Language Learning Matters

@llmllc.bsky.social

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Education is a human endeavor. Communication is a human right.

Death Valley, California, US Sedimentary rocks that have been worn down over time. Well over 40° in April at the time the photo was taken.
Three origami tulips on paper stems (not pictured: toilet paper roll vase)
The sun shining through the trees, a path winding its way past
The most adorable baby who ever lived (yes, I’m biased) in a two-photo panel. One where the baby is making an OO face & the other with a big smile.
Panel one: a girl lies in bed with a book Text: BUT MY FAVORITE WAS A COMIC BOOK ENTITLED "DIALECTIC MATERIALISM." Panel two: a man with long hair & a mustache (Descartes) begins a conversation with a man with wild hair & a beard (Marx) Text: Descartes: “THE MATERIAL WORLD DOESN’T EXIST, IT’S ONLY A REFLECTION OF OUR OWN IMAGINATION.” Marx: “SAYS YOU!” Panel three: Marx holds a rock in his hand & shows it to Descartes. Text: Marx: “YOU MEAN THAT EVEN THOUGH YOU SEE THIS STONE IN MY HAND IT DOESN'T EXIST SINCE IT'S ONLY IN YOUR IMAGINATION?” Descartes: “EXACTLY.” Panel four: Marx throws the rock at Descartes, hits him in the head, & starts laughing. Text: Descartes: “OUCH! WHAT ARE YOU DOING, KARL, YOU BROKE MY SKULL!”
Rough sketch I did of a frog contemplating the moon on a night lit by firefly-stars. Based on the other drawing.
Coffee machine with display reading PLEASE PLACE CUP AND SELECT DRINK with options including cappuccino, black coffee, & mocha. There is a spot marked for cup placement, & there are fresh coffee beans in a receptacle on top of the machine to be ground as needed. I am guessing it costs less than $1000 an hour.
THE ISLAND OF CHICKEN —a doodle collaboration with my son It is an ink drawing of an island with mountains &, uh, other things, not sure what they are, floating on the sea. In the foreground, the lone surviving chicken examines a drumstick, & it is unclear whether she found it or is eating.
Ink doodle of a hippo in a tutu en pointe atop the Eiffel Tower that I did back in 2016-2017ish, somewhere in there
Written on the cover of a yellow book that was longlisted for the National Book Award (US): NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER WITH A NEW AFTERWORD WEAPONS OF MATH DESTRUCTION HOW BIG DATA INCREASES INEQUALITY AND THREATENS DEMOCRACY CATHY O'NEIL “This is a manual for the 21st-century citizen, and it succeeds where other big data accounts have failed-it is accessible, refreshingly critical, and feels relevant and urgent." - FINANCIAL TIMES
Still from the 2010 film 13 Assassins 3 Japanese men of the Edo Period stand at the ready with weapons wearing ferocious expressions. The man in the center holds an unfurled scroll stained with blood & inked with characters reading TOTAL MASSACRE (translation)
Helen Mirren mixing the evil eye protection heavy metal sign with the sign that means “f____ you” in England with her tongue out while wearing a shirt & tie at some premiere
Sun, sky, & trees reflected in water, at the lake sometime pre-2025
A skull & head in profile (with eye, ear, nose, lips, & oral cavity & pharynx) made out of paper
Skogafoss, Iceland, November 2023 Waterfall with sky & clouds
Cut paper hand & arm
Path in the Serralves gardens, Porto, Portugal, October 2025
Goose running in a party hat next to the words SILLY GOOSE. Brush, ink, & colored pencil.
Mountains & greenery.
Skull front view & side view with lips
Bulletin board with Marimekko patterns from an old catalogue, a rooster saying Olá, a color wheel, low-tech AAC boards, the LLM LLC logo with notes, an incomplete circle representing lack of closure, an illustrated turtle in the woods, cherry blossoms made from Post-Its, the sound-spelling checklist from Dorothy Whitehead (1993), & a giant pink capital B
Fannie Lou Hamer speaking at the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City in 1964.
Rabbit made from paper, reused cardboard, googly eyes, & cotton ball —for a project I’m working on, but right now, he’s wishing you a return of spirit. You can’t be crushed with friends like him. ❤️ 👍
Full-sized skeleton gazing longingly out of a car window
Palm tree made of toilet paper roll & scrap paper
