Good news! I’m finally feeling better. The workmen seem to be finished, I got some medicine from the doctor and even getting a cold seemed to help out since it blocked up the post-nasal drip that was irritating my lungs. So, never so bad that it isn’t good for something, as we say. I’m hoping this will be the end of the problem and I won’t have to follow Blaurebell’s suggestion on cutting out histamines in food because I looked at the list of histamine rich foods and it could almost be a list of my favorite foods. Obviously, histamine is the secret ingredient that makes things yummy.
More good news! I finished FSI Spanish Basic.
Actually, Spanish is about the only thing I’ve been studying these past two weeks as I sprinted to the finish-line. I’m glad to be finished and I’m excited about moving on to the next stage in my learning, but I’m a little sad too. I might be a bit of a weirdo, but I get a little attached to the characters in my textbooks sometimes.
So, now to the future. These are my plans. Please feel free to give me any advice as to what I should add. I feel that I have a pretty strong grammatical foundation thanks to FSI, but my vocabulary is lacking and my productive skills are still very weak. I intend to use GLOSS and GdUdE as my core study materials now. To improve my vocabulary, I would like to try more intensive reading and to that end am trying to figure out LWT (more on that in a bit). I’m also experimenting with goldlists, but am still very unsure that I like it and it doesn’t seem very efficient so far. It’s too early to say if it will be effective. I’ve also done a bit with Memrise, but I’m not sure if I’m really learning the words to where I know them outside of the Memrise environment. To improve my active skills, I want to try again to do weekly Skype chats in Spanish, but that is always the first thing to go when I get sick, depressed, tired or busy, so that can’t be my main method of activation. So, instead, I will get back to the Output Challenge and start recording myself again and continue writing my fan-fic and other things on a regular basis. I will try to do some of my recordings and writings by reading up on some topic and then trying to do a “report” or something like that. I will alternate this with lighter topics like my fan-fic (writing) and what I did that day or what I am planning to do (speaking), otherwise it might get too intense. And of course, I will continue watching TV and probably do some extensive reading in addition to the intensive stuff.
Now, about LWT. I know some of you use it and know more about computers than I do, and I need some help because I can’t figure it out. These are the instructions from the
website. I get stuck after step 9.
LWT wrote:• Step 1: Go to
http://www.easyphp.org/easyphp-devserver.php.
• Step 2: Download the "EasyPHP DevServer for Windows XP to Windows 8" (currently EasyPHP 14.1 VC9).
• Step 3: Open your Downloads folder and run the downloaded EasyPHP-DevServer-14.1VC9-install.exe into C:\Program Files (x86)\EasyPHP-... .
• Step 4: Go to
http://sourceforge.net/projects/lwt and download the latest zip archive lwt_v_x_y.zip.
• Step 5: Copy the downloaded zip archive lwt_v_x_y.zip into the directory data\localweb below the EasyPHP installation directory, i.e. C:\Program Files (x86)\EasyPHP-...\data\localweb.
• Step 6: Now right-click on the zip archive and select "Extract all", and unzip everything into a new folder C:\Program Files (x86)\EasyPHP-...\data\localweb\lwt_v_x_y. Rename the folder lwt_v_x_y to lwt.
• Step 7: The zip archive C:\Program Files (x86)\EasyPHP-...\data\localweb\lwt_v_x_y.zip may be deleted.
• Step 8: Now go into C:\Program Files (x86)\EasyPHP-...\data\localweb\lwt. Rename the file connect_easyphp.inc.php to connect.inc.php. (Sometimes the "php" extension is hidden, so be careful! You can display file extensions via the Windows Explorer settings and check it.)
• Step 9: Start EasyPHP via the Windows Start Menu. In the Task Bar near the clock appears the EasyPHP app icon (it may be hidden!).
• Step 10: LWT can now be started. Right-Click on the EasyPHP icon in the taskbar, choose "Local Web", and click on "lwt" in the webpage. You may also bookmark the LWT home page:
http://127.0.0.1/lwt.
• Step 11: You may now install the LWT demo database, or define the first language you want to learn.
• If you want to use LWT again, just do step 9 and 10. Via "EasyPHP icon - Configuration - EasyPHP" you may start EasyPHP automatically when starting Windows. Now step 9 is no longer needed.
• The local webserver will be stopped by clicking on "Stop" in EasyPHP menu (see icon near the clock). You can now exit EasyPHP.
On step 9, I don’t find it in the start menu, but I can open it from the desktop icon, so I assume that is OK. On step 10, when I right-click on the icon in the taskbar there is no “local web” to choose. There’s just “open dashboard”, “support”, “tools” with sub menus “open ports controller” and “open process explorer”, and “exit”. I assume it is the dashboard I should open, but I don’t know what to do when I get there. Can any of you geniuses help me? I’m not so great with computers. (I’m still looking for the “any” key.
)