Peace in a Pod

Let me acknowledge from the outset that not being able to travel nationally or internationally is by no means the greatest fallout of COVID-19. I think that much is obvious but I feel the need to say it nonetheless. Having said that, pre-pandemic when life got rough or it was all a bit too much, we always had the excitement of a holiday to look forward to, whether that was a weekend break away here in Ireland or a longer stint somewhere further afield.  Despite making use of the lockdown to read, meditate, spend time more productively and, of course, make banana bread, I long for the high-energy adrenaline rush that comes with air travel. There’s the paranoia of going through airport security: grappling for the <100ml liquids to squish into the plastic bag, or entertaining the irrational thoughts that, despite having never taken Class A drugs in my life, the X-ray machine may somehow find traces of cocaine in my luggage. Not forgetting the thrill of eating a dinner on an airborn...

One of my New Year's Resolutions this year was to complete the Duolingo French course (I’m anything if not ambitious, clearly). It was while I was sitting on the couch a few days ago testing myself on my reflexive verbs, the weak Spring sunshine gleaming through the window, that I was suddenly filled with this feeling of just pure exoticism? (Read again, that’s EXOTICISM, not EROTICISM. I know French is a sexy language, but please, take your tête out of the gutter.) It felt like I was in holiday mode, basking in the sun (albeit indoors) and uttering phrases in smooth-sounding French. And of course, me being me, it made me think about additional-language-learning and how it impacts on us emotionally and psychologically. I have always loved languages and, in my time as as a psychology student, the field of psycholinguistics, which is the science of language acquisition. I was raised more or less bilingually, English being my native tongue followed closely by Irish, passed down to m...