So... school. Things keep happening. Western Civ is going ok, I think, we're reading Italian Journey by Johann Wolfgang von Geothe, which is a beautiful book, but I'm not sure how well I'll discuss it. The past two have been pretty heavily philosophical books, but this one is just a guy on a trip and his musings. He gives great description though.
Also on the subject of Italian, after having backed off of Italian I now need to put the pedal to the metal again, at least until I take a placement test to see what class I should start with at KU in the Fall. It'll be soonish, but now I have a list of things I should study, so I'll get to writing myself discussions and things about those and bother anyone who will listen so I can remember everything.
What else... I'm giving a speech in public speaking (who'da thunk?) on Tuesday, but now that my outline's done I'm not so worried about it. Papers come up due in Composition II rather often... at some point some of these classes will cool down a bit, but the others will heat up (Western Civ will get harder around midterms, for sure), so I guess there's going to be this balance throughout the semester. Except for Italian, which will be really hard for a bit here and then just go poof! gone.
I find I'm already looking forward to June and Camp NaNoWriMo, since a friend and I started creating yet another language, and the people are just begging for a story so I can get ahold of their culture so I can work on their language some more. And that winds up taking more time than you might think, what with the two being intertwined.
But for right now, homework + Italian studying. Non stop. Should be fun. Maybe I'll blog something again someday.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Oh, I'm Supposed to Blog Again!
Right, that goal of trying to post twice a month. It's nearly not January any more, and I've only posted once. Guess I should fix that.
School's been going on for a few weeks now, but I'm having a hard time finding a routine. Tuesdays and Thursdays I'm up at the college late, maybe, but it's never predictable. Late may mean until six, or maybe until five, or sometimes not really all that late, if someone's hanging around at about three. It messes with my homework routine, though, if I don't know when I'll have to leave. That's probably why I hit burnout with my Italian. Trying to work out two lessons, six days a week, along with accomplishing all of the school I want to doesn't really work, I've found. Since unfortunately school has to take priority, so I'm backing off of Italian and going to a few lessons a week along with a little more time spent on native materials, which at this point can be more entertaining anyway. At this point I think it's what I need to push me to a higher fluency level anyway, as textbooks can only get me so far.
The class that will be heaviest on homework (I think) starts today, since for some reason it was a late-start this semester. I'll lose a few hours of homework time to class, and I get a fair amount of more homework: not exactly the nicest arrangement, but I suppose we work with what we can get.
Oh well, I guess that's all for today. I may have had some somewhat interesting musings before, but I've forgotten them in the rush of getting a post up. Ta!
School's been going on for a few weeks now, but I'm having a hard time finding a routine. Tuesdays and Thursdays I'm up at the college late, maybe, but it's never predictable. Late may mean until six, or maybe until five, or sometimes not really all that late, if someone's hanging around at about three. It messes with my homework routine, though, if I don't know when I'll have to leave. That's probably why I hit burnout with my Italian. Trying to work out two lessons, six days a week, along with accomplishing all of the school I want to doesn't really work, I've found. Since unfortunately school has to take priority, so I'm backing off of Italian and going to a few lessons a week along with a little more time spent on native materials, which at this point can be more entertaining anyway. At this point I think it's what I need to push me to a higher fluency level anyway, as textbooks can only get me so far.
The class that will be heaviest on homework (I think) starts today, since for some reason it was a late-start this semester. I'll lose a few hours of homework time to class, and I get a fair amount of more homework: not exactly the nicest arrangement, but I suppose we work with what we can get.
Oh well, I guess that's all for today. I may have had some somewhat interesting musings before, but I've forgotten them in the rush of getting a post up. Ta!
Friday, January 13, 2012
Huh... 3000 Pageviews
Happened to see on my dashboard today that I have exactly 3k pageviews on this blog. That's not a tiny number, as far as numbers go, but when it's applied to a blog it doesn't mean much, considering how long it's been hanging around and whatnot.
