me, after reviewing the details about each dialect. I think that learning materials from you would be excellent regarding learning. I can also use instant messaging. Would you be able to make a short introduction sheet for me, if you were already going to do it? I am not in a rush, and as you said, it will get you started on the course anyway. For now, I am going to go over the various internet resources there are for Jèrriais. Thanks.

MAP91 01:59, 10 March 2007 (UTC) Mike


 * Why don't you email me, and I'll write up and email you back something. (If you've not used it before, the email feature can be found on the "toolbox", to the lower left side of my user page.)  Also, if you happen to already have MSN, Skype, AIM, or Gmail, tell me your screen name—otherwise, we may want to create an account for you using one of these.  The Jade Knight 07:16, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Right justification & IM clients
I'm no expert on some of the more nuanced elements of Wiki-formatting, but I went and looked at a few other user pages to try to figure out how to do it, and your current user page is the result of my research. Take a look, see if you understand what's going on, and if you don't, tell me, and I'll try to figure it out, myself. =þ I've added two ways of doing right-justification. One is a more standard format, and the other seems to just add stuff to the same box that contains the Babel info. Oh, and BTW, the Babel template automatically justifies to the right. So you didn't do anything to get it to do that. You may also want to check out as another way of doing things.

As for IM clients, I tend to prefer AIM, though any of the others I listed are good. I don't actually have Yahoo, however. The Jade Knight 08:46, 11 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Okay. Just email me your SN when you have it (or post it on my talk page, if you prefer.)  And, FYI, I'm working on throwing some Jèrriais materials together.  The Jade Knight 22:49, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Norwegian & Wikipedia
How's the Norwegian coming, BTW? Any progress? Also: How are you doing with Wikipedia? Doesn't seem like you've been editing much. The Jade Knight 07:29, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Hello Michael, I have been very busy, but now that school's over I plan to learn more about editing and Wiki Markup so that I can edit more. Also, I've decided to hold off on the Norwegian for now. I will be concentrating on German. Have you developed any Norman materials? I would still be interested in the language. Thanks for the hello!

MAP91 02:00, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Keeshonden
Hello Mike, and thank you for the kind words. To answer your questions: PKT (talk) 15:28, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
 * As you probably know, breeding and showing dogs is not a self-supporting proposition financially, and a few years ago we found we needed to choose between going on breeding vs. supporting our daughter, who has turned out to be a rather good classical singer. She is off to university starting next year.
 * Yes, we still have Kees; nine of them at this time.  In particular, we still have Carmen, who Salem's mother.  It's rather amazing to realize that a Best in Show dog (a female Kees, no less) was born and raised here!

Merge Proposal
There is a discussion going on about whether or not to merge WikiProject Dogs and WikiProject Dog breeds together. Your input would be greatly appreciated. Coaster1983 (talk) 18:24, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your input. There is a new proposal to make WikiProject Dog breeds a task force of WikiProject Dogs. Coaster1983 (talk) 15:19, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Formatting of profile
Hello, Mike :) I played around with your profile like you asked me. Hopefully it's kind of what you wanted? I'm far, far, far from a Wiki formating expert, but it seems to have done the job. If you want to reverse it, no problem!! Talk to you later. AffirmationChick (talk) 03:52, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Profile
I see you got it taken care of. I'm sorry I didn't respond quicker; I've been very busy with RL lately and haven't had much time to spend on Wikipedia. The Jade Knight (talk) 02:00, 17 February 2008 (UTC)


 * No problem, Jade Knight.
 * MAP91 (talk) 16:53, 27 March 2008 (UTC)


 * FYI: It's usually better to respond on people's own Talk Pages; that way they're much more likely to notice (though some users choose to handle this differently).  The Jade Knight (talk) 21:40, 16 May 2008 (UTC)


 * OK, thanks for the info. I will do so from now on :).
 * MAP91 (talk) 15:42, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Speedy deletion of Sit Back Relax
A tag has been placed on Sit Back Relax requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section A7 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the article appears to be about a company or corporation, but it does not indicate how or why the subject is notable: that is, why an article about that subject should be included in an encyclopedia. Under the criteria for speedy deletion, articles that do not indicate the subject's importance or significance may be deleted at any time. Please see the guidelines for what is generally accepted as notable, as well as our subject-specific notability guideline for companies and corporations.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding  to the top of the page that has been nominated for deletion (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag), coupled with adding a note on the talk page explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the article meets the criterion it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the article that would would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Lastly, please note that if the article does get deleted, you can contact one of these admins to request that a copy be emailed to you. - Realkyhick (Talk to me) 14:25, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi. I don't think the main problem with the article is quality. I think the admins feel that it isn't notable. If you want to create the article again, see if the company has received a good deal of third party coverage. Also, admins don't like it when the main (and in your case only) reference is the company website. You can list it as an external link like this:

