Disconnected Sundays

This was written January 05, 2025

Introduction

Hello everyone!

As I find myself writing this, it is roughly 5:30pm Sunday evening, local time. It has now been a few weeks since I’ve start a new experiment, Disconnected Sundays, with varying degrees of success.

Disconnected Sundays

What are Disconnected Sundays? Simply put, I’ve decided to spend` the entirety of my Sundays without access to internet. Thus, as I head to bed on Saturday night, I disable the internet from my laptop and phone. Then, I go about my Sunday life as normal, albeit without access to internet.

But why? Having realized I waste a significant amount of time on the internet, (and I do mean waste) and that it affects my mental health negatively, I set out to find a solution. There are two main culprits for this negative impact:

I easily get consumed by passive activities online, such as watching videos or mindlessly browsing.
I spend all my time thinking and worrying about communication with others, idly waiting for responses or communications from others, and constantly thinking about what to write to others, which generates a ton of anxiety.

Therefore, I opted to investigate whether avoiding these for one day a week could negate their negative impact. Whatmore, this could also hopefully increase my productivity.

Part of the inspiration came from the Shabboth. For those unfamiliar with it, part of this Judaic custom involves not being able to actively interact with electricity (for example, you can’t turn on or off a light). It’s been my impression that for a lot of people, part of this custom also involves further devotion to the scripture, resulting in impressive results. It also seems like a lot of people generally use this as an opportunity to read, study or do what I’d consider more productive activities (including close-knit social interactions).

While I am not a practitioner of this faith, I still find it a rather inspiring one. And I couldn’t help but ponder over this custom and its benefits. I eventually concluded that there were important take aways leading to an opportunity to better myself. And so, I landed on this notion of Disconnected Sundays.

Why Sundays? It’s simple, it’s the only day of the week I neither work nor go to school, so it seemed like the only valid option. In particular, on any workday, it seems like I’m “duty-bound” to using my phone.

Results so far

As I’ve said, it’s already been a few weeks since I’ve started.So, how’s it going so far? Well, it’s a mixed bag. For starters, I tend to stay up rather late on Saturdays. Indeed, it’s the only day of the week where I can afford to, and it sometimes is necessary when I want to inteact with family or friends in other time zones. With a 12-16h time difference, opportunities for longer calls or gaming sessions are definitely rarer. Accordingly, it’s not rare on Sundays for me to wake up around 12pm or 1pm, a huge chunk of my day already having elapsed. I’ve also had 1-2 days where I was fairly sick, and simply spent all day in bed reading and resting.

However, despite these “setbacks”, I still consider most of those days to have be fairly productive. I find myself reading a lot more than on average days, I manage to make good progress on homework and studies, I even find time to work on some projects (such as writing this current post). So overall, I would label this a success. So much so I’m wondering whether I should try to implement this on Mondays as well, although it might be a bit more complicated, and inconvenient for others.

While this covers productivity, there remains my tendency to stress over communications with others. Well, I still find myself looking at my phone fairly regularly, or at the very least thinking about it, and then realizing that I don’t actually have access to this functionality. Still, as the day goes on, this tendency gradually wanes, which is a positive tendency. It’s just a shame that benefit does not carry on through the rest of the week, and nor to the next Sunday, but it is what it is. Better a temporary gain than no gain at all!

Of course, this does not come without its lot of inconveniences. For isntance, I’ve had a few instances where I went out and just couldn’t look up specific information online, nor use a map to find locations. But hey, that used to be the status quo just a few short decades ago, so there’s no reason I shouldn’t be able to adapt to it, right?

Lastly, I must also admit that I unfortnately often lack in the discipline department. There have been a few occurences of me re-enabling the internet around 9pmi and communicating with others or watching stuff online. Still, that does not invalidate any of the progress I make during the rest of the day, far from it. And it’s something I should still be able to improve.

Conclusion

Well, there you are. Disconnected Sundays are a new habit I’ve formed, which I believe adds value to my weeks. And although it comes with some costs, the benefits definitely outway the negatives. Although keep in mind this is according to my own goals and mindset. Your mileage may vary.

Still, I do think it’s worth trying for yourselves, if you dare. If nothing, it’s at least an interesting experiment, and you could be find yourself pleasantly surprised by the results.

