Clearing the way

When listening to a native Chinese speaker and writing out the word phonetically, an English speaker might use a certain letter of the Western alphabet to reflect a particular sound. With my recent lessons, I found information for a project more quickly than I would otherwise. Lessening the amount of time between hearing what a person said and understanding what the person meant? It's enough to convince me that this is time and money spent on - well, not purse dogs.

It's also a reminder to control one's information intake. I don't just mean hammering the Recommendations and Trending away from the modern-day equivalent of trashy tabloids. It's alarming how long it's been since I've watched the boring, informative stuff and read how-to books rather than sunk time into networks and print on which opinion has long since supplanted news (sad, but let 'em finish eating each other alive). I'm questioning which wolf my feeds feed, and extending that analysis to non-media information as well.

The next time someone voices an opinion and does that offended little gasp when you dare to offer a contradictory one, then hums to pretend they're OK with it? The next time they doubt your work when you're literally steps away from your goal? (Yeesh. Use a clunky and semi-obsolete gender neutral singular, or a plural?) Remind yourself that you have no obligation to listen to them, and that if they're triggered by their dead aunts and spiritual-political-financial advisors, that's their problem.

Also - cart, specifically a shopping cart, is gou4 wu4 che1. Now what's the word for aisle?