Not that I particularly mind. I've hardly gone out of my way to promote this thing or put any sort of sensational content to draw readers, and it makes me no money regardless seeing as I haven't hooked it up to adsense. Just an interesting bit.
At any rate, I've been working on catching up with Italian work and finding myself considering what language I want to work on next. Swahili? Japanese? Spanish or French? Right this second I'm thinking something a little bit useful, which in all honesty means probably Spanish but currently in my head means Japanese because... IMPORTS! I guess.
At any rate, currently my Italian listening comprehension still stinks, and until I improve that I doubt I should really move on to much else. Grammatically I'm improving day by day, though, I'm still working through my Assimil course and recently I was blessed with an Italian email penpal, someone I actually get along well with, seeing as we share a lot of common interests. Which brings me back to wanting to learn Japanese for the sake of watching more Anime and reading more Manga and getting newer video games, although anymore everything is region-locked so there's no real bonus on that front, if I'm honest...
Current plan is to resume making concerted effort with listening comprehension, probably utilizing my previous recordings and the constant input of every other kind of audio I can get my hands on. It gets boring to me, listening intently, I'm more of a reader to be honest, but listening is what I need, and there's no other way to fix my comprehension than just listening and comprehending. And speaking. More of that.
Not that I particularly mind. I've hardly gone out of my way to promote this thing or put any sort of sensational content to draw readers, and it makes me no money regardless seeing as I haven't hooked it up to adsense. Just an interesting bit.
At any rate, I've been working on catching up with Italian work and finding myself considering what language I want to work on next. Swahili? Japanese? Spanish or French? Right this second I'm thinking something a little bit useful, which in all honesty means probably Spanish but currently in my head means Japanese because... IMPORTS! I guess.
At any rate, currently my Italian listening comprehension still stinks, and until I improve that I doubt I should really move on to much else. Grammatically I'm improving day by day, though, I'm still working through my Assimil course and recently I was blessed with an Italian email penpal, someone I actually get along well with, seeing as we share a lot of common interests. Which brings me back to wanting to learn Japanese for the sake of watching more Anime and reading more Manga and getting newer video games, although anymore everything is region-locked so there's no real bonus on that front, if I'm honest...
Current plan is to resume making concerted effort with listening comprehension, probably utilizing my previous recordings and the constant input of every other kind of audio I can get my hands on. It gets boring to me, listening intently, I'm more of a reader to be honest, but listening is what I need, and there's no other way to fix my comprehension than just listening and comprehending. And speaking. More of that.
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
I'm All Out of Post Titles
I think a new shipment of blog post titles comes in later this week. Maybe we'll get lucky.
Anyway, one of my goals this year is to blog regularly, according to a schedule I set as opposed to just whenever I happen to remember long enough to write one.
Turns out that schedule is going to be twice a month. Not so often I get tired of it and start writing really boring posts, but often enough that maybe I'll keep it in my head to post once in a while.
I've already listed out my other goals, I suppose, but there's not been a whole lot of other things going on, as early as it is in the year. I've been chugging away at my Italian, and I should finish my book in late February, after which I'll have to move on to something else, I suppose. By that time I hope to be able to read books and newspapers and things like that in Italian. What gets tricky is that I have to get it through my thick head that it's not just for fun. When something is easy enough just to be fun it means I need to move on to something more complicated or difficult. If I'm not getting anything wrong it means it's time to move up.
I remember hearing about an article (classic internet-infused teenagerism: "I read an article... well, the majority of an article, about how...") that said the people who keep themselves from reaching a plateau on their knowledge or ability of something is that they force themselves to a level higher than they really should be, allow themselves to make mistakes, keep themselves from getting comfortable. That's really the hard part, getting yourself to try something new and move on.
Let's see how that goes.
Anyway, one of my goals this year is to blog regularly, according to a schedule I set as opposed to just whenever I happen to remember long enough to write one.