On that note, thanks for joining, and take care everyone!

Sleep Improvement Part 1

This was written January 02, 2025

Introduction

As mentioned in a recent update, I’m planning work on myself through the implementation of better and healthier habits. There are many aspects to consider: how to track and complete tasks and errands, finding ways to consistently study and work on projects despite a more constrained schedule, having a better diet, doing more exercise, etc…

But in order to maximize my chances of success, I should prioritize what’s most critical. In this case, what’s more important than sleep? If you don’t sleep well, it impacts everything else. Energy is low, concentration is poor, motivation is lackluster, even health starts suffering. This is why I plan to first attempt to improve my sleep.

Improving my sleep

So what’s the plan? Well, there are a few avenues I can explore. The main areas I can think of are:

Sleep Schedule/Consistency
Sleep Hygiene
Sleep Quality

Sleep Schedule

While sleep quality is harder to approach in some instances (E.g.: If it’s a health issue, or if I need to purchase items), there are still many things I can do to improve my sleep.

Obviously, the first thing I can control is my sleeping schedule and its consistency. Currently, I’m often rather lazy when it comes to bed time, often procrastinating ad-nauseum before heading to bed, despite knowing what would be best for myself. Sometimes it takes the form of idling watching videos or shows, sometimes in the form of chatting with others, and sometimes it’s simply wanting to relax a bit after work. But most of it stems from a lack of discipline on my part. Consequently, I should institute a clearly defined sleep schedule I abide by. According to my work constraints (and the current iteration of my schedule), I plan on having the following bedtimes:

Sunday: Before 10pm
Monday: Before 10pm
Tuesday: Before 11pm
Wednesday: Before 11pm
Thursday: Before 11pm
Friday: Before 11pm

But what about Saturday? Well…I sometimes plan late-night events with friend in North America, since that’s usually the most sensible time (due to the time differences). Thus, it might be a bit complicated to have a reasonable bedtime on Saturday. However, if I notice that it negatively impacts the rest of my week, I’ll adapt accordingly.

Two additional comments. First, I do not plan to have fixed wake-up times for now. The most important thing for me is to go to sleep at a reasonable time and hopefully get enough sleep, depending on what my body craves. Moreover, it’s hard to plan for nightly disruptions (like needing to use the restroom). But once I have a more regular sleeping schedule, I’m sure my body will adapt and I’ll be able to plan accordingly.

Next, while I state I want to go to sleep by a specified time, e.g.: “Before 10pm”, my goal is to get to bed 30 minutes ahead of schedule, yet have a margin of error.

Sleep Hygiene

Other than my sleep schedule, I could also work on my sleep hygiene. First, one thing I believe plagues most people nowadays is phone usage in bed. I’ve gradually started away while charging it at night, making it inaccessible, although I’m not always too disciplined about it. Beyond that, I also have the terrible habit of putting on a tv show when I go to bed. This is in part to drown out my own thoughts, which tend to spiral while I’m trying to sleep. I will thus attempt to remove those bad habits from my life. For the phone, the approach is fairly self-evident, and simply requires discipline. As for television, it actually feels less straightforward. I often worry about changing that habit, especially when I have something important the next day (e.g.: an exam). Indeed, I worry it might negatively impact my sleep and that I might simply be unable to fall asleep.

Thus, I think I might want to take a gradual approach. In a first step, I would swap out television for music (possibly classical music, or at least something relaxing). Obviously, I’ll want to add a sleep timer to it so it doesn’t go on all night. Eventually, if this transition goes smoothly, I can finally move on to a completely silent approach…unless my environment turns out to be too noisy (e.g.: Neighbors or street noises).

Conclusion

Well, here’s the beginning of my new journey towards self-improvement. As a first step, I intend on improving my sleep. I also plan to document this in a “journal” format, logging the times I go to sleep, along with whether I relied on television or not. I will then try to share my results here. If possible, I’ll try to log my wake-up times, and how tired I feel during the day, although I can’t make guarantees on this.

On this note, I hope you tune in next time, and that I’m more refreshed from better sleep! Hopefully this also makes you reflect on your own habits and how you might want to improve upon them. Have a nice one everyone! Take care!

