Thanks for all the encouragement I've been getting!
From the last week or so:
Struggling with my studies horribly.
Struggling with my motivation a bit less: we are now in another hospital, where they treat us nicely and try to teach us something. That ends tomorrow, back to the normal after that.
I've watched three seasons of Shield in just a few weeks. That means I have to use it for my German learning, to not make it a complete waste of time. I love superheroes and Shield is likely to be very easy, due to the recurring themes. Actually, it is much less fun now than in the first season, but I think it will be appropriate.
I signed up for the Super Challenge! YAY!!!
I lost my German Duolingo streak and all my motivation for it with it. This is the problem of the streaks. It goes great and then one loss simply takes that away from the game. The good news: I am opening my normal coursebook again instead.
And it is sometimes fun to listen to the conversations of the foreigners in Prague. Italian is particularly common around me lately. Sometimes, it is just as boring as the regular conversation in Czech. Yeah, it is not polite, but we all do that
renaissancemedici wrote:You are not a failure, it's just the struggle some people have to face. I'm one of them. I have found that the only remedy is simply to ignore your momentary passion and do the right thing. At first it's annoying, then it becomes a habit. I know it's not much of wisdom, but it's the only thing that works for me. If I think about it too much, and focus on what I want, what I should do, am I wasting my time, who am I, all sorts of philosophical questions
, well I'll never get anything done. Just do it, as the saying goes.
You can only beat a vice practicing its corresponding virtue, according to some people. Self evident, but tough.
On the other hand if you do give in, don't beat yourself up about it.
Having said that, German seems to be my nemesis so far, although lately I do have some objective obstacles unrelated to my procrastination. However this is a rare case in my usual let's-do-something-else-instead habits...
Thanks for the good advice. The problem is the fact that there is no life, if I just do the right thing all the time. I am hypertired of that. I wonder, does that habit ever become less annoying?
renaissancemedici wrote:I know what you are saying. My brother went through a tough time of unemployement so I said "why don't you try something abroad?" Abroad meaning another european country, us being european citizens and all. He said to me: are you crazy? I don't want to be a financial immigrant! I had never thought about it like that, but I guess he was right, because being a tourist is one thing, but when you go to work things somehow change.
Yes, the word expats brings to mind people dressed in white linen in cafes and monuments. Or Hemingway and his moving feast. I wouldn't use it either.
As for France, I really didn't see that brotherly love you mention. In fact my husband and I kept having the exact opposite conversation (from our limited time spent in Paris of course, we are not experts!).
There are two kinds of economical migrants and both are as old as the human kind. And this term gets damaged a lot lately. One are the people going to places, where they can abuse the good hearts and system. The other are people working abroad. People actually moving elsewhere for better opportunities (money, knowledge, experience, and so on) are one of the bases of our civilisation. And nope, I am not gonna people in my country make me feel guilty about this. It is not just the money. And even when it is, it is ok and natural.
I didn't mean brotherly love exactly. But more of a relationship like the cousins who used to play together and fight against each other as kids and now know what to expect and how to treat each other. They may not like to spend a lot of time now and organise family gatherings, but they still prefer family to absolute strangers. That was the impression.
Morgana wrote:It happens. It's not a reflection of your worth as a person. It doesn't mean you are destined to continue on this way forever. I haven't quite earned my degree in armchair psychology, but my gut, and personal experience, tell me there's usually something going on that leads to the procrastination. It's a coping mechanism when dealing with stress.
From
here:
You see, procrastinators tend to be people who have, for whatever reason, developed to perceive an unusually strong association between their performance and their value as a person. This makes failure or criticism disproportionately painful, which leads naturally to hesitancy when it comes to the prospect of doing anything that reflects their ability — which is pretty much everything.
... Procrastination gives a person a temporary hit of relief from this pressure of “having to do” things, which is a self-rewarding behavior. So it continues and becomes the normal way to respond to these pressures.
Particularly prone to serious procrastination problems are children who grew up with unusually high expectations placed on them. Their older siblings may have been high achievers, leaving big shoes to fill, or their parents may have had neurotic and inhuman expectations of their own, or else they exhibited exceptional talents early on, and thereafter “average” performances were met with concern and suspicion from parents and teachers.
Anyway, the blog post is rather long, but if you text search for part of the above paragraphs, that's where it gets relevant. It's rather relatable. I hope it helps you reframe the issue in such a way that better enables you to tackle the problem
Thanks! I've been working on this issue but I still fight. Some parts of this are really true.
Thanks! This is certainly useful. Too bad I didn't discover stuff like this ages ago. However, highlighting is very useful, I disagree there, even though for different purposes. It helps me sort the information. And it helps me not to fall asleep
A problem is the absolute lack of stuff like this in the Czech Republic. The methodology is not being discussed and explored at all. The teachers often don't know (and don't care) how to teach. The students need to figure the learning methods on their own. Sure, they have to deal with it somehow, in order to get through the school. A curious problem: I am a bad student by the standards here. But from my observation, I am not that much worse than the awesome students in the end. Too many of them excel at the moment of the exam but then they just let it rot and are the same or worse than me. So what is it good for? Rereading is the main study method. Rewriting or reorganising is a complement. But I haven't even heard of a single student using Anki, I haven't read it in a single student's blog or on any forum.
So, there are no ready made Anki decks. I envy the americans with tons of study decks and well tested methods shared just on reddit. The french are a bit behind the anglophones in this. But the czechs are not even on the start. So, I am too late and on my own.
Ccaesar wrote:Dobrý den, Cavesa!(I hope this is correct
) I apologise for my late reply, I have been a bit busy and for some reason got no notification of further entries here
I will ask them in your common thread then.
Viel Erfolg, and I get how anki can be a bit of a nut to get into, I like to believe that we are built to prefer what is easiest, but no neccesarily the most efficient
Good luck with both language learning and the medicin studies, that is a very honourable thing to study for which I have the utmost respect. And don't worry about feeling a lack of energy it is natural for our bodies to remind us that we need off-time to reduce stress.
Dobrý den
thank you!
But I'll fix that.