the Diaries of a Caffeinated Squirrel

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Cavesa
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the Diaries of a Caffeinated Squirrel

Postby Cavesa » Sun Jan 01, 2017 2:36 pm

Welcome to my 2017 log. I wish you all a great year and am looking forward to meeting you here and anywhere else. In your logs, other threads, and hopefully in Bratislava. :-)
.................................
It's gonna be an epic journey . Or something like that. A flood of caffeine, an avalanche of exams, races of easily distracted turtles, and other adventures. I have more deadlines than I should. But there will be a lot of fun too.

My main goals: Spanish DELE C1 and German that B2 exam. I originally thought the DELE took place only in May and November. But this year (at least), there is one exam in summer too. Goethe organizes six or so exams per year. So, I am not sure anymore, whether to take the German exam during the summer and the Spanish one in the autumn or vice versa. Fortunately, I don't need to decide now, I've got a few months left to decide. However, I need both exams before 2018.

With that on mind, I'll need to get through a series of courses, workbooks, lots of input, some practice, than test preparation books... A lot of stuff. My new year's resolution: 10 hours of Es+De per week, on top of my irregular intensive study sessions.

Maintanance: French and English. I am still in France on Erasmus, which is great. I should continue my systematic review and covering the tiny gaps, I should work on my accent. But I don't have that much time and need to study medicine above all (some nice new year's resolutions on that front too). Should there be any time left, I should review the English grammar too, as I've been acquiring new mistakes during the last few years.

Italian is much less of a priority, but I will finish the SC and I will return to actively studying it, once my free time allows it. I lose nothing by just reading and listening for now.

other projects? I don't think so. It is sad, but I really don't know whether I'll return to Finnish, even though I really like it. Elenia has some plans for Polish and I would like to join. Polish, unlike Finnish, is a practical language, the books are not that expensive, and it is a neighbouring country with tons of natives spread all over Europe. And I've wanted to learn it and read the awesome fantasy books in original for years. And it will be much easier than Finnish :-D I am really looking forward to being the one with a huge advantage thanks to the native language for the first time in my life. Other than that, I don't think there will be any other langauges. Of course there are more that I'd love to learn, but I need to stay focused on the main goals.
Last edited by Cavesa on Sun Jan 01, 2017 8:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Cavesa
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Languages: Czech (N), French (C2) English (C1), Italian (C1), Spanish, German (C1)
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Re: the Diaries of a Caffeinated Squirrel

Postby Cavesa » Sun Jan 01, 2017 2:36 pm

the book and movie list
(SC/my crazy challenge; after completion not counting anymore)
Updated the -5th March (page 16, if you are confused)
Updated a day later

Spanish 1968 minutes and 13569 pages left
Una pizca de muerte, Ch.Harris, 184 pages
Muerto en famila, Ch.Harris, 320 pages
Águila Roja 823 minutes +80 +240 +8x75
El día del juicio mortal, Ch.Harris, 408 pages
En punto muerto, 416 pages
225 minutes and 12241 pages left
Muerto para siempre 456 pages
Águila Roja 3x75 minutes
FINISHED THE MOVIE PART, 11785 pages left
Águila Roja, temporada 7
El mapa del tiempo, Félix J. Palma 660 pages

German 9000/18000 minutes and 5000/20000 pages left

Italian4576/13569 minutes and 4315/19315 pages left
Licia Troisi: Cronache del Mondo Emerso II: La missione di Sennar 391 pages
4576 minutes and 3924 pages left

Frenchnot counting anymore
M.Robert:Chiens de guerre

English3845 pages left
Last edited by Cavesa on Mon May 08, 2017 12:04 am, edited 15 times in total.
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Cavesa
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Re: the Diaries of a Caffeinated Squirrel

Postby Cavesa » Sun Jan 01, 2017 2:37 pm

the Progress Bar Garden

Spanish
GdUdE B: 79 / 116 (66 completed before 2017)
Fiesta 2: 2 / 18
Usš 2: 0 / 18


German
the last three units of Themen Aktuell 1: 3 / 3 (Those I should have finished a few years ago. I abandonned them at least 4 times)
Themen Aktuell 2: 2 / 10
Last edited by Cavesa on Tue May 09, 2017 4:46 am, edited 14 times in total.
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Cavesa
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Re: the Diaries of a Caffeinated Squirrel

