Re: PM’s French Re-entry into the Matrix - Phase 1: 500 Hours Extensive Reading

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PeterMollenburg
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Re: PM's French Courses Mission

Postby PeterMollenburg » Tue Mar 21, 2017 10:48 am

This is me of late:

French
Frustrated, confused, floundering, not advancing.

I really want to power through my courses, but I'm doing very little of anything.

I'm not convinced I should be doing all courses, but I figure if I work really hard for the rest of the year or up to the next SC, I can get through the majority of them and hit native content like no-one else ever before in history. I will be proclaimed King PM of France in the new resurrected French monarchy. Reality tells me I won't get through a third of the courses by May 2018, and when it comes to native content- that's gonna take some time- and a whole continuous freight train load of it for perhaps even years. I'm fighting that inner battle as usual- too many things I want to do, not enough time, not even studying much lately.

The unreal world
What bullshit! Imagine this- you study a language for a while then a couple years down the track you are comfortably following almost everything you read and listen to. Now exchange a language for 'reality' and I mean the real reality- not the one that 99% of people think is real, and exchange the language study (via whatever methods) for reading, research, lack of trust in general and a digging for the truth about how the world is run and THEN all the dots join together, the clarity arrives, the bigger picture forms and you become absolutely completely convinced that this would in which we live in is ABSOLUTELY AND UTTERLY CONTROLLED - OUR REALITY IS MANUFACTURED!! Thoughts that people think they have have been fed to them through media, and you better make sure you say the right thing- be up to date on correct terminology, COMPLY! health care that heals, does NOT heal, food is killing us, medications are fucking with us, water is poisoned, we are being sprayed chemicals every day from above, technology is not advancing humanity but is fed to us through gadgets, play, fantasy drawing us every further away from the natural world and all the while it is stealing all of our information and used to control us AND irradiate us, cancer cures are withheld, as are cures for HIV and other diseases such as arthritis and TB, the Sun is to be feared, but we conquered the moon, didn't we? new diseases are deliberately spread and so called cures are offered for sale, peacekeeping forces are designed to ensure nations 'behave' in line with the new agenda that sees all nations converge ever more and diversity of people, cultures, languages, unique thoughts wither away and populations become homogenous and enslaved to debt from money that is CREATED OUT OF NOTHING (makes you wonder why it exists? Control anybody?). People are apathetic, distracted almost entirely and are watched every second of the day ensuring that when key moments arise the people will not. But there's more to come. People are being trained to feel guilty or at least powerless and thus must comply with the belief that carbon dioxide is very bad and we must pay through the nose for the invisible gas more, and more and more while all our factories leave our shores. We have no rights, we think we do, but we do not. We can have sex with anything and anyone however we like- nothing wrong with that, at least that's what the science says, and science must be trusted. We must comply with the system- go to work, pay your taxes and interest, comply with protocols, say the right things, be entertained, sleep, eat shit food, get indoctrinated... sorry 'educated', go to work again. Oh, and you can bet your life they've got plans to get you off your land where you can grow your own and want to go off grid- the future computer says no! Watch out ahhhh there's a fucking storm coming, and it's our fault for wanting to keep warm in our houses which were built en masse and have shit insulation because the companies needed to make their money!!! Aaaahhhhhhhh. Free energy you say? Cures for cancer? We can talk face to face? The sun is not that dangerous? We can absorb more minerals from meat than vegetables? But what about cholesterol?!!! I need a tablet! Fix me!!! The aboriginals were on cholesterol tablets, how do you think they survived eating so much protein and nearly no carbohydrates!!

