Aokoye's Journey Through German (and other languages?)

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Systematiker
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Re: Aokoye's Journey Through German (and other languages?)

Postby Systematiker » Wed Dec 14, 2016 11:31 pm

If you're seriously considering doing grad work in Germany, I can give you some tips. There's a few tricks, especially for us Amis, that make life much easier than the DAAD would admit. Glad to help, if you want.
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aokoye
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Re: Aokoye's Journey Through German (and other languages?)

Postby aokoye » Thu Dec 15, 2016 12:50 am

Systematiker wrote:If you're seriously considering doing grad work in Germany, I can give you some tips. There's a few tricks, especially for us Amis, that make life much easier than the DAAD would admit. Glad to help, if you want.

That would be fantastic! I was actually just thinking about PMing you this afternoon because I knew you would have tips that would likely be very useful.
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aokoye
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Re: Aokoye's Journey Through German (and other languages?)

Postby aokoye » Sat Dec 17, 2016 7:58 am

I had knee surgery on the 15th and it went really well. I am in a fair amount of pain when I'm moving around on crutches (I'm non weight bearing for 6 weeks) but much better when I'm in bed. I somehow was able to focus well enough this evening to complete my Anki German review and only forgot one word. I probably won't be adding new words for the next few days at least unless I have a spur of energy. Needless to say that's very doubtful :lol:
The fact that I've been able to write as many posts here as I have today and yesterday afternoon/evening is impressive enough as it is. Though I probably have fallen asleep midway through writing at least half of them, if not most of them.
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aokoye
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Re: Aokoye's Journey Through German (and other languages?)

Postby aokoye » Sun Dec 18, 2016 5:00 am

I managed to do my German reviews this evening somehow. I haven't done any reading or listening because I can barely make it through a 45 min show in English let alone one in German. I suspect things will start feeling better in just about every way in a few days especially when I can start going down on my pain meds. I'm not on a high dose as it stands but I'm still in major healing mode and sleeping through most of the day.
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aokoye
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Re: Aokoye's Journey Through German (and other languages?)

Postby aokoye » Tue Dec 20, 2016 6:47 pm

I'm noticing I'm much more coherent and awake when I wake up first thing in the morning and after my presumably long series of naps in the evening. The morning thing makes tons of sense because I normally take my last dose of pain meds at around 1 or 1:30am. The evening also makes sense because I'm pretty well rested by the time 7 comes around after having slept through a good chunk of the day. It's terrifying how much energy I'm using. I mean it makes sense, but even little things like using my continuous passive movement machine for an hour will put me to sleep. That said I feel like I'm healing really well especially compared to my nearly identical surgeries in 2012.

Language learning wise, I'm slowly making my way through a backlog with Hebrew in Anki. I'm not putting too much energy on it at the moment honestly - I just want to get through the backlog of reviews. I only have 26 more that are due as of today (I left my filtered deck open last night and neglected to repopulate it today). With both Hebrew and German I'm making ample use of filtered decks so I can just review what's due.

In terms of German - vocabulary wise I haven't added any new vocab since the 14th or maybe early in the day of the 15th (before my surgery started). I've just been going over the reviews which has been going really well. My current correct rate for young cards is 96%. I haven't reviewed any mature cards yet so we'll see how that goes when they start coming up. I keep wanting to create new vocab cards but I don't have the actual focus to be able to do so. I did start my grammar deck yesterday evening. I think it'll go well. I also feel better about going over new cards as it's all review. Granted though it is information that likes to leave my head like water from a sieve. I can also create these cards while on pain meds and unable to focus which is a plus.

Systematiker I still owe you a message but thanks again for the PM you sent. It was really encouraging and informative. I have a year and a half or so before I'll be applying to programs. I don't remember if I mentioned this here yet but I'm probably going to go get the certificate in TESOL that my uni offers. It requires four or five more classes than I would have taken and one of them, curriculum development, I've been wanting to take since I started the app ling program. I am excited because it requires 70 hours of teaching with a minimum of 15 hours each of classroom observation, tutoring, and teaching (after you do the first 45 hours you can tailor the rest to your individual needs as a student). You also create a portfolio which will be very useful for me. I've realized that I don't have much of a problem with the idea of me teaching English in most western European countries. There are also a lot of volunteer opportunities that crop of for students who are in the process of getting the TESOL certificate so getting more expierence isn't going to likely be an issue.