A photo of the White House behind a field of tulips & a fountain which reads NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF KINDNESS, EMPATHY, COMMON DECENCY, GRACE AND HOPE
Digital line drawing of a face with eyebrows & a nose, a neck, a torso, two arms, & a hand held up. The turtleneck has been turned a strange color of green.
Oats with strawberries, kiwi, pecans, sunflower seeds, & spices in a blue & white bowl because we went all out today
A pedestrian suspension bridge to nowhere in the forest with a dark oval added at the terminus for dramatic effect
A bilingual rooster saying hello in Portuguese (rather than in Rooster).
A turtle with a moustache on a log in the woods. Not AI. Photo is mine, drawing is mine. Because we all need a little turtle with a moustache sometimes.
The ceiling in São Bento station. You can see a little of the tilework on the walls.
A Estação de Comboios de Aveiro, Portugal (the train station in Aveiro) —a white building with ornate blue tilework & undulating terra cotta tiles on the roof.
Credit: NASA An image of the moon’s surface Text: Shortly after 2 p.m. EDT, the crew described two small, unnamed craters on the heavily pockmarked lunar surface. Calling down to Earth, they suggested provisional names for them. Just northwest of Orientale basin, highlighted above, is a crater they would like to name Integrity after their spacecraft and this historic mission. Just northeast of the Integrity crater, on the near and far side boundary, and sometimes visible from Earth, the crew suggested an unnamed crater be designated Carroll in honor of Reid Weisman's late wife, Carroll Taylor Wiseman, who passed away on May 17, 2020. After this mission is complete, the crater name proposals will be formally submitted to the International Astronomical Union, an organization that governs the naming of celestial bodies and their surface features.
Boy looks at scary, scary dinosaur with big sharp teeth up close but he’s not scared, no sir
Painting of alien ships firing lasers at 17th Century (?) galleons
A four-leaf clover, conferring good luck upon the finder hopefully
Small pretend fishing boat named DA HISTÓRIA DO BACALHAU II. Not sure what happened to Da História do Bacalhau I …
Two air vents in the wall look like googly eyes
Abandoned chapel covered with graffiti & a partial sign reading DAR NOVA VIDA AO PATRIMÓNIO
Houses stacked on a hillside with graffiti underneath, including a face
Residential buildings, a statue of a man on a horse, a flagpole, & a bunch of seagulls having a lie-in, with a road in the foreground.
Sunrise through an airplane window with thin clouds emphasizing stripes of orange & blue
Black motorcycle jacket worn by a woman who is MOST DEFINITELY NOT Jensen Huang
Four panels from Persepolis done in pen & ink: 1) Young Marjane reads a comic book entitled Dialectic Materialism 2) In Marjane’s book, Marx & Descartes converse. Descartes asserts THE MATERIAL WORLD DOESN’T EXIST IT’S ONLY A REFLECTION OF OUR OWN IMAGINATION. 3) Marx picks up a rock & asks Descartes to confirm it doesn’t exist. Descartes says that it does not. 4) Marx throws the rock at Descartes’s head & starts laughing when it makes contact & Descartes complains that it hurts.
A banana based on the Velvet Underground & Nico album cover that I did back in the 2010s (I think). It is a single banana that is yellow with dark spots, indicating it is overripe.
Phoebe from Friends yelling “MY EYES!” (after being blinded by diamond-encrusted teeth, in this situation)
Still from Mami Wata (2023). A woman three times the size of a typical woman stands in the surf. She is a goddess, with long hair & face paint. She looks down at a woman on the shore.
Split Rock, Pacific Ocean
Switch toy adapter
Lake District, England, a couple of years ago —at least I think it is. Boats, dock, hills, trees, water. Probably Lake District? Maybe. I should really write stuff down. Anyway, have a great day.
Anatomical heart drawing where the heart muscle (the largest part) becomes a red skull
Mt St Helens crater (with smoke) & channels, summer a couple of years ago
Goose running while wearing a party hat next to the words SILLY GOOSE. Done with brush & ink & colored pencils.
The morning sun squeezes in between a cedar trunk & its branches
Wall tiles, Lisbon metro station (repeating circles with embedded half circles)