Where was I...
Life is busy
So life is busy, I'm attempting to get my (serious competitive at some point soonish) kayaking going again, but to little avail. Some recent bad experiences on a nearby lake and a lack of a decent river nearby with even enough water to paddle 500 metres have me wondering if I need to abandon this idea. All the while my family is bigger, the future bleek, my job is a job in which I don't agree with a good number of things, and I'm trying to get to C-something in French. Think I'm being a little too self involved? A little too ambitious? Too negative, oh, I'm just pessimistic and need to watch Sesame Street or curl up with a good book- or Facebook! Woohoo. Go jump rediculous world, go jump!
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Cavesa
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Re: PM's French Courses Mission

Postby Cavesa » Tue Mar 21, 2017 11:26 am

Hi Peter,

I will stick to French, as most things would be better talked about outside this forum and with a few beers. I think we'd have a lot of points to agree on and much much more to disagree on, but it is less fun without the beer and really balancing on the edge of the forum rules (at least the way I'd talk about it, I am not judging you as I am not a mod and this is your log) :-)

It is totally ok life gets in the way, you can still progress. I could have reached my current goals several years ago, as was the original plan, but you know life. Don't give up. And after all, self-improvement is a good tool for facing our world, no matter what do we believe are its more painful problems of the society and what pressures are being applied on each of us. Learning another language is a great therapy. It can tie us to the real world and people, the detachment from which you are criticising, it is a skill giving us more potential to change jobs and therefore it gives us more freedom, it is a much more active kind of fun than playing on a tablet, it is a way to fight any intelligence lowering factors (ranging from marketing to neurodegenerative diseases), and so on. And it is a way to succeed at something independently, which is a great moral boost. All that makes it well worth going on!

One thing I found very helpful is the Course Completion Challenge. Whether you choose to get through three or ten courses in the end (I definitely don't believe your current plan is the final version :-D ), it is good to stick to one or two for a time and get through them. I guess that in May 2018, you will be much readier for the SC having completed two courses than having got through the first half of five, dear king PM.

For escapes from reality, no matter the way each of us sees it and what does each of us find annoying, try French fiction. You can start before the SC after all. Perhaps you will find more energy and mood for your course mission, if you start supplementing it with more fun. I think you might enjoy not only great sci-fi and anti-utopias, but with a lot of non-fiction (but that is much less of an escape, true). I think we've chosen one of the best languages possible for reading various points of view concerning absolutely anything!

Btw, I am now feeling a similar worry concerning courses and would instinctively love to hoard a dozen B2 and C1 Spanish courses. (Un)Fortunately, there are not that many on the market. So, I am going for fewer and trying to stick to my own advice mentioned above. Two at a time are plenty. My "deadline" for coursework is not SC, it is the point at which I'll have to start drilling DELE kinds of assignements.
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Re: PM's French Courses Mission

Postby DaveBee » Tue Mar 21, 2017 3:05 pm

I just listened to a podcast that might interest you. It was about the La Paix de Fexhe which appears to have been a significant event for political freedoms in Liège/Belgium.
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Carmody
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Re: PM's French Courses Mission

Postby Carmody » Tue Mar 21, 2017 3:20 pm

French
Frustrated, confused, floundering, not advancing.
Peter it is always nice to read what you write. I have learned so much from you and continue to learn.

Very often people write on the Forum of how many languages they are learning, and by implication how very easy it is for them to just absorb/learn so many languages with total and natural osmosis like ease.

You on the other hand talk of the struggles and frustrations of the learning process. So many thanks to you for sharing so very honestly what your journey is really like.

It is said by rdearman also that language learning "is hard work." Not many confess to that.

Now then, I am only A2 in my French learning and much of the progress is due to you telling me the importance of switching from one media or learning tool to another. That was helpful and I will not begin to tell you anything when it comes to language learning. However I have found that my learning curve can become stalled if I keep pushing, pushing, pushing too hard.

I do daily taichi as well as French and found that if I backed off trying so hard and expecting so much that then my taichi actually improved. In effect I actually stopped going to class and started studying the hundred pages of class notes I took and then worked at learning from that. A crowded classroom is sometimes a difficult place to do the form fully. So for now my taichi is doing better than when going to class.

As I said, you are more advanced than I am and I would never give you advice, but I found that in my journey that by backing off, lightening up, and making a course correction or change that then things could go better for me.

And of course thanks for your advice in the past and the sharing of your journey.

And very best wishes.....
;)
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BOLIO
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Re: PM's French Courses Mission

Postby BOLIO » Tue Mar 21, 2017 6:51 pm

Do the courses make you happy? If so, continue the self-challenge of courses you have. If not...don't.