Postby Cavesa » Sun Jan 01, 2017 2:38 pm

the New Year's resolution tracking
1.1.-8.1.
Es+De minutes: 422 / 600 out of that: 108 Es, 315 De
pages read in all the languages: 504 / 440
listening min in all the languages: 501 / 299
9.1-15.1
Es+De minutes: 451 / 600 out of that: 55 Es, 396 De
pages read in all the languages: 408 / 440
listening min in all the languages: 80 / 299
16.1-22.1
Es+De minutes: 96 / 600 out of that: 0 Es, 96 De
pages read in all the languages: 416 / 440
listening min in all the languages: 243 / 299
23.1-29.1
Es+De minutes: 73 / 600 out of that: 0 Es, 73 De
pages read in all the languages: 391 / 440
listening min in all the languages: 91 / 299
...
6.2-12.2
Es+De minutes: 124 / 600 out of that: 0 Es, 124 De
pages read in all the languages: 0 / 440
listening min in all the languages: 240 / 299
.....

a longer "week" from the -5th March to 5th March
Es+De minutes: 56 / 600 out of that: 0 Es, 56 De
pages read in Es or De: 456 / 391
listening min in Es or De: 225 / 209
....
20.3.-26.3.
Es+De minutes: 92 / 600 out of that: 92 Es, 0 De
pages read: 0 / 391
listening min : 0 / 209

27.3.-2.4.
Es+De minutes: 257 / 600 out of that: 257 Es, 0 De
pages read: 391 / 391
listening min : 0 / 209

3.4.-7.5
Es+De minutes: 393 / 2400 out of that: 77+41 Es, 275 De
pages read: 270 / 1500
listening min : 0 / 209
...

8.5.-14.5.
Es+De minutes: 310 / 600 out of that: 52 Es, 258 De
pages read: 0 / 391
listening min : 0 / 209
Last edited by Cavesa on Tue May 09, 2017 4:47 am, edited 43 times in total.
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Brun Ugle
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Re: the Diaries of a Caffeinated Squirrel

Postby Brun Ugle » Sun Jan 01, 2017 3:01 pm

Let me know when you're ready to begin level C of GdUdE. A race between a caffeinated squirrel and an easily distracted tortoise sounds like a fairytale classic. I have plenty of stuff to do before beginning the next book though, so there's no rush to start. Take the time you need to finish level B.
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Cavesa
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Re: the Diaries of a Caffeinated Squirrel

Postby Cavesa » Tue Jan 03, 2017 9:26 pm

I seem to be an easily distracted squirrel too. I am ill, caught something in Prague. I was there for just a few days and came back to France with a souvenir. Great. That is on my defence. But I really seem to have a problem. I may be slightly addicted to internet and forums and tons of stuff. In past, I have battled this by various ways. Perhaps it will be time for another experimental weekend without technology.

I got a new computer as a Christmas present from my dad. He is awesome (yes, I feel partially bad as I should be able to earn money at least for not survival stuff at my age. Another horrible thing about studying medicine). I hadn't known, as he had asked me about cover color like "I've seen a nice diary for you, would you prefer white or green?". My old computer has been serving for over five years, perhaps six, which is quite a lot. And it has been serving well, despite the age taking its due. So, I am now learning to function on a macbook. Running into tiny problems like not having the ctrl+alt+del emergency exit tool :-D But it is great to have a lighter machine, not adorned with adhesive tape, which doesn't sound like an airplane taking off, and with a real CPU instead of a 3D joke that belongs to a museum. And fortunately, my external harddrives are compatible! Yay!

For the YKYALLN thread: I started feeling at home only after moving some important langauge resources to the new computer :-D

So, as you see, the temptation to just play with lots of stuff and explore lots of stuff is huge. The more that I am using computer based tools like Readlang, Duolingo, and so on. There is simply too much temptation to just "read one thread before starting". I need to deal with that. All the useful techonology we love, smartphones and tablets, are great but can easily distract too. It is a shame, but I need to admit it is a problem. I am a procrastinator and it has been damaging my life. I could have had four C2 languages and much better grades, if it weren't for this stupid reason.

One of the temptations is this forum. So, there is an important resolution coming. From now on, I will start my forum browsing with a log update. And in order to do so, I need to have things to write. Therefore I have to study BEFORE going to the forum.

Another thing:everytime I put myself on a shorter leash (such as now, the wise decision to focus mostly on German and Spanish and very seriously), the wanderlust appears. And suddenly,I am considering and googling Arabic (France is quite inspirative, and there is an LT course), Greek (thanks Expug, really. And now embici), Finnish restart (for obvious reasons), and Mandarin (I blame Expug again). And should I need more, there are always the eternal "I am about to start" languages: Polish, Swedish, Russian. This stops now. From now on, I will allow myself this useless internet wandering only after finishing my weekly quota of both langauge and medicine studying.
...................
So, today's entry ticket to the forums (but there will be more studying after this log update of course):

Spanish:
I've finished my first book. It was a short one, several short stories by Ch.Harris. And I hope to finish the whole Sookie Stackhouse series soon. And I promise to stick to originals after that, until the end of my challenge.

