Stirring up 2017 with Spoon [ Español | Italiano | Esperanto | Deutsch? ]

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Stelle
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Re: Stirring up 2017 with Spoon [ Español | Italiano | Esperanto | Deutsch? ]

Postby Stelle » Mon Jul 17, 2017 2:00 am

Ooh...you've left me behind! I spent the weekend at a music festival and haven't cracked open my book since Friday. I'll have to do some reading tomorrow. I'm looking forward to the mystery. Right now, Michele is working his way through the second floor of the dilapidated house. (And yes, il Teschio really is a rat!)
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Spoonary
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Re: Stirring up 2017 with Spoon [ Español | Italiano | Esperanto | Deutsch? ]

Postby Spoonary » Mon Jul 17, 2017 8:31 pm

Tut tut! Come on, Stelle, keep up! :P

To be honest, I don't think I will be reading very quickly now, as I'm back to working late and I'm busy this weekend, so you won't be behind for long.

I created a thread for our communal read-along by the way, so my Io non ho paura updates will be over there from now on.
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Spoonary
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Re: Stirring up 2017 with Spoon [ Español | Italiano | Esperanto | Deutsch? ]

Postby Spoonary » Mon Sep 18, 2017 8:52 pm

Where did the last 2 months go? :shock:

Since I finished Io non ho paura (click the title to go to my goodreads review) back in August, I pretty much disappeared completely from this forum, I know, but I had every intention of coming back (for the 100th time this year :roll: ), so here I am.

The truth is, I found myself in a huge slump which stemmed from my job and how much it frustrated me day in, day out and sapped every drop of energy from my body. Now, not much has changed there, as I'm still in the same job which I still hate. However, I have now started to take steps to drag myself out of that hole, starting with actually looking for another job, so we'll see how that goes.

One thing which did help in my darkest hour was going on a short trip to Poland at the beginning of September. :) More specifically, I went to a small town called Chełm to attend my Polish friend's wedding. I also spent time in Warsaw, but only in passing. I really didn't see much of Poland, as the majority of my time was spent either travelling or celebrating, but what I did see was really nice. The wedding itself was really unique, as it mixed Polish traditions with a few Spanish touches (the bride was Polish and the groom Spanish). There was a HUGE amount of food at the wedding reception - they just kept bringing courses out! But I particularly enjoyed the traditional songs and dances we all took part in, helped along by a fair amount of vodka shots of course :lol:

Language-wise, I spoke mainly Spanish while I was there, as I met the bride in Spain on my year abroad, where we communicated purely in Spanish, of course. It was fun to chat with the groom's family as well, who told me they thought I was actually Spanish when they first heard me talking to the bride. 8-) I also spoke a fair bit of English while chatting to the bride's family etc. and trying to communicate with strangers, which I had varying amounts of success with. I have to admit that I hated being that tourist who relies on English to get around, but I just did not have the energy to learn any Polish before I went, due to the work situation. :oops: I know the very basics like yes, no, thank you and hello but something like "I'm sorry, I don't speak Polish. Can you speak English please?" would have been useful.

Since I got back, I have been very casually focusing on Spanish. That is, listening to podcasts and restarting El fin de los sueños. I also finally finished watching Pasporto al la tuta mondo in Esperanto too though :mrgreen:
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Re: Stirring up 2017 with Spoon [ Español | Italiano | Esperanto | Deutsch? ]

Postby DaveBee » Mon Sep 18, 2017 10:14 pm

Spoonary wrote:Language-wise, I spoke mainly Spanish while I was there, as I met the bride in Spain on my year abroad, where we communicated purely in Spanish, of course. It was fun to chat with the groom's family as well, who told me they thought I was actually Spanish when they first heard me talking to the bride. 8-)
That is pretty cool. Gold star there!
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Re: Stirring up 2017 with Spoon [ Español | Italiano | Esperanto | Deutsch? ]

