A coffee addicted immigrant and company

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Cavesa
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Re: A coffee addicted immigrant and company

Postby Cavesa » Sun Feb 23, 2020 8:43 pm

Some language related news:

-it is fascinating, how much does medicine learning and language learning have in common. Right now, I am experiencing the intensive and extensive reading diffrerence. The intensive reading of some medicine texts is very useful (even the natives do it), but a torture for me. Extensive reading seems to work better for me, combined with lots of exercises. And I hate Anki. Don't get me wrong, I don't doubt its efficiency, I'd just need a time turner and spend a hundred years creating cards. But I will definitely return to it at another occassion.

-I am still using Kwiziq for review. It is fun and helps with my writing. A complaint from my boss: I don't write the articles enough. Yeah, true. They are annoying. And quite often left out in the non formal writing. Time to reacquire that habit.

-Remember that new list of CEFR descriptors, which was posted and discussed on this forum approximately a year ago? I am still thinking of it. The main points were:
-there is such a thing as a preA1 level. It's the touristy survival stuff. Real A1 actually requires quite a lot of knowledge. So many people on the internet label themselves as A1 after two units of their coursebook. After long time of no work on it, I believe my German is there and I can calmly change my description on this forum
-there are "levels" beyond C2, just hard to measure and not too rentable to create tests for
-there are also skills combining the languages. It's crazy this has been omited for so long, translation being a curse word. In the real life, you simply need to translate, to summarise info from sources in L2 to L1, and so on. The standard exams can't reflect that, but even definition of these skills as valid is step forward.

And the interferences I described earlier are a too real thing. A fitness video in English, used by me and a French native, that is just like those lectures including English terminology. Or earlier today, I was reading memes and Asco de vida in Spanish, and had to answer to a French speaker. Spanish started leaving my mouth instead.
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lichtrausch
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Re: A coffee addicted immigrant and company

Postby lichtrausch » Tue Feb 25, 2020 5:22 am

Cavesa wrote:And I also happened to find a totally addictive tv series in Mandarin. Why?! (No, I am resisting for now. I must).

What's it called?!
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Cavesa
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Re: A coffee addicted immigrant and company

Postby Cavesa » Tue Mar 03, 2020 12:00 pm

lichtrausch wrote:
Cavesa wrote:And I also happened to find a totally addictive tv series in Mandarin. Why?! (No, I am resisting for now. I must).

What's it called?!

The Princess Agents. :-D Yes, it needs to wait till summer. But it is making me consider Mandarin.
................

Other than that, I am extremely nervous because of my medicine exams. My last chance to get the specialty I want. And I've just thrown away the backup plan, to prepare fully for this. But I am paralysed by being nervous.

So, trying to find something positive to look forward to. Languages have always worked nicely. And I'll need some ego boost.
On the 20th of June, I am restarting languages again, and not just maintanence. By the end of the year 2020, I will take Siele.
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Cavesa
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Re: A coffee addicted immigrant and company

Postby Cavesa » Fri Mar 06, 2020 9:15 pm

Just a few very random notes, before I forget about that. mostly stuff that has amused me recently:

Italian: You may know "In bocca al lupo." And the answer "Crepi" or "Crepi il lupo". Is it true, that wishing someone "Buona fortuna" instead is a bad idea? This is the source: https://www.italiancork.com/do-not-say- ... ness-sake/ So, is it seen as sarcastic or as something that brings bad luck?

Spanish: It may be too early for those jokes , but I still loved some:
"Yo: Mamá, tengo el coronavirus. M: Por andar descalzo!"
I loved the second phrase, this is a great learning examples.
(I find these jokes useful, to not get driven crazy. Don't forget, I work in a hospital and dealing both with the stupid paranoia around and with the real possibility of this arriving is easier with some humour.)

btw what are your favourite non-english meme and joke sites? Here are two of mine:
cuantarazon.com
vistoenlasredes.com
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Cavesa
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Re: A coffee addicted immigrant and company

Postby Cavesa » Fri Mar 13, 2020 7:01 pm

ok, I live in one of the dangerous regions now, but I am lucky my suroundings have been spared for now. ok, I cannot visit my family for at least a month and I haven't seen most of them since Christmas, it sucks. I don't know, whether I won't be ordered to take care of the contagious people (which is well outside my specialty), and probably without sufficient protection, that is a bit unsettling, but not too probable. People are crazily buying out some articles in the supermarkets, ok, there is still enough left, we are not gonna die of hunger. The measures taken against the epidemics are rather severe, but in some ways not enough, as the most fragile old people still won't be stopped from spending their days in the supermarkets (that seems to be an eerily international fact).

