Smelling the coffee in 2023

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Cavesa
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Smelling the coffee in 2023

Postby Cavesa » Thu Dec 29, 2022 7:51 pm

A New Year, a New Log.

2022 has been very successful in some ways, in spite of expectations.
-got married! YAY! Now we are building a life together finally :-)
-got a better job! Awesome, a huge step closer to the goals, but not enough, job hunting will be a huge topic in the first half of the year.
-moved to the Swirzerland! Yay! But now I need to get through the system towards the end of postgradual medical education, with not that big job stability, and with various plans that can explode (it is not easy being an immigrant in a country outside the EU).

AND LANGUAGES last year:
-Passed Goethe B2! Twice! :-D
-Took PLIDA C1, waiting for the results!
-have mostly forgotten Spanish, have been using French all the time, have been slowly getting worse at English
-still haven't started either Polish or Hebrew

Why "Smelling the coffee":
-coffee log names are a tradition of mine
-I am facing an unpleasant reality: I am really underperforming, compared to the amount of talent and intellectual gift I used to have. Like many other former gifted kids. Succeeding really well for the amount of work, that's not enough for my dreams. The people, who used to be normal and were taught how to learn and how to by systematic, those win in life, in career, in everything. I'm more than old enough to fix this on my own, no matter how much harder it is, compared to the childhood. 2023 is the year I manage this.

-Another unpleasant reality: I am just catching up when it comes to medicine. I hear "no" in the competition for good jobs, and a part of it is my fault. Yeah, a part of it is objectively interviews being hard, the locals being prefered and having had opportunities to get jobs in advance, and so on. But a part that I can do a lot about is studying much harder than before, when it comes to medicine (medicine in foreign languages!), preparing for interviews differently (such as career coaching, studying interview techniques, and so on), doing letters differently, and so on.

-And that is tied to a thing: I've procrastinated the very challenge I've started, and invented (heavily influenced by another one though) :-D

-with the successes of the last year, I really see how I had wasted so much time being spread too thin. Not necessarily among too many languages, but too many resources, taking too many breaks, and so on. Had I taken on two at a time intensively in the last ten years, I could have been C1/C2 in eight by now and just maintaining for the rest of my life :-D

And it leads to the main point: What will this Year be about, this year in my language learning, and this log:

GOALS:
-Super Challenge, as I am really falling behind, and need it for both improvement of my languages, but also my well being (as books and tv shows help). All the languages I signed up for.
-6WCs and/or AI6WCs (jumping late into the first one, but still will do my best)
-Goethe C1 this spring (haven't found out a date yet), for my CV and for my skills and confidence.
-An Italian exam (no clue which one) C2 later this year. For my CV, confidence, to push myself harder and so on.
-Studying medicine in my target languages much more intensively, basically intensive reading with anki, to complement the tons of excellent education (practical but also occassionally theoretical) I am getting in my hospital.

-lower priority possibilities: Relearning Spanish properly. Starting any new language (most probably not in 2023, as it wouldn't help my career. But it is still a possibility in this decade).
18 x

Cavesa
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Languages: Czech (N), French (C2) English (C1), Italian (C1), Spanish, German (C1)
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Re: Smelling the coffee in 2023

Postby Cavesa » Thu Dec 29, 2022 7:54 pm

SC: quoting the goals, making progress bars, adding stuff from 2022 (not much) and 2023

The goals: overall improvement and/or maintanance. I don't like German books or tv, so this and also some % of allowed translations in the other languages will help me avoid English media as much as possible.

Language: German
Challenge: full
Current level:B2
Comments, links: fiction (mostly translated) and medical books (mostly original), movies/series will be mostly or only dubs.




Language:French
Challenge: full
Current level:C2
Comments, links: mainly fiction (100% originals), medical books still count (mostly originals), watching mostly original stuff (aiming for 10% dubs max)


French listening: 7x40min Les sept vies de Léa


Language:Spanish
Challenge: full
Current level: very rusty B2, comprehension rusty C1/C2
Comments, links: fiction books (hopefully mostly originals), movies/series mostly originals (20% dubs max)

Spanish reading: Guardias! Guardias! by Pratchett.