Postby Elenia » Sun Sep 24, 2017 12:48 pm

Good luck with the job search Spoon, and well done on the Spanish front!
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Re: Stirring up 2017 with Spoon [ Español | Italiano | Esperanto | Deutsch? ]

Postby Spoonary » Tue Oct 31, 2017 11:22 pm

October is pretty much over at this point, and here I am again after a month of nothing. :roll:

On the job front, I have found it very difficult to throw myself into looking and applying for a new job, what with my current one taking up so much of my energy and self-belief. That, among other reasons, is why I have decided to leave it, after over a year and a half of ups and (many) downs. At the time of writing this, I have 3 days remaining at my current workplace, and I do not have a new one to go to. My plan is to try to find something temporary (and non-sales related) to tide me over while I find a job with better prospects. I know I am taking a risk, but I just need to get out of my current workplace ASAP in order to be able to move on. There's a bit more to it than what I have written here, but I reserve the right to keep some of my personal life to myself, even in the 21st Century :P

That, along with my need to prove that I can achieve something right now (if only to myself), is why I am going to join the 6 Week Challenge in November, with German being my target language. :o Yes, for some time now, I have been VERRRRY casually learning teensy bits and pieces of German, mainly by watching youtube videos (such as Learn German with Ania), listening to Saltatio Mortis and Subway to Sally and listening to Language Transfer. I am starting to recognise a few words/phrases here and there, but I wouldn't have a clue how to say/write anything coherent at this time.

I believe I can get to some sort of A1-like level in 6 weeks, with at least 30 minutes of study per day. Some of the things I plan to do will be: finish listening to Language Transfer (I'm up to episode 13 on Youtube); attempt to understand the lyrics to some of my favourite German songs (mainly from the above 2 bands) with the help of lyricstranslate; read some of the 'Learn German with Stories' books (I have the first 2 on kindle) and I should probably review some basic grammar as well, but we'll see how that goes. :)

Edit: I almost forgot to write about my recent language activities. To be honest, all I have done is watch Paquita Salas on Netflix for a few hours over the last couple of nights. It's a Spanish comedy series which reminded me of The Office and which was actually really fun to watch. I am also still reading El fin de los sueños, because I have no energy to read before/after work.
Last edited by Spoonary on Wed Nov 01, 2017 9:49 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Brun Ugle
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Re: Stirring up 2017 with Spoon [ Español | Italiano | Esperanto | Deutsch? ]

Postby Brun Ugle » Wed Nov 01, 2017 8:28 am

Good luck! Sometimes the best thing you can do is quit a bad job, even if you don’t have a new one to go to. I’ll keep my fingers crossed that you find something better soon. I’ll also be joining you with German in the 6WC.
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Stelle
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Re: Stirring up 2017 with Spoon [ Español | Italiano | Esperanto | Deutsch? ]

Postby Stelle » Wed Nov 01, 2017 11:39 am

Good luck with all of your big changes! I hope that good things are coming your way! Being in a job that you hate is utterly soul-crushing.
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Spoonary
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Re: Stirring up 2017 with Spoon [ Español | Italiano | Esperanto | Deutsch? ]

Postby Spoonary » Wed Nov 01, 2017 2:34 pm

Thank you both. I'm glad I finally made this decision and took the leap. Hopefully it will pay off. :)
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Spoonary
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Re: Stirring up 2017 with Spoon [ Español | Italiano | Esperanto | Deutsch? ]

Postby Spoonary » Fri Dec 08, 2017 12:57 pm

Get ready for another bout of déjà vu. I'm back to tell you how I didn't really do anything language related over the last month and a half and completely failed my 6 week German challenge (I only did 15 minutes of study :lol: ).

I have, however, got a new job. It's still call centre based so not a drastic change but this time I'll be taking customer service calls from business people rather than trying to sell things to the great British public and I'm pretty sure I can handle that. :P I will also be working much better hours than before which will allow me to manage my life much better (there's that déjà vu again!).

I'm not going to promise anything or set myself any goals just yet, but I am definitely in what I would call a language learning mood, so we'll see what comes of that. :)
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