Turns out that schedule is going to be twice a month. Not so often I get tired of it and start writing really boring posts, but often enough that maybe I'll keep it in my head to post once in a while.
I've already listed out my other goals, I suppose, but there's not been a whole lot of other things going on, as early as it is in the year. I've been chugging away at my Italian, and I should finish my book in late February, after which I'll have to move on to something else, I suppose. By that time I hope to be able to read books and newspapers and things like that in Italian. What gets tricky is that I have to get it through my thick head that it's not just for fun. When something is easy enough just to be fun it means I need to move on to something more complicated or difficult. If I'm not getting anything wrong it means it's time to move up.
I remember hearing about an article (classic internet-infused teenagerism: "I read an article... well, the majority of an article, about how...") that said the people who keep themselves from reaching a plateau on their knowledge or ability of something is that they force themselves to a level higher than they really should be, allow themselves to make mistakes, keep themselves from getting comfortable. That's really the hard part, getting yourself to try something new and move on.
Let's see how that goes.
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Huh, It's Late December...
It's that time of limbo where the Christmas rush is suddenly over, you're still on winter vacation, it's not the New Year yet, but you feel like you're about ready to leave the current one behind. Or maybe not. I wind up considering by New Year's goals and figuring out what I want to do next year.
Of course surviving college is on that list, since I'm taking 19 credit hour next semester and then transferring to a four-year university in the fall, and that goal is probably going to stay on the list until I'm out of college, in which case it'll probably be changed to finding/keeping a job or something.
I've got a few Italian goals, little things to count as milestones: finishing up my current Italian course, achieving a B2 level of fluency, finishing the entire Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in Italian, writing a short story in Italian (that last I feel would signal to myself that I have a reasonable mastery of the language that I can construct a thousand words or so of comprehensible script, which in my opinion is an accomplishment). I'd like to start a new language as well, maybe Swahili or something, but those Italian goals come first.
Also linguistically related, I'm sort of putting my created language, Ganyi, on hold. It doesn't appear I'll have too much time to devote to it, and I didn't even complete my goal for it this year (yes, I technically have a few days left to work on it, but I have plenty of other things to do at this point as well, like catching up on my Italian work). So for now it gets the goal of adding at least 100 words to the language and we'll just sort of go for a slow but steady pace of improving the vocabulary, which is largely what it needs at this point. I can't just randomly assign words though, I want to have my etymologies straight and common roots and all of that jazz, so it's not as simple as just any little algorithm to work it out.
Piano playing makes the list, in the spirit that I don't want to drop it. I want to improve my jazz and blues playing skills (I'm not adding a great quantifier to that, no, but as my jazz and blues skills are currently non-existent, I'll know when they're actually there, and that means they've improved. I'd also like to work up at least ten pieces to, well, I guess performance level, even though I don't expect to perform them. Maybe offertory or something at church.
What else... I would like to blog somewhat regularly, maybe weekly with a few excepted weeks. Maybe I'll shoot for twice monthly. Also a little fitness goal, and something fun like memorizing "Fox in Socks," and then something NaNoWriMo-esque: I want to participate in either one of the Camp NaNoWriMos (I'm thinking June) or else the original flavor of NaNoWriMo, in November. It is not on my list to do both a Camp NaNo and the regular one, since I doubt I'll want to try a NaNo challenge in November when I'm away from home. August is when school starts and I'll be moving and such then, so I'm thinking ideally we'll go for June, when school is out but there's not usually a whole lot else.
So that's about my plan for the next year. We'll see how it holds up under stress. It's not that I care much about planning the whole thing out, but the lists I make up are sort of reminders of things I'd like to accomplish, things I want to perpetuate, an organizing exercise, of sorts. So, yeah. I'm off to enjoy my time of limbo!
Of course surviving college is on that list, since I'm taking 19 credit hour next semester and then transferring to a four-year university in the fall, and that goal is probably going to stay on the list until I'm out of college, in which case it'll probably be changed to finding/keeping a job or something.