Language:Italian
Challenge: full
Current level: B1ish?, comprehension B2/C1
Comments, links: fiction books (hopefully mostly originals), movies/series mostly originals (40% dubs max)



the whole 3rd season of Quién mató a Sara in Spanish, and I am watching Westworld in Italian, the new season (I like the Italian dubbing the best). C: 48 minutes of Westworld in Italian
Last edited by Cavesa on Thu Dec 29, 2022 9:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Cavesa
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Re: Smelling the coffee in 2023

Postby Cavesa » Thu Dec 29, 2022 8:10 pm

A rule for myself: No more than five resources at a time. . Extensive reading and listening doesn't count.
Starting with 3 German, 1 Italian, and 1 Medecine.

Yes, I have a lot of unfinished books (and equivalents) from the past. Progress bars to be added and updated

German:
Erkundungen C1 (the book to use with a teacher):
Speexx (To finish B1 levels, and the beginning of B2, and grammar section, and SRS)
Grammatik Aktiv A1-B1 (a review of grammar, to finish quickly):

Italian:
Nuovissimo Progetto Italiano 2 workbook:

Medicine (all languages):
Les troubles hydro-électrolytiques faciles:
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Cavesa
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Re: Smelling the coffee in 2023

Postby Cavesa » Fri Jan 13, 2023 7:49 pm

They say: adulthood is like looking both ways before you cross the street and getting hit by an airplane. And the beginning of the year was exactly like that. I didn't come back to a normal week like in most parts of Europe, but still partially holiday days (I still haven't understood, whether official free days in the canton, or just the hospital organisation, or just semi official waiting for the end of longer holidays of generalists, or what the hell was happening). Which meant longer official hours (weekend=longer schedules), much more work, overtime everytime. The first week of this year was 5 times 14 hours of work and then it continued at more normal hours and finally got much better in the last days. Lack of daylight doesn't help either. At some moments, I really felt my mental health suffering, just a few minutes of daylight (and a rather grayish one) in several days are not a sufficient dose.

So, I had looked both ways, made a reasonable learning plan. And got hit by this airplane of being totally overworked. It showed at the amount and quality of my preparation for my second C1 class (out of 12) and I hated myself for it. No matter the reason of my "laziness", those classes are expensive as hell (really should have asked many more questions when signing up with the project of one type of a class converting to another). The teacher is very good, but I need to work much more intensely on myself.

I am in unit 1 of Erkundungen C1. I really like this book, but need to move faster. Doing all the exercises (almost), putting vocab to SRS, and so on)

Grammatik Aktiv A1-B1: I had done the first 16 units or so in the previous years. It is a very good review, after my stupid demotivated break in December. Currently in unit 26.

Speexx: currently doing the vocab SRS in there, will quickly do other stuff to complete this material.

No Italian done so far. My PLIDA C1 results expected 31/01. Is this the priority correction I paid for? Then what is the normal one, do the people paying 10 franks less get their results in this century or the next one?

Now I have three night shifts before me and then a few free days.
12 x

Cavesa
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Re: Smelling the coffee in 2023

Postby Cavesa » Wed Jan 18, 2023 4:08 pm

My German is not going as expected. And it is not just that the new year was hard and that I am procrastinating. The language school is really failing me and today, I found out there have been some very serious misunderstandings. I am rather annoyed and angry.

My months left were converted to 12 and half lesson of C1. I also need to take C1 exam at the end of March. I need a good kind of pressure, and a lot of structure, to get there. The structure the school uses up to B2 (and which I used to properly deepen more than half the B2 level) was giving me just that, I loved it. A fixed list stuff to do, preparation to complete. The structure was giving me freedom, because I could do a part of it even two or three weeks in advance (if I had time in my crazy work schedule and it also made sense, as it was near something else studied for an earlier lesson), and a part of it at the last moment. It also motivated me, because I clearly saw how many weeks till the goal, if I work well, and also how stuff I was at the moment learning for lesson 62 will be very useful in 68 and 71 (just imagined number to illustrate how I was working with the list).

Then the end of B2 came and the school took a month to transfer my subscription to C1 individual classes, which caused a huge rift in my newly bult German learning habits. And all the structure disappeared. On one hand, I feel under extreme pressure, because the classes are right now extremely expensive (I would have never accepted, had I asked the right questions before signing up and insisted on answers. It's like 110 franks per lesson). But at the same time, I am under no pressure at all, because the homework to prepare is being planned from one class to another, leaving me zero opportunity or pressure to pre-prepare whatever I can, whenever I can. The result is procrastination and doing much less, than I could.

The classes themselves are not bad, we speak a lot. I like the teacher, and now I am beginning to see it as a problem, as I was too trusting as a result. We do exercises from Erkundungen, some of which really are meant to be used that way, as speaking prompts and questions. I like that, but some others should be done just individually, and should have been clearly assigned as homework too. But nope, we're still in Kapitel 1 and I have only 9 paid classes left. And I can't see myself paying 110 franks for a single more class. And there is no way to get out of the contract.