And I am back to GdUdE. I've just finished quite a difficult lesson. 63: Contraste de tiempos para expresar certeza y probabilidad. This +subjuntivo is the border of my verb juggling skills. Up to this, I am doing quite fine. From this on, I need to study more. More grammar work, and I'll need to return to the awesome memrise verb decks, for full automatisation of the advanced stuff.
In 2016, I completed 66 doublepages.
I've just finished the second one of this year.
Units 68-115 left, I should cover them in a few weeks, I think 63 was the hardest one from the whole book!
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arthaey
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Re: the Diaries of a Caffeinated Squirrel

Postby arthaey » Tue Jan 03, 2017 11:33 pm

Cavesa wrote:All the useful techonology we love, smartphones and tablets, are great but can easily distract too. It is a shame, but I need to admit it is a problem. I am a procrastinator and it has been damaging my life.

This is so, so true. Technology and especially the internet have been such a great resources… and yet we have mostly been blind to how its ubiquity is also damaging in exactly the way you describe.

I'm trying to be more mindful about this, too. You're definitely not alone in this struggle.

Cavesa wrote:One of the temptations is this forum. So, there is an important resolution coming. From now on, I will start my forum browsing with a log update. And in order to do so, I need to have things to write. Therefore I have to study BEFORE going to the forum.

I love this. It's like, I'm allowed to "waste time"… but only as a reward for doing my real tasks.
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Xenops
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Re: the Diaries of a Caffeinated Squirrel

Postby Xenops » Wed Jan 04, 2017 1:27 am

I love it when people start new blogs, because then I can keep up. :)

May I recommend a link? He talks about "digital minimalism": http://calnewport.com/blog/

I met an American that served in the military in Afghanistan, and currently Dari is looking tempting. :?
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Cavesa
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Re: the Diaries of a Caffeinated Squirrel

Postby Cavesa » Wed Jan 04, 2017 2:02 am

I am not a minimalist in any aspect of life, but not a hedonist or hoarder either. And I am afraid digital minimalism wouldn't save me. I am more than capable of procrastination without any gadget. In the worst moments, I even start cleaning the bathroom, the fridge, cooking. And I normally have quite a balanced attitude towards such tasks. Or I managed to look out of the window for half an hour, or just think about absolutely unrelated stuff. But it looks interesting, thanks

Don't tempt me with other langauges :-D . Don't tell me anything about them, the books, don't put here any links to beautiful songs and so on! :-D :-D :-D

Arthaey may have saved me on the thread about learning apps. With his recomendation of Pacemaker. It's exactly the app I dreamt of. And not because of the name :-D

My exams start in March and won't stop till the summer 2018 (hehe, I accidentally wrote 3018 first. Unfortunately, it feels like it. I'll creatively fill part of my last holidays with language exams, perhaps an internship somewhere, and so on.), there are many exams, the amount of stuff to study is huge and I am drowning in this flood and hating my previous selves. This planner looks like it could help me put my study habits together, to teach me how to systematicaly invest efforts over larger periods of time. That is my weakest skill. Better late than never.

It is a bit sad this app could have kept a good friend of mine studying medicine, had it existed three years ago. :-( All the time wasted planning and stressing about planning and replanning was an important part of her failure (really, even 3 hours or more out of a 5 hour long study session. We were sometimes studying together, I am not making things up). That and having to work part time while studying medicine, true (but she didn't have much of a choice about that).

I am excited the app will count for me, and will show me my daily dose of all the projects on a calendar. No more need to spend time with squared paper and calculator, no need to use a paper plan that will become a complete mess in just two weeks, if not less. No risk I'd plan too much or too little. No need to stress out and recount everything because of failure on some days.

So, THANKS!
And sorry about the rant. I trully feel like a caffeinated squirrel :-D
(And I deleted two paragraphs describing my personal "how I never became a good student" story. The post could have been much worse.)
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Jar-Ptitsa
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Re: the Diaries of a Caffeinated Squirrel

Postby Jar-Ptitsa » Wed Jan 04, 2017 2:19 am

A caffeinated squirrel must be very active becuase the squirrels are fast and active anyway.

I saw you earlier today!! -->

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