Ok I'm going to end this here because I can't focus and am drifting off to sleep every 5 min (yes it's only 10:47am - this is what happens within 45 min taking my first 10mg of oxycodone of the day).
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aokoye
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Re: Aokoye's Journey Through German (and other languages?)

Postby aokoye » Mon Dec 26, 2016 4:03 am

I should have known better than to have goals for this Winter break given that I'm recovering from a very major surgery. Here's an example of what my days have looked like.

Saturday (yesterday):
Wake up at 10:30
Lay in bed until 10:55
Take a much needed shower
Have a guitar lesson from noon to 1pm (that my mom drove me to)
Grab lunch at one place and salad and Hanukkah candles at another place - I only went into the second store and my left leg (the non operated on one) was killing me by the time we left - i think we were there 10 min
Get home at just before 2pm and sleep off and on 8:30
Do some language stuff while eating late eating dinner and after eating dinner
Go to bed at around 1am
I also fit physical therapy in there twice a day.

On days that I don't go anywhere (most days) I've been waking up at 10:30, taking meds and sometimes eating breakfast, going back to bed and sleeping on and off until mid to late into the afternoon (today I think I finally really woke up at 2:30pm), getting some stuff done through the evening, and going to bed at 12:45 or 1am. Note today and yesterday have been days where I haven't been on a whole lot of pain meds (yay for that!).

So despite all of that I finished my two "essays" for my study abroad application in a nice very lucid moment. I put essay in quotes because they were both a page double spaced and the topics were essentially, "why do you want to do this and what has prepared you for this" and "what are you goals for your time abroad and how do you plan to fulfill them". Now I'm waiting on my letter of recommendation to be uploaded, for one of my transcripts to be sent, and then I need to order the other one and pay the application fee.

Also I've managed to keep up with my Anki reviews somehow. They're my main priority in terms of language learning at the moment in part because I can do reviews right now. I don't have the energy to sit through TV or movies in any language for the most part. There have been a few times when I've been able to do so but on the whole I've been falling asleep half way through whatever I watch.

Reading wise I'm thinking about reading through the Top-Theme articles on Deutsche Welle. They are aimed at B1 but my reading has fallen so behind so behind and I like how vocab is presented. I definitely know a lot of the vocab in the articles but not all of it. I also need to start actually doing some of the German grammar exercises that I'm taking sentences from but again with my lack of energy...

A think I'll likely do once the next term starts, or perhaps closer to Spring break, is read linguistics articles and books in German. It would be a shame to get into a ling program in Germany and then have a lot of trouble getting my head around the readings. It's also reading that I want to actually do and obviously have a very keen interest in.
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Elenia
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Re: Aokoye's Journey Through German (and other languages?)

Postby Elenia » Mon Dec 26, 2016 3:35 pm

Sounds like a tough time for you at the moment, but for only good reasons. It's been a while since I caught up on your log - guess I kept missing it. I'm glad you were able to get the claim sorted out, and that your surgery went well. Good luck going forward :)
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aokoye
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Re: Aokoye's Journey Through German (and other languages?)

Postby aokoye » Mon Dec 26, 2016 9:05 pm

Thanks Elenia! Yeah it's been a very interesting past two weeks - my main activity has been sleeping but at least it's been for logical reasons and my body needs to sleep.

I'm also so SO glad that the claim got worked out in my favor. One of my friends, who is a therapist and who has filed claims against the local public school system for a former foster child that she had, keeps telling me that my uni must have realized that they were looking at a potential lawsuit. While I personally am not particularly litigious, this would have warranted suing them given the nature and gravity of what happened. But yeah - assuming everything actually works out, which I suspect it will, getting into grad school almost anywhere won't be a big stretch assuming I keep doing well in my classes. Plus I can actually take more classes that I want to take without being worried about what will happen to my financial aid. It's a giant weight lifted off of my shoulders.
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Elenia
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Re: Aokoye's Journey Through German (and other languages?)

Postby Elenia » Tue Dec 27, 2016 8:15 pm

I know you're not particularly focusing on Swedish right now, but came across this link and thought you might be interested. If not for now, it might be nice to save for a later (much later?) date.
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aokoye
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Re: Aokoye's Journey Through German (and other languages?)

Postby aokoye » Tue Dec 27, 2016 11:22 pm

Elenia wrote:I know you're not particularly focusing on Swedish right now, but came across this link and thought you might be interested. If not for now, it might be nice to save for a later (much later?) date.


Oh interesting! I will bookmark that and save it until probably sometime next Fall BUT I do have a friend who loves Swedish and is a ling student so I'll send it to her too :D
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