Updates! Tha Mise agus Gàidhlig Beò Fhathast!

Lots of ground covered in this one, but most importantly, this episode is dedicated to Barbara Lynn Rice.

Barbara was a stalwart supporter of Gaelic in the US and she will be missed by all who knew her.

Barbara loved Gaelic poetry and you can find one of her own Gaelic poems published in Steall 7 here -> https://www.gaelicbooks.org/explore-the-shop/fiction/periodicals/steall-07?lang=en

Instagram and Tiktok: @MichelleLovesGaelic

Music By: Ó hEadhra, Brian & Mackenzie, Fiona: "Latha Dhan Fhìnn am
Beinn Ioghnaidh" (A Day for the Fingalians of Beinn Ioghnaidh)
Performed by Ó hEadhra (vocals), Brian, Mackenzie, Fiona
(vocals) and Vass, Mike (fiddle)

Licensed courtesy of Naxos World

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Make sure it's skill and not lie. Hello how to give it.

SPEAKER_01 0:07

It's Michelle Michelle Hughes. I show Michelle Learns Gallic. Hey everybody.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

Yeah, it's been a minute now. I uh this is gonna kind of be one of those where I just have a number of topics I kind of wanted to talk about just to catch up and see. Well, I guess I can't really see how you're doing, but I can tell you how I'm doing. Hopefully, um, you know, you'll think about reaching out and letting me know what's up. I've had a number of blessings in my life lately. Uh if you've seen my Instagram, you probably know that I've started to slowly upload photos from my trip to Aaron in March. That was pretty rad. And then at the end of April, I got to visit Mole again, which my gosh, what what a beautiful week. Just some absolutely stunning weather with sunshine every day, except the day that we left. So I think Mole is still trying to romance me, and it need not worry, a girl never forgets her first love. But I did just spend the past week in Harris, and ooh, Harris be putting up a fight. We just had some of the best weather we've had yet in Scotland this year. And um, I mean goodness gracious, let's see, we arrived on Sunday, not last Sunday, but the Sunday before, and it was rainy, whatever. But then basically the whole week until like Friday, it was sunny and beautiful every day. I had Langostein rolls from Croft 36 probably almost every day. Huge shout to them. They're so delicious. Highly recommend everything that they do. Yeah, just fantastic weather. We made our way up to Stjornavag, An and Yowis, and Vai Choscanyal, Brin Vrin Sheen, Rish, and Nadinia Avan Show, um well Avan and Well, I'm fucking this Gallic up part of my French. And that was super cool. So yeah, had a really great time still kind of recovering from that. But so this is one of those semi-unstructured episodes, you might say. Just a couple of things I wanted to talk about. Shout out to anybody who is going to Gallic Bio in Tennessee this week. I hope you have an awesome time. My dear friend Kathleen McKay and Cam McGrath are running the event. I think this is the fourth year it's gone on. No, that can't be right. Maybe third year. Ah, I'm not sure to be honest. Um, I did go the first year and it was pretty awesome. Jason Bond and Eliza Mae Peterson are the teachers. They've been back every year. Just a really great time. Some of my favorite people go to this weeklong event. Uh it's probably a bit too late to register now, uh, if you're interested. I don't know, check in with them. But such a good time at um East Tennessee State University and Johnsonville, I think it is, where another like super awesome person that I love to death, uh, a friend of mine lives. So um, yeah, I hope everybody's having a good time at that. Um, and then actually Grandfather Mountain is coming up soon. Um, if you know my origin story, you know about Grandfather Mountain. I generally can't shut up about it. Um, Grandfather Mountain is a week-long Gaelic song and language week that takes place in Banner Elk, North Carolina at Lees McRae College in conjunction with the Grandfather Mountain Highland Games that happened the that well begin the Thursday of that week. So we actually are still open for registration up until the end of June. And my goodness, I certainly hope you consider joining us. I say we because this is my second year helping organize, though. I hope my friend Nicole doesn't think I'm totally like slacking off. It's it's been a bit difficult for me to figure out how to coordinate well while I'm here in Scotland, but I promise I'll do better, Nicole. I promise. But yeah, I'm super looking forward to this year. This year teachers are Brienne O'Hara, Jenny Duncan, and um, oh goodness gracious, and um Jason Bond. I can't bel I just said his name and I can't believe I blanked on it. So an incredible slate of teachers that we have attending this year to, you know, just give us a rousing good time. If you have any questions about Grandfather Mountain, absolutely uh hit me up. Happy to answer anything, but I can tell you basically it's a week-long set of Gaelic classes, um, language and song. Um, we have a Kaylee, we uh have workshops in the afternoon, host a tent at the Highland Games themselves, and run a mod there. So