(text here)

heres your smiley box/barnstar
 Electrical  Experiment 18:50, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Who to ask
Xavier Gonzalez is a very nice article, but I can't do much to it. I suggest you ask someone on this list or WP:ART's talk page. Mm40 (talk | contribs) 22:59, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Music
Thanks for the compliments, Mike. I was immersed in classical music from an early age, from listening to it on radio (which I still do much/most of the time). I guess the composer I was most strongly attracted to was Chopin, and when I started learning the piano (at age 11; I was a late starter) it was his music that I focussed on as much as anyone's. It's hard to pick a single CD, or nominate any particular works out of the ones I've already mentioned. My best suggestion would be to pick a pianist who's got very good (or better) reviews, and again, selecting just one from the literally hundreds of great pianists is a really hard ask. Pianists who've been particularly renowned for their Chopin playing would include Arthur Rubinstein, Krystian Zimerman (both Poles, like Chopin), and Maurizio Pollini. There are many, many others, but you simply can't go wrong with any of these 3. Just pick any CD that mentions the words "Chopin" and any of those 3 names, and you'll be on a winner. Maybe a disc of selected works that give you an overall feel for what Chopin’s like. That's solo piano. These 3 pianists only played with sympathetic conductors, so if you want to hear Chopin’s 2 concertos, their involvement would be the guiding principle. I was also particularly attracted to Sergei Rachmaninoff, and if you want to hear arguably the most popular concertos in the entire concerto repertoire, listed to his 2nd and 3rd concertos. The 2nd was written after a period of deep depression after a failed symphony, and he only got back on the composing track with the help of a hypnotist, to whom he dedicated the concerto. Did you ever see the movie Shine? Rachmaninoff's 3rd concerto ("the Rach 3", as they called it) played a particularly strong role in the story. Great movie. Then there's his Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, for piano and orchestra. It consists of 24 variations on a theme, and the 18th Variation has become particularly famous in its own right (as it should). As with most things, you only really discover what you like in music by listening to lots of different things and seeing which ones appeal and which ones don't. It’s different for everyone, and it therefore can only be trial and error. But make a start. Once you’ve started, there’s no going back and the vistas just keep on opening up. For example, I’ve heard of George Lloyd by reputation, but I can’t say I’ve ever heard any of his music. But now that you’ve mentioned him alongside Bach and Mendelssohn, I will seek him out and explore what he has to offer. Reading about the background to the music and the circumstances in which the composers wrote their stuff is always helpful too, and Wikipedia is excellent for that. I hope this is helpful. Cheers. PS. You mentioned William Bolcom. Try to get a hold of his "Three Ghost Rags". Wonderful. PPS. Another fantastic piano concerto, which I'm sure you'd have heard parts of at least (the famous opening theme, maybe), is Tchaikovsky's No. 1. --  JackofOz (talk) 22:09, 13 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi, Mike. OK, if I had to choose between the 4 types you've mentioned, I'd go with the Etudes (flashy and brilliant) and the Nocturnes (dreamy and lyrical).  They could be seen as representing the daytime and the night time respectively.  For an introduction to Chopin, I still think a CD with examples of different types of pieces would give you a better overall picture of him.  If the Etudes or the Nocturnes as a genre don't particularly appeal to you, you'll  end up with a CD you probably won't play very much; whereas if it contained a ballade, a couple of Valses, some Mazurkas, Nocturnes, and basically a mixture of things, it would be more accessible and you'd find yourself playing it often.  But that's your call, of course.  Two of the polonaises are particularly famous - the "Military" Polonaise (A major, Op. 40/1) and the "Drum" or "Heroic" Polonaise (A flat, Op. 53 - from memory).  I'm sure you would recognise them, and I can imagine you saying "Oh, so that's what that tune is; I've heard it lots of times but never knew what it was called".  The Preludes are haunting, but are written in a somewhat ecletic mixture of styles.  For me, they're not for everyday listening; whereas I could listen to the Etudes and the Scherzi every day and never tire of them.  And don't forget the Valses and Mazurkas.  Chopin himself felt the mazurka was his natural home territory, the mazurka being the national dance of his homeland Poland. He wrote only 4 ballades, 4 scherzi and only 1 example of a Barcarolle and some other things.  But he wrote well over 50 mazurkas, all through his composing life.  Ivan Moravec has never been on my personal list of favourite pianists, but he is very highly regarded and very popular, and I'm sure you'd have no reason to be disappointed in his playing.  Now it's time to bite the bullet and buy a CD.  I'm impatient to hear your reaction.  --  JackofOz (talk) 00:31, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Re: Rangers
Right on, man! 81 wins might be pretty high expectations, but I'm hoping for at least the Division title! :) IrisKawling (talk) 02:09, 18 October 2008 (UTC)