I've got a few Italian goals, little things to count as milestones: finishing up my current Italian course, achieving a B2 level of fluency, finishing the entire Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in Italian, writing a short story in Italian (that last I feel would signal to myself that I have a reasonable mastery of the language that I can construct a thousand words or so of comprehensible script, which in my opinion is an accomplishment). I'd like to start a new language as well, maybe Swahili or something, but those Italian goals come first.
Also linguistically related, I'm sort of putting my created language, Ganyi, on hold. It doesn't appear I'll have too much time to devote to it, and I didn't even complete my goal for it this year (yes, I technically have a few days left to work on it, but I have plenty of other things to do at this point as well, like catching up on my Italian work). So for now it gets the goal of adding at least 100 words to the language and we'll just sort of go for a slow but steady pace of improving the vocabulary, which is largely what it needs at this point. I can't just randomly assign words though, I want to have my etymologies straight and common roots and all of that jazz, so it's not as simple as just any little algorithm to work it out.
Piano playing makes the list, in the spirit that I don't want to drop it. I want to improve my jazz and blues playing skills (I'm not adding a great quantifier to that, no, but as my jazz and blues skills are currently non-existent, I'll know when they're actually there, and that means they've improved. I'd also like to work up at least ten pieces to, well, I guess performance level, even though I don't expect to perform them. Maybe offertory or something at church.
What else... I would like to blog somewhat regularly, maybe weekly with a few excepted weeks. Maybe I'll shoot for twice monthly. Also a little fitness goal, and something fun like memorizing "Fox in Socks," and then something NaNoWriMo-esque: I want to participate in either one of the Camp NaNoWriMos (I'm thinking June) or else the original flavor of NaNoWriMo, in November. It is not on my list to do both a Camp NaNo and the regular one, since I doubt I'll want to try a NaNo challenge in November when I'm away from home. August is when school starts and I'll be moving and such then, so I'm thinking ideally we'll go for June, when school is out but there's not usually a whole lot else.
So that's about my plan for the next year. We'll see how it holds up under stress. It's not that I care much about planning the whole thing out, but the lists I make up are sort of reminders of things I'd like to accomplish, things I want to perpetuate, an organizing exercise, of sorts. So, yeah. I'm off to enjoy my time of limbo!
Friday, December 2, 2011
Hardest. NaNo. Ever.
In which I finally get around to updating my blog again. Anyway, since we've last left off, I finished Camp NaNoWriMo the 2nd (did I mention I did two of those? I don't remember anymore), headed off to college, and managed to win another November rendition of NaNoWriMo.
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Summer is Fleeting...
So school starts in just over a week, and do you know what I did Monday? I started a new Italian course. Brilliant of me. Oh well, it's one I've heard great things about, Assimil, so we'll see how I like it. The first few lessons are pretty easy, as the book is for beginners and "false" beginners, but they do seem pretty in depth, and for now I'm going over them for any vocabulary I may have missed and to get used to the style of teaching, so on and so forth.
Camp NaNoWriMo is going on again this month, and I'm still writing, but I should be done by school starts, if I can just finish up the story. I have just over a week to get to the point (which I only figured out a few days ago) and resolve it. Woo hoo! I should really be spending a few hundred more words each day to build buffer and move the plot along. I tend to have a bit of an aversion of moving the plot much until I have my words for the day. Odd, huh? Oh well, back to work! Writing and/or Italian!
Camp NaNoWriMo is going on again this month, and I'm still writing, but I should be done by school starts, if I can just finish up the story. I have just over a week to get to the point (which I only figured out a few days ago) and resolve it. Woo hoo! I should really be spending a few hundred more words each day to build buffer and move the plot along. I tend to have a bit of an aversion of moving the plot much until I have my words for the day. Odd, huh? Oh well, back to work! Writing and/or Italian!
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