um you can always uh participate in that. I'll be participating as per usual. So yeah, check it out. You can look up Grandfather Mountain on the the Ankommen Gaeloch Merganog website, ACGA. Just if you search ACGA, you'll probably also want to put in the word Gallic because I've noticed before, unfortunately, our SEO, I guess, isn't so great that there's like some agricultural group of America or something that comes up first. But regardless. So yeah, what else is going on? Oh, okay. So a couple of fun things that have come up regarding like pronunciation in Gaelic. So I'm sure you are familiar with this concept of the voiceless G in Gaelic, and it can be really hard to well, I think it's it can be quite hard to understand how to make this sound. I've read a a number of ways, even in bl I've read in Blasna Gallic, I've talked with other people, I've done some Googling I should do, about exactly how to make this sound. And one thing that I found really helpful in some um scholarly work on this was that that it's it seems to be less that the G is not voiced at all, the letter G is not voiced at all in Gaelic, because if it were never voiced, then it wouldn't actually not be different in any way from like a k sound, right? Except for we kind of associate a lack of aspiration with a G. But can you make a vo a G sound I don't know. Anyways, I'm getting slightly to the side and about to say things that I think are incorrect, so I'm gonna stop there. But my point being that what these articles said is that it's not that the G is completely voiceless, and the same for this idea of a voiceless B versus P, right? It's that um it's the onset time of sound. So it's that it's it when it is voiceless, it takes longer for sound to actually occur than normally would when you say a voiced G. I don't know if this was helpful to you. It was helpful for me to read about and it and it helped me stop stressing about that to quite the extent that I was, because I was just like losing my mind over it. But I'll tell you one thing that actually really helped me with this. So you probably I say that wow. What an assumption to think you've probably seen this post of me singing on Instagram. You probably haven't. I don't know. Um, but anyways, one of the songs that I was learning from my teacher, Wilma, is Ailen Dun. Actually, it's not Ailen Dun. Ailen Dun is another song. Actually, there's like a couple of songs I've learned that are that are uh about a brown-haired lad named Alan. But I think this one is Ailen Sadunkato. I actually feel like I don't know exactly what the name of the song is. But anyway, it's just like Ailen Sadankato Hanushakati. Okay, so point being in the second verse there's Ailen the ingskoin speakety. And when I was trying to sing this line, Ailen the skin spigady I was having trouble with a gaity, right? It's uh like a gay, like w like rise up, wake up, whatever. But because my G was like too heavy, the g spetty, spigati, spigady, right? I couldn't uh I couldn't move through to the 80 how I needed to to sing it. I was like, why is it why am I struggling? Speaker Because I was stuck on spigetiri, g you know, voicing that g. So when when when I kind of thought about my attack on uh going into well, into the G and out of it, speakeri, I lightened what I was doing and that made me understand a little bit more about how uh I can't necessarily say how the voiceless G works because I'm not sure that I quite accomplished that in speaking Gaelic often or all the time, but I understand how important it is kind of more functionally than I did before because I just couldn't get that line to work. I couldn't get that line right without it, you know? Like I just couldn't bounce off that G in the same way. So I don't know. I thought that was kind of cool. How useful that is to you, I don't know, your your mileage may vary. But speaking about like pronunciation, intonation stuff, I'm kind of at this stage where I started a short course with someone, and I suffered a really intense blow to my ego. I mean, just like being totally honest, like super intense blow to my ego. You know, I I I did well on my Solomorostake exam insofar as the grading system is totally weird here, and I still don't get it. And by the grades that I got, I would have like nearly failed a class in the US or got a very not great grade, but someone told me this is normal for here and this is how the grading system works. So we're just gonna say I fucking murdered it. Uh again, apologies for my French. Apparently I haven't got the filter on that I quite usually do. So if you have children, so sorry. Or if you just don't like those words, also sorry. For what it's worth, I am a huge fan of curse words. That's a topic for probably a different podcast, not about Gallic. Anyways, so anywho, I was doing I did read this like script that I wrote and read through some dialogue. The first time for the first time ever, I've gotten feedback about intonation. And it it threw me for a minute, right? Like, um, I had a general understanding of like the idea that when you ask a question in Gaelic, it doesn't really go your intonation