DaveBee wrote:Could you procrastinate in Russian instead? Russian twitter, Russian Facebook, Russian celeb gossip etc.?
Sadly my Russian isn't good enough yet to be very useful for procrastination. But I am getting quite good at procrastinating by reading Croatian news on Twitter
Brun Ugle wrote:If you do decide you want the Glossika course, now is the time to get it, while they have a 40%-off sale. They will be gone forever after the sale. I'm trying to figure out how much I can afford to spend and what languages I most want. Unfortunately, the answer to that question seems to be, "all of them."
I know, I am still tempted to get Slovene before they all disappear. Especially because Slovene seems like a language where there aren't tonnes of other good resources. But on the other hand it seems like a lot of money to spend on something I don't need right now and probably won't use for years. So I am still wavering
Elenia wrote:For what it's worth, I'd say setting aside some time so you figure out how you can better use your work time and streamline your tasks is worth it, regardless of whether it'll leave you with more head space for Russian and languages. Taking care of yourself is important! I don't know what you do, so I don't know how possible it will be to do so, but if you can then you should!
(Related: minimising your Esperanto Association time is also probably a good idea. It seems like a time, energy and joy sink
You are definitely right Elenia and I started this week at work full of good intentions to try and get things under control... and then by 10am on Monday, something went wrong which ended up dominating the whole week and meaning all the useful lists I'd made of what I was going to achieve had to be thrown out the window
I'm going to try again this week! As for time, energy and joy sink - that is a very accurate description of my Esperanto role. I have spent a lot of time this year trying to decide whether to give it up entirely but unfortunately it isn't a simple decision to make and so far I've failed to make it...Anyway, October is over already so I need to update on my goals again.
Goal 1 - Read 10 books in German
I'm still on 9. I may actually have run out of unread German books, which could make meeting this goal a challenge.
Goal 2 - Try not to forget any more Esperanto
No positive Esperanto experiences in October.
Goal 3 - Increase my Croatian vocabulary
I've still been avoiding Memrise like the plague, but I have learned some new words from the books I've been reading. One that sticks in my mind that I definitely learned in October is 'hrt', which is a type of dog. It seems to be the sorts of dogs that are tall and skinny with long legs, so in the book I was reading it meant 'greyhound' but from googling it seems like there are lots of different types of dogs that are classed as a hrt of some type of another. I don't really know enough about dogs understand it properly!
Goal 4 - Read at least 4,200 pages in Croatian
At the end of September I was on 5,534 pages. The main book I read in October was 'Gospodari strijela' by Conn Iggulden, which was 448 pages. I've also so far read 336 pages of 'Na rubu večnosti'. So 784 pages in October, taking my total for the year to 6,318 pages.
Goal 5 - Listen to/watch at least 9,990 minutes of Croatian TV/films/audiobooks
October has been a bad month for TV again. Mainly because I was away in Italy for one week and then working away in Reading for another week, and during that time I didn't really have time (or fast enough internet) to watch anything. So in total I watched 7 episodes of 'Zora dubrovačka', which equates to 307 minutes. I had 7,619 minutes at the end of September, so that's 7,926 minutes now. That wasn't quite on track to finish the Double Challenge by the end of the year but so far November is going much better, so I might still do it
Goal 6 - Do better than last year at Croatian output
No, I've completely given up on this now. I think I do worse with every year that goes by!
Goal 7 - Learn enough Russian to feel confident enough to take my Mom to St Petersburg.
See previous posts for a detailed explanation of lack of progress