So, today, I asked for a learning plan. I had actually discussed this before with the councellor (the person that is presenting the system to the individual student, signing the contract, and working as a sort of interface making sure stuff goes as planned), but there was too much "oh, you'll settle this with the teacher" and so on. So, I asked the teacher for a plan for more lessons. She was a bit surprised, but said ok, I'll write something down. And at the end, she asked, whether I was planning to continue by monthly subscription or by paying individual classes. This really surprised me. I had paid in hopes to be pushed to C1 for my over 4000 franks (while also promised two months extra for free for a summer sale). It's not my fault I lost a month complete and now am being given homework supposed to move me there in a year or I don't know how long.

I am not staying here, I am moving no idea where to at the end of April. I am right now asking for jobs in German starting on May or November. I did not pay for a standard free spirited "it will take however long you need" appraoch, otherwise I would have paid 15 euro per hour on Italki. And the last words from the teacher to the discussion: "C1 in three months? It can't be done!".

Fuck this.
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Cavesa
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Re: Smelling the coffee in 2023

Postby Cavesa » Wed Jan 18, 2023 5:09 pm

So, my only option is to squeeze whatever I can from the money I paid. I will try to study much more than before to:
1.get there whether or not the teacher is actually trying to help fast enough
2.perhaps convince the teacher that it actually is more possible and therefore convince her to try to push me to better performance too
3.be mostly on my own in spite of the hundreds of of franks flushed down the toilet,

To avoid spreading myself too thin, I need to really make a difference between primary and secondary resources.
.........
Oh, and btw, she is adding more resources. Today, she brought a few vocab worksheets from a B2 book. Really, I need to be pushed hard towards C1, I was already reviewing B2 in the months before. If I suck so much I need to work on B2 stuff, I need to be called out on that, not supported in being bad.

She also keeps suggesting I write and send her the results, but without actually assigning stuff to write. That's the problem.
.........
This change of approach also means waving goodbye to some of the good resolutions, such as the few resources etc.

So, the main quests till the next class, in order of priority:
-Finish Kapitel 1, do whatever I can in writing and send it for correction.
-Do a part of Kapitel 2, again anything I can in writing. A part of the chapter will do.
-Anki vocab from Kapitel 1 and 2, and also some from the earlier levels of the coursebook series (as the C1 book and even B2 present mostly phrases and uses of words, which is awesome, but sometimes makes me a bit unsure. Not every word used is on the redemittel list, which is annoying, so I just hope they are just expecting me to have learnt it before from the other lists)
-Grammar to cover in my workbooks: Past tenses, prepositions of space and prepositions of time
-complete the relevant Speexx completings and especially writings, and relevant not completed parts of B2 Erkundungen (as C1 often logically continues where the previous volume ended)
-Anki relevant vocabulary from the huge Vocabulaire Allemand book

The deadline: 2nd February night. Before the class
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Cavesa
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Re: Smelling the coffee in 2023

Postby Cavesa » Thu Jan 19, 2023 11:31 pm

I've got an email. It's a surprisingly happy one! :-D :-D :-D

Gentile signora -my real name-

Ho il piacere di comunicarle che ha superato l’esame con i seguenti voti.

 

Ascoltare 27

Leggere 30

Parlare 23

Scrivere 18

 

Trova in allegato la certificazione dell’ottenuto risultato.

Migliori auguri per il seguito della sua carriera.

Distinti saluti


YAY!!!!! I can widen my job hunting regions. And update my profile here. More bragging rights :-D :-D :-D
Last edited by Cavesa on Fri Jan 20, 2023 12:01 am, edited 1 time in total.
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tractor
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Re: Smelling the coffee in 2023

Postby tractor » Thu Jan 19, 2023 11:37 pm

Congratulations!
3 x

Cavesa
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Re: Smelling the coffee in 2023

Postby Cavesa » Thu Jan 19, 2023 11:41 pm

Thank you! And I just googled this: "Per superare l’esame è necessario raggiungere il voto minimo di 18 punti su un massimo di 30 in ognuna delle quattro abilità."

:-D :-D :-D See my scores? :-D :-D :-D
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Re: Smelling the coffee in 2023

Postby rdearman » Fri Jan 20, 2023 12:13 am

I wonder if I was the only one who clicked on your profile to see if you'd updated it. :D Congratulations.
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