doesn't really it's not really supposed to go up. It's supposed to kind of go down, like so not come out a how, right? But come out a ho, right? Fine. Yeah, totally get that. I think I I think I try for that. I'm not sure I always accomplish it, but I try for that. But um basically the feedback was that I need to sound like or no, I'm sorry, I need to work on my intonation so that I don't sound like a totally basic learner. And I thought, are you kidding me? Not because I thought I like have great pronunciation or like I sound like a native or anything like that, but I thought, if it is that bad, after after, you know, I mean, basically I'm on my third year of learning. Why has no one ever said anything? Why have I not been taught this? Why has my attention not been drawn to it? Yes, I've read Blas Nigalic so many times, but I'm not gonna lie when I say that maybe I skimmed over that part a bit. And then I just thought, like, uh I'm not skeptical about the person who's giving me this feedback. I mean, I'm paying them to give me feedback anyways, but I thought, why is no one else that I'm paying for tuition telling me this if it is that bad? And it honestly, this has just been eating at my brains for, well, like a week now. Yeah, yeah, it's like literally seven days now. And so here I am about to dive back into Blas Nagallic. I'm listening to every everything I can to really try and understand if I can hear what she's saying mm. I didn't mean to gender them because I'm not trying to speak specifically about anyone, but uh I I'm trying to listen for what they've said about uh the intonation and what they say that sounds like and I either I can't hear it or I I I don't know. I don't know. It's it's it's difficult to take this feedback because I'm I'm I'm thinking like, is it that this hasn't been so relevant to every other teacher I've had or they've thought that's not worth working on or it's not something that is a focus for them? Like I I I it this is the first source of this that I've had. And so it's just thrown me for a loop. And I suspect there is also this this potential issue and and I'm of two minds of how to resolve it. Where, you know, even I think native speakers like young people have so much English influence, um, you know, because they're also native English speakers that um their Gallic intonation is is quite likely or potentially influenced by their English intonation. And so I mean, I'm not sure I I think I understand what uh constitutes a technically authentic intonation. I mean, certainly like if you listen to Tolbera and Dulfish or things like that, you probably get it, and certain other speakers. But I wonder if to some extent it's difficult for me to to really hear it because that intonation maybe isn't as obvious or as strong as it once was in most available media sources that are are more modern than than, you know, sound files on Toburn Thul ish. Yeah. Just saying this is like something I'm kind of struggling with at the moment. Um it it's like, you know, it's ye all one step forward, two steps back, but it's fine. I'm committed to doing well, and it's just another thing to solve for. It's just uh yeah, I was like, oh man, my feel my feelings were so hurt. So, oh well. Anyways, yeah. Um, if you have any thoughts or tips on intonation, if you've had anybody kind of talk to you about it or point it out to you or whatever, yeah, let me know. I would I would love any kind of advice, feedback, directionality. What have you heard? What haven't you heard? You know, whatever. So yeah. Some other things to talk about. I got all my songs submitted for the mod, so that one, two, three, four, five, six, seven competitions. Eight, if I make it past the silver learners qualifying competition, so nine songs. I'm actually really super excited about the songs I have selected. And I really, honestly, I really hope I make it to the Silver Learners pendant final because the my my own choice song is a banger and I can't wait to learn it. And I really hope I get to sing it. Oh God, I love it so much. So it's nice to, it's nice to kind of have the choosing part behind me. And so far, I've got like I'd say four and three quarters of the songs learned. Um, I say three quarters because the one that I'm currently working on is the silver trad. And I've got like six of the eight verses memorized. I've I've I've I'm nearly there. No, no, no. I would say seven of the eight memorized, but like the last the last two that I've learned are the weakest because I've just learned them. And then the the final one I'm I'm kind of still getting into my head, but I can't I I can't wait to kind of have that under my belt so it just becomes a regular practice thing and refinement, and then I get to start uh learning a new song. So that's pretty cool. If you are in Glasgow for the mod, I would love to see you. If you're competing in the mod, let me know. Choir, solo, instrumental, whatever. I would love to support you in whatever you're doing. Yeah. If if you're in Glasgow for the mod, let me know. I I would love to see you. Let's see, what else? Oh, so I do a creative writing workshop