But now they've closed the university libraries. Three months before the exams. So, I was right to hoard books, the late return fees will pay off. Because from now on, we probably have to buy everything (as it might be too late after the libraries are open again). And I need to shop fast, before everybody realises that.

Yes, lots of the precautions are good and well founded. But not good enough, without also providing the means to follow those instructions. It is cute to recommend/order people to use desinfectants and masks, but those are unavailable (in France very hard to find and buy. In the Czech Republic, the manufactures are forbidden to sell them outside of a repartition system yet to be invented by the government. So, the virus is outside, and the filters are safely in the warehouses. And what a coincidence, that the only private labs allowed to do the testing, on top of the totally insufficient public ones, belong to the prime minister.). Closing the borders now is useless, the virus is already everywhere in Europe.

So, don't go anywhere you don't really need to go, wash your hands, and don't panic. Panic never helps. Stress lowers your immunity. And if you happen to get a stress induced heart attack, you are certainly not likely to get the same quality of care as usual, or at least not that fast. Take care of the vulnerable people around you, if you can. (a "funny" fact: People over 70 are supposed not to go outside, to not put themselves at risk. Except for the retired doctors, those are being called back to the front lines. Not all lives matter, it seems).

Keep calm and study. Or play video games. Either way can keep you sane for weeks or even months within the walls of your home.
/End_of_rant
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Cavesa
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Re: A coffee addicted immigrant and company

Postby Cavesa » Sun Mar 15, 2020 12:21 pm

Well, it's here. I was in contact with a confirmed covid patient. But it is highly probable, that they got it only after I've examined and transfered them. So, I am to wear masks for two weeks (didn't get enough of those), not to go outside except for work (need to study anyways), and I am fortunately asymptomatic. I am to measure my temperature twice a day. Which is a bit funny. Many people don't get fevers much or at all (I was already misdiagnosed a few times in my life due to this), most people don't get fever during a large part of their covid infenction, and so on. But it is the only thing we can measure.

Can't communicate this to most people I know outside of this hospital, so at least here. Thanks for being here, friends!
There is no need to panic, just to be careful. And to pretend things are a bit better, whenever I call home. They don't need to know, at least until I am sure to be negative :-)

Let's look on the bright side:
1.some of my standard patients are likely to be much more motivated to work hard on getting ready for dimission.
2.we're now getting an important stimulus to develop all kinds of distance work and distance learning. We'll profit from this experience.
(Yes, I know the negatives are much more important and overwhelming. But let's try to hold to our collective mental sanity as much as possible.)

Btw, have you noticed how the personal pronoun "they" used in singular comes with several advantages? Not only it is inclusive. Not only it removes prejudice in some types of documents. But it also adds another layer of personal data protection, so I can write what I've just written without any fear :-) And to the traditionalists: there used to be a polite singular "they" ("oni") even in Czech. :-)
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Lawyer&Mom
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Re: A coffee addicted immigrant and company

Postby Lawyer&Mom » Sun Mar 15, 2020 2:18 pm

Hospital admission followed by discharge, not dimission.

Stay healthy!
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Re: A coffee addicted immigrant and company

Postby jeffers » Sun Mar 15, 2020 3:19 pm

Cavesa wrote:So, I was right to hoard books, the late return fees will pay off.


Also potentially a bonus if the toilet paper supplies run out! ;)
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Cavesa
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Re: A coffee addicted immigrant and company

Postby Cavesa » Thu Mar 26, 2020 9:14 pm

A bit of news.

I am getting fed up with Kwiziq a bit. But I want to finish it.

My studies for the Exam Causing Nightmares are continuing. I got three more weeks, the date was postponed. I am getting a little bit better (from absolutely horrible to just really really bad). I want to succeed this time. I dislike my specialty a little bit more every day.

Right after the Exam, I plan to spend a few hundred euro on language learning as a reward :-D

Btw, my boss told me my reports writing got much better!

Life is full of tests. Right now, I am also waiting for the results of my covid test. I think I've had it, with mild symptomes. But it could have been something else. I am extremely lucky, I am as safe and comfortable as possible in this situation (but yes, I was in contact with covid+ patients without sufficient protection too. Almost everybody has. It's not just the urgentists, one of the dead doctors was a gynecologist).
I admire the urgentists, generalists, and everyone else in the first line.
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Cavesa
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Re: A coffee addicted immigrant and company

Postby Cavesa » Fri Mar 27, 2020 1:40 pm

Negative :-) (don't forget, the other kinds of viruses, like the flu, are still flying around, not everything is covid.)

Btw if anyone is interested in beautiful, rich and funny Italian speeches on the current crisis, Vincenzo De Luca, the president of Campania, is awesome and on youtube. He is a challenge to understand, like all the southerners. But worth it. No idea what he is like normally (or about his politics in general), but his comments now are great.
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