I appreciate your log and contributions to the board. If you started a "Going Native" thread discussing your adventures with native materials then I would read it too.

As far as the other stuff....control what you can control and let go of the rest.

All the best,

BOLIO
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Re: PM's French Courses Mission

Postby Xmmm » Tue Mar 21, 2017 8:20 pm

PeterMollenburg,

There's really only one solution to your problems.

I knew a guy who was very frustrated with his life and decided (somewhat whimsically, I think) that the way out of the box he was trapped in was to learn Mandarin. This was the early 1990s, and he packed up (he was young and single) and went to a no-name language school in a small town in Northern China where no one spoke English and he was the only westerner. He stayed there for two years. This was pre-internet so he was pretty much forced to use Mandarin all day long. Needless to say, he became fluent.

You are trapped in "analysis paralysis" right now, trying to tweak everything in optimal fashion so you can go to France and blah blah blah. Meantime time passes, you aren't happy with the progress you're making, you aren't happy with the "use native materials" advice -- probably because deep down inside you feel frustrated that you are trying to use these native materials in the middle of Australia, surrounded by an ocean of English.

The thing for you to do ... is to pick up and move. If you can't get to France, you can't afford to turn up your nose at Quebec, Martinique, Belgium, Switzerland. Maybe you can turn up your nose at Gabon. But you need to get yourself to a French-speaking zone. ASAP. And if you think it's going to be disruptive to your family -- do you think it's ever going to be less disruptive to your family? Changes only get more disruptive over time. Wait till your kids grow up and marry Australians and you have grandkids and see how easy it is to move to the other side of the world.

Sell the house, pack the bags, buy one way tickets to Quebec, move to the heart of the French speaking zone ... and then work on your five year plan to get to France. My opinion.
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Re: PM's French Courses Mission

Postby rdearman » Tue Mar 21, 2017 8:25 pm

I'm not going to give you any advice, but just some sympathy and to tell you I was feeling the same at the start of the year. Too many goals, not enough time, not enough progress, etc, etc. So, I basically parked all my goals, and actually I've made more progress than I did before I stopped working toward my goals. I think the problem was I kept telling myself "I have to study French; I must read 50 pages a day; I must work on a book; I must excel at my job;". You name a type of pressure, and I was putting myself under it. The pressure to "work harder" was backfiring because I wanted to do less and less.

It all sort of came to a head in January and I thought feck it, I give up, I'm not doing any of this. If you read my logs you'll see I parked Mandarin, Finnish, lots of other personal goals which I didn't bother to list in my log. The result has been in the last 30-40 days I've watched over 52 hours of TV/Audio books in French. I've actually programmed 3 games in a new programming language (Rust), when before I was stressing about even look at a computer. I've first drafted 1.5 fiction books, and working through the 2nd drafts. I've accomplished more at work in less time.

What I'm saying here is sometimes we need to give ourselves permission to skip school and play hooky. Go out fishing, have a pint with some friends, or have a nap. Pushing yourself harder can be counter productive as I've discovered.
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Re: PM's French Courses Mission

Postby Xenops » Tue Mar 21, 2017 10:59 pm

I'm sorry you're frustrated. :cry: It's disgusting how we are killing the planet and ourselves. The only thing that keeps me going is knowing that my Savior will return and set things right.

I agree with Xmmm's advice: it might be time to just get up and move.
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whatiftheblog
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Re: PM's French Courses Mission

Postby whatiftheblog » Wed Mar 22, 2017 2:03 am

Sounds to me like you're bored, PM. You know where I stand on this, of course. It's always a careful balancing act between comfort and challenging oneself, and swinging too far either way wouldn't be good, either.

That said,

BOLIO wrote:I appreciate your log and contributions to the board. If you started a "Going Native" thread discussing your adventures with native materials then I would read it too.


This is a really good idea, BOLIO. Maybe even one per language?, for current and future learners to be able to easily share and access the most highly recommended native resources and their overall experiences with the method. What say ye, fellow forumers?
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PeterMollenburg
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Re: PM's French Courses Mission

Postby PeterMollenburg » Wed Mar 22, 2017 11:13 am

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