every or oh, sorry, uh every Wednesday I go to a creative writing group with, oh my gosh, just the greatest, most awesome group of people, incredible writers. I think there's maybe like if we're full in, we've got maybe like eight people. So it's quite a small group, and goodness gracious, I'm so happy that I've uh become a part of this group through just like an absolute act of divine providence, I think, and how that came about. The the the talent in this group of people, the wisdom, the the kindness. I don't even know what to say. Like like it it I look forward to 10 like to 1230 to 230 every week, like anticipation. And some of the best writing I've that I've ever done in my life has come from this. And I just love it. But so, anyways, for six weeks we did a workshop um with um a young woman who is working on her PhD for I think it's in creative writing and um climate change. Uh I'm so sorry, Rihanna, and I can't remember exactly how it goes, even though I know you don't listen to this podcast, it feels rude. But her thesis is focused on how we might be able to use creative writing as a means of kind of working through and dealing with our feelings around climate change and how doing that may actually um serve us um in in actually trying to manage it in in real life. And so we did this six-week workshop with her, and you know, basically we'll send her whatever output we have, and it may or may not get published as part of her thesis. So I've been working on a thing and I'm super excited about so far. The story is like 20 pages long, which is insane. I've never written anything like that. And but what the reason why I'm mentioning it here is because I'm really doing my best to kind of naturally include some Gaelic in it. Not a lot, and it's like words here or there, but not in that uber terrible, like exploitative way, like with the fourth wing stuff and whatever. But like, you know, like Gallic in a way that I think is natural, but also I did this cool workshop in Edinburgh. It was two Saturdays, like four hours long or something each. And um, it was basically like trying to think about the connections between like OM and the Gallic alphabet and trees and nature and how we can like use these things as inspiration for for making improvisational music. It was super interesting. I got a lot out of it, though I'm not sure what I got out of it was what the uh what the workshop intended. But what it did do is kind of give me uh some inspiration to include some OM in my piece for this uh climate change writing. So I wrote a a little piece in Gaelic from the perspective of the trees, and then I wrote it in OM. So I don't know, seems cool to me. I'm I'm pretty excited by it actually. And it was a good exercise and in a nice different way of kind of engaging with Gallic, even. So yeah, super interesting. And kind of along those lines, in terms of interesting stuff that I've been doing with the Gallic, I've been taking morning classes Tuesdays and Wednesdays at Unloch Ren, which again, if you follow anything else, you know how much I love Unlochren and how much gratitude I have to Unlochren. This has been an essential community in my life since I've come to Glasgow, especially for connecting me with Gallic and with people whom I just absolutely adore. But, anyways, something that's been really fun is the teacher has been working with myself and this other student, Ian, and giving us like some like existential words, like like like heavy, abstract words on the Gaelic. Um, and I was like, yes, I'm so excited. I can't wait to like have totally irritating conversations in Gaelic too, you know, because he's like, his his thought was like one of the things that might help really enhance our speaking is, you know, we need vocabulary, um, but it can be difficult when you don't have a shared vocabulary with someone. Um, so you can you can it it it's not so exciting to just learn useful everyday vocabulary, especially if you're a weirdo like me. But then if you learn, you know, some of these more, you might say abstract words, mm, many learners aren't going to have them. So this has helped bridging that gap a little, but like uh like a word like fun words, like failesenoch, so philosophy, is kruachoch, abstract, so which is like waterfall, and kruachoch from like kruochil, like creative. So that was pretty cool. Behalus, existentialism, ooh. Like theology. What oh, I'm having a hard time reading my own handwriting. Struvochy, stream of consciousness. Oh, and they told us like a word, or I'm sorry, like I guess the name for the man on the moon. Kalumna Yalich. What else? For meditating. Yeah. I don't know. I was like, ooh, these are super fun words. Oh, he gave us another today. Where did I write it? Oh, Basforach? No, Basvorch. No, I wrote this down wrong. Basvorach. Shoot. I'm gonna have to look it up. It was a word for mortality. Anyways, super fun. Loving this so much. If you like to have these kinds of conversations, let me know. We can chat on Sagalic. And maybe um, maybe I'll write uh sorry, maybe I'll read for you at the end of this the super weird like essay thing I wrote