Reading in Chinese and the Importance of Iteration

This was written May 02 and May 03, 2024

Hello everyone!
As I’ve already mentioned, I’m currently in Taiwan learning Chinese. And I think it’s time to share some of my experience. Today, I will start with my experience with reading Chinese books. Important note: I’ve been learning Traditional Chinese, as opposed to Simplified Chinese.

A rocky start

A few months before arriving, I purchased a book in a series of “learner’s books”, a retelling of “Journey to the West” with hand-picked vocabulary and grammar. (It is part of a series of books of gradually increasing difficulty).

At first, I tried to read the book every day, looking up every new word and learning how to write them. Unfortunately, being at the beginning of my journey, this book was too advanced for me and I eventually gave up.

An initial improvement

Eventually, after of few months of taking Chinese classes in Taiwan, I decided to give the book another try. Turns out I was better equipped and it went a lot smoother! It took me a few weeks to finish it, during which I learned new words and became more comfortable with reading. I even decided to read it a second time, which went even better.

Choosing my next book

This first book completed, I figured I should continue with a more advanced book. After all, being in Taiwan should make finding an adequate Chinese book a piece of cake. However, finding the right level of challenge is far from trivial. I initially chose a retelling of The Three Kingdoms, but realized after my first session that I was out of my depth.

Accordingly, I started looking for a new book. Perusing in the children’s books section (books for ages 7-12), I searched for a cross-section between adequate difficulty and interesting material. I ended up choosing a Japanese book translated to Chinese (only realizing this after the fact). It’s actually a collection of ghost stories. Opening the book at random and looking at the vocabulary, it appeared to be manageable, and thus purchased it.

New troubles arise

Unfortunately, I soon realized this might actually be harder than I expected. Regardless, I opted to push through. My first strategy was to read a few pages, and whenever I stumbled upon vocabulary I didn’t know (or couldn’t remember), I would look it up and just carry on, trying to read for meaning. Alas, it soon became clear to me that I probably wouldn’t retain a lot of vocabulary this way, and should change my approach.

I thus figured I should put more focus on the vocabulary itself. As such, I would read a few pages and keep a list of “interesting vocabulary”. Once done reading, I would retain approximately ten words, which I would study and try to learn. But this started to overwhelm me, as extra assignment on top of work, other activities, and even pilling onto the reading activity itself. It felt likely to jeopardize my new habit, and so, it was time for a new strategy.

A new inspiration

Overwhelmed with the sheer volume of new vocabulary, I shifted my focus to getting accustomed to it, only learning how to read said vocabulary. Consequently, I would read one page at a time. First I would read it with the vocabulary I knew. Next, I would re-read it and look up each word I didn’t know. Finally, I would re-read the page until I could remember exactly how to pronounce every single character. (luckily, the dictionary Pleco can display a list of recently searched vocabulary, which is tremendously helpful).

While ideally, I would remember the meaning of the words, pronunciation was the priority, since meaning could also be gleamed from context. (After all, that’s how children learn new vocabulary. I also had experience learning vocabulary this way when learning English as a second language, interpolating meaning from context, as opposed to looking up words). This brought me significant success: I did learn many new words, became more confident with identifying new characters, and it made learning how to write characters in class easier, in large part due to being exposed to many of them from my reading. However, it was still a grueling and arduous tasks.

Eventually, I also started to write down questions I had: Vocabulary or turns of phrases I didn’t quite understand, new grammar points I noticed but wanted to understand how to use, connections in the language I thought I identified, etc… I would then ask questions to the teachers at my school, which has been incredibly helpful!

But I should reiterate that, in spite of the progress, this felt excruciating. It was very slow, sometimes taking an hour and a half for two pages, and draining my focus and mental capacity. I often felt demotivated and it took time for the benefits to become noticeable. But being stubborn, I pushed through anyway.

Fortunately, while I was initially worried I might be completely wasting my time, it eventually became apparent that I was gaining something from this (To be clear, I’m not saying this was the best way to learn). We recently had to take a mock standardized test with a listening and reading component, for which I didn’t practice (not knowing about it ahead of time). My results for the listening part were ok, acceptable when considering the material covered in class versus this standardized test: a 60/80. For the reading section however, my results allegedly exceeded those of of my peers, at 79/80. And this is also reflected in our discussed experiences. While I sometimes re-read the prompts multiple times before properly understanding, I did eventually got it (mostly). Meanwhile, from what my classmates and friends said, they struggled more with understanding the texts. They also felt like they ran out of time, whereas I didn’t really feel the time pressure for the reading section. And most strikingly, I seem to be the only person with such a wild discrepancy between reading and listening, with a difference of 19 points (most of my peers usually had difference of about 5 points). While it’s purely anecdotal (so take this with a grain of salt), it seems likely that my reading practice contributed to this outcome.

An interesting note is that, as I was progressing through the book, I was simultaneously progressing through my classes. Thus, my vocabulary was gaining from both the book and the lessons, creating a mutual reinforcement. And around the end of the book, I felt like my reading comprehension had drastically improved, feeling like I eventually understood what I was reading and better followed the overall narrative (a stark improvement over the first few stories). And eventually, I reached the end of the book, and had to decide what to do next.

But in retrospect, how well did this strategy work? Well, a lot of days felt like a painful trudge through sludge, and I had a lot of trouble remembering characters long-term, mainly remembering characters that had a major presence. Moreover, because I didn’t focus on it, the meaning of the vocabulary often didn’t stick. However, as mentioned above, it still seems to have helped me improve my reading abilities, and I’ve definitely learned from it. There were even a few happy and proud moments through this. For example, I remember reaching a page which I could mostly read on my first attempt. It felt really special to me. Obviously it happened on an “easier page”, but still. I also had moments where I decided to look at the dictionary’s “Chinese definition” first, where I understood without having to look up the English translation.

Time to reevaluate

So, with the first read-through complete, what next? At first, I decided to take a break and read in English for a bit. But eventually, I opted to return to this same book, now ideally better equipped for it. I also figured I should adapt my strategy. First, I opted to once again go page-by-page, but this time, I modified the “in-depth” phase. This time, I took note of interesting or recurring vocabulary, or words I had forgotten how to write. I would then immediately write them a few times, with their pronunciation, to try to learn them (Some new words I would just omit). The idea was that forcing myself to write them should help me remember them. Once done with this phase, I would reread the page until I knew how to pronounce every word (just as I used to). Turns out, it usually took me less time than before to remember how to pronounce new words, which was good. (Though do note I’m also improving, so it might not be due to the technique itself). However, doing this daily for a few pages was still very time consuming, and there were a lot of words that still faded away after a few days. So it still felt like slow and grueling progress.

A potential breakthrough?

Eventually, out of exhaustion and curiosity, I opted to read the rest of a chapter without looking up any of the vocabulary I didn’t know, in order to see how much I understood. Turns out, I could understand the narrative pretty well at this point, despite some vocabulary gaps. This led me to wonder whether this might be a better approach.

Subsequently, I had a discussion with a teacher, and eventually settled on a hybrid approach, which I’ve now tried for two days. This is split into a few phases:

Review previous day
In-depth reading
“Shallow reading”
Review same day

The in-depth phase is basically the last approach discussed, where I learn to write some new characters, and still learn how to read every single character. This is done for a single page.

During the review phase, I reread the one page from the in-depth phase of the target day (Either today’s or yesterday’s).

During the “shallow reading” phase, I read the next ~10 pages, without worrying too much about vocabulary I don’t know. If I’m either very curious about a word, or frustrated about not remembering it, I will look it up. Otherwise, I just move on.

So, what’s the rationale behind this new strategy?

I think it’s still very valuable to try to learn new characters, and going in-depth for part of it. Limiting it to one page should, however, make it more manageable. (Less time-consuming, less draining, and hopefully better retention)
Going back over the one page on the next day should allow for better retention.
The “shallow reading” should be less draining, and allow me to absorb more things from context, as opposed to directly from the dictionary. It should also help develop normal reading skills, useful for day-to-day life, or school situations/exams.
Since vocabulary can often be clustered in specific areas of a book, new vocabulary obtained through the “deep reading” phase should usually reappear in the “shallow reading” phase (and thus the next few days), helping further cement it.
The “shallow reading” phase should allow me to preview upcoming material and vocabulary.

Thoughts

If I had