The more I read, the more I learn...and throw that *&?! Hadley Book at the Wall...I joke. All joking aside the more I'm learning the more I realize NOTHING can replace a first language speaker...I was sitting in a class for children with my child. Henry Nason was the teacher and it was immersion camp at the Bug School 2001. The kids were already familiar with Henry, I had known him...I don't remember not knowing him, but I had never been in the teacher/student situation with him. As a new learner I was trying to write down everything he was teaching. After awhile he asked me "what are you doing back there?". "Trying not to miss anything," I said. Henry said that he would not recommend writing anything down. He told me to say it to myself, if I wanted to remember, to say it, once or twice, or four or seven times...however many times it takes to remember ...he said "you might loose that piece of paper but you'll hopefully never loose your mind. Ninjikanedum -to hold it in your mind...I listened to him that day and that is when I started listening and exercising my brain a little....writing for me reinforces what I am learning, seeing it and creating it with ink on paper starts to make a texture for me... holding it in my mind and then hearing it and then saying it makes it become real. This is when I start to understand what the sounds mean...the sounds that mean making rice (ricing) sound very much like the sounds for making (having) dreams....for example Nikoomis....look up niko....that part of the word....it can be used in many ways, but once you understand that sound you will look at your own Nikoomis a little bit differently. I wanted to say living honestly and found gwayakobimadiziwininini...Bob said another way to say it is gwayakaaidizid-he lives an honest life. gwayak is in reference to the trees, how they stand straight and tall....I used a new sentence from Brian's Boozhoo Dialog in my oral exam...apiiji go minotagwad igaye manidoodad a'aw inwewin...I hope I remembered that correctly because it is true. minotagwaad (sounds good to my ears-good hears on my ears)...mi'iw Mitig.