for the class using some of these words. Also, cool thing at Unlochren, I've been helping lead a conversation circle for um beginning learners, so learners at A1, A2 level, with a friend Melvin. And I mean, he's super great at Gaelic, like way better than me, of course. But um, I'm hoping that what I can at least bring to it is enthusiasm and uh uh a a lack of fear of making mistakes and and having him correct me or or being like, How do we say this? I'm not sure, even though it seems like something I should know, because sometimes my brain doesn't work or I just forget. And and showing that it's okay to do that. I did end up making a Jeopardy game, Ounce Gallic, also. I think it was super fun. We didn't really have enough people to play the whole thing quite as you normally would, but it was still really good. And I think it and we had a good time. So I I wanna I wanna maybe take that with me to Grandfather Mountain. Maybe we can play it there. What else? What else? Oh yeah. Well, I feel a bit shy and awkward about this, but how what um what order do I want to mention this in? Um, okay. So one cool thing that's happened, but that is also a bit of a source of stress at the moment, is um I applied for and got into the Bliana Volgi at UniGlasgow. So um I applied for the immersion year at University of Glasgow because um some people I know have said that it's like a really great course and it did a lot for them. And I knew it would be expensive, but I wasn't sure I'd even get a spot, so I thought, oh what the heck? Let's just let's just try for it. You know, we'll we'll deal with funding if I even get a spot. Well I didn't get a spot. And I know the first thing most people ask me is Michelle, why aren't you going up to Salmar Osteak to do Uncursor Comish instead? Joe Hesht. It's because the cur the uh Uncursicomish at Salmore Osteak is double the price of that at um Uni Glasgow. And also I think like, you know, I it's just uh I would find it a bit hard at the moment, I think, to leave the community that that I've been welcomed into in Glasgow so soon and and rebuild a bit, you know. I mean also like with Solmarostik, you know, it's it's not that their students are any younger than the students at Glasgow uni, you know, but it's more like here I can also find people my age, you know, more easily or or or closer to my age cohort. And so and and I do actually know one of the other people who got accepted too. He's super rad, he's in a choir with me, um kosha qui, Le Josie Duncan. And um, he's in a rival choir though, because he's in the Ela Gallic choir uh because he's from Ela. And I am in the Glasgow Gallic choir. So you know, we we we can only be friends some of the time. But anyways, sidetrack. But like Liana Volge is 24,000 pounds a year for international students. Guess who doesn't have 24,000 pounds just lying around? Uh that would be me. So I have got to figure out how to get funding for this. So please, please, please, if you have any any thoughts or ideas, know of anyone who might be able to point me in a direction, know of any grants or things like that I might be able to apply for, please do let me know. I have basically till September to figure this out because the first day is September 21st. I'm pretty sure they probably want you to pay a bit before that. So I've got like a cool like two and a half months to figure this out. Um, so anything, any suggestions, any pointers, any tips, anything you have in mind, I would be so grateful. I I desperately want to do this. I want I want this more than anything. Well, more than anything right now. There's plenty of other things I want, but that's like a you know, whatever. But I just I I know this would just do so much for my Gaelic. And I it's it's like a dream to be in Gaelic for like five hours a day, five days a week, along with other things going on. Ugh. And I do love me a rigorous college level course. But any any ideas would totally be welcome. I am thinking about different things I might be able to do, like maybe like reading groups for like a s you know, like donations accepted, or um, you know, maybe holding like a concert with myself and maybe some other people, you know, singing the songs I'm learning for the mod or whatever, and then maybe some other people who might be willing to donate some time. And like having some like silent auctions for like some gift baskets that I can put together in some art that I'm making from like the places I've gone, these these islands I've gotten to go to, and the Harris tweed that I bought in Harris. But yeah, any, any, any ideas. And and it doesn't have to be like grants and scholarships and stuff. Super helpful. Any ideas you have, creative ideas for fundraising and stuff like that, too. Please, please, please, please. I would be so grateful for your help. And I will, as always, do my best to figure out how to pay that forward too. So yeah, that's super exciting. I'm so excited. I'm also terrified and worried, but you know, whatever. We live, we live for the next day. To that point, the thing that I was gonna mention that I was like I felt sh a bit shy and a bit, eh, yeah, I feel a bit scared of doing, but whatever. What am I in my year of yes or my eat prey love or whatever? Um, but I so you may or may not know, but I lost my job in December. So I've been living on savings and it's like no TMI or anything, and this is not like a this is not meant to dis illicit anything for anyone. It maybe gives some context about like my slight freakout about the the cost of the tuition at Uni Glasgow, you know, because like it's not as easy as just go get a loan. Nobody really wants to give you those when you don't have a job. But I have been thinking about, yeah, different ways of trying to earn why I'm trying to find a job anywhere, doing anything, even in my industry that I've been in for so long. But I'm thinking about starting, well, I'm not thinking about starting. I have thought about, and I have the gear for, thankfully it was low investment, but to start busking um in Gallic, like I don't really see anybody doing that. So I don't know if it's like passe or uncool to do, like maybe like in the culture. Um, but I had this thought when I've been in Edinburgh and sometimes down in like city center in Glasgow, and I hear the 50th iteration of Allah Gupra on the bagpipes. And honestly, like it does kind of make me want to stab my eardrums out sometimes. I mean it's just like I know why they're playing it, I get it, I understand, and as like tourists, it's gonna be so exciting. But I'm like, seriously, there are other songs, right? But um, whatever's I hope these people are, you know, getting their coin. But what I kind of thought about is like, you know, people come to these places and they're like, ooh, full Scottish experience, you know, people from outside Scotland. And and they're so excited and they hear the bagpipes or the whatever. But like, um, it may be a fiddle here or there, but like if they're hearing singers, it's usually some singer-songwriter or some people on karaoke, which don't even get me started on that, but whatever. Um, but I thought, like, you know, how many of them know that Gaelic exists? And how many of them know about the the beauty and the wonder of Gaelic song? I mean, I just freaking love Gaelic song so much. And so I thought, well, why shouldn't they hear Gallic? Why shouldn't they know that Gaelic exists and why, why, why can't they maybe, why shouldn't they have maybe heard some Gaelic song before they leave Scotland? And so, I mean, it's not entirely altruistic. I'm not stupid, obviously. I'm trying to also earn some money, but I but to me it's like um a bit mutually beneficial. You know, it's exposing people um where they might not get exposed otherwise and maybe generating some some meaningful cultural interaction and interest there, but also maybe gonna help me earn a couple of bucks here or there to put towards my um raising money for Bleena Volge and living in Glasgow f during that entire year fund. So yeah, um I guess if you make your way to Edinburgh or Glasgow, maybe you'll catch me singing a Gallic song or two on the on the streets. So, anywho, the kind of next to last, well, maybe I've got now I'll save that. The next to last thing that I kind of wanted to talk about is what I opened the episode with. And this is a shout out to um assistant band director Mr. Bundy, Riverview High School. So I went to Riverview High School in Warsaw, Ohio, and I was in the color guard, uh, in the marching band. Uh, if you don't know what color guard is, it's probably better that you look it up than me try to explain it. Basically, it's flag twirling, but while running across an American football field to marching band music and trying not to hit try, you know, people playing trombones or flutes or whatever with your flags as you even out of them tossing those flags and twirling them all over the place. It's way cooler than it sounds. It's totally a sport. Um, but I learned a lot from Sir, Mr. Thomas McGlish, um, our band director, but Mr. Bundy was also a a passionate, well, I guess he still is, I shouldn't say was as if he's not with us. He's a passionate and dedicated educator and musician. And the one thing that he said to us all the time was make sure it's skill and not luck. So that when we went out onto the field to perform for competitions, that that when we received our superior ratings, those things happened because we took the time to build the skill to be able to execute when we needed and wanted to at a moment's notice, right? We didn't have to hope that things would go well. We didn't have to pray that luck would be on our side and that we get it right this time. We prepared so that when we called upon the things that we needed to execute, we had the skills to support that, right? And I was thinking about this for the past couple days, and I thought this is a really good philosophy for for language learning and and and for Gaelic, right? Like, you know, so so many people um are like, well, I just you know, I just need to speak. I just I just don't have any opportunities to speak, and I'm not denying that, I know what that's like, right? But you can't you can't hope that when you go into a com when you finally go into a conversation you'll be lucky enough that suddenly the the words appear and the structures form perfectly in your brain and come out perfectly out of your mouth. You have got to build the skill. You know, so it's not just the reading and the writing and the listening, it's the actual skill of speaking to. You can't build any of this without the hours. You have to put the hours of practice in. You do all the foundational things that support it, but you still have to execute. So when we went on the field, right, for for marching band competitions, we didn't just have the the the foundational skills of, you know, people knowing how to play their instruments, knowing the techniques they needed, having learned the music, right? Like, and and or like knowing like our color guard routines and things like that. It was we had all of that as a foundation, but we spent hours, hours a day practicing, executing those shows over and over and over. And that's what speaking Gaelic is like. That is what being a functional human in Gaelic is like. You are the the thing is, is and and it was not unlike this for marching band either, but you're building your foundation and practicing your skill at the same time. You've got you've got to do them in tandem kind of, unless you want to take your entire lifetime to actually have a conversation, right? So, so I just want you to maybe when you go into your studies this week, when you go into your classes, when you go into a conversation circle, right? Think about what you've done, what what foundations you've laid, and then use it, use it, use it. Because there will be a point in time when those hours of practice have turned that that that thing into no, how do I want to say this? It's good, those hours of practice are gonna mean something. Those hours of speaking, speaking terribly, are going to turn into conversations that that happen well and naturally and they flow and and you you can explain yourself and you feel understood and you're understanding, right? Because you have taken the time to actually build the skill with support from the foundations you built. I hope that makes sense. But just I think if you start, if you use this as a guiding light, I think it can really help. And and I'm I'm gonna use that for myself too, right? Like, like what are the what are the foundational things that I'm doing to build this so that when I go to practice speaking, right? When I go to have conversations with people, it is helping me get to the point where speaking is a skill that I'm not just hoping that today is a good day and the words line up properly and the grammar works perfectly in my brain because I know it takes hours and hours of practice for it to do that. So yeah. Hope that makes sense. Normally I would sign off with my let's get better together, which I kind of want to do, so I'll do it now. Let's get better together. But I just want to take a moment at the end of this episode to uh remember someone important to the Gallic community who passed away recently. Some of you may know Barbara Lynn Rice. I met Barbara through a a Gallic reading group that I was lucky enough to be invited to, and I went a couple of times, I skipped sometimes, and then I started to feel bad about skipping, so then I started started not showing up, and then got worse and worse, and then like now I'm here in Scotland and it's at like three o'clock in the morning my time now. But that's beside the point. Barbara was in that group and I got to know her a little bit. And when I was in New York Tartan Week this past April, you know, Barbara and I got to talk a bit about how things were going in her life, you know, what she was up to, and and you know, she performed in the New York Tartan Week mod um with a poem, and it was just really lovely to get to chat with her. But unfortunately, things happen as they do, and she's no longer with us. You know, Barbara was a part of the New York Caledonian Club. She was on the Scottish Studies Committee. Uh, she was actually chairperson of that committee, and she was a board member for Uncommon Gaelic America. She was a director and vice president of the American well, same thing, right? The American Scottish Gaelic Society. That's what the ACGA is. She was a fantastic fiddle player and a flautist. She had won multiple awards for uh Gaelic poetry recitation and even a an award for an original poem she wrote in Gaelic at the U.S. National Maud. And she has even had work published in the Stiell anthology, which is a Gallic writing anthology. Uh, she's published in the seventh edition. I need to get my hands on it. And I was actually hoping to read one of her poems for you, but I haven't found it in time. So I will follow up with that. But just Barbara was really passionate about Gaelic and and and a really great learner and a great teacher. And I think it's just really sad to um to lose to lose a good person. I guess what else can be said, but just this one's for you, Barbara. I hope. I hope you're at peace. And I hope that wherever you are, you're getting to use that galaxy still. Um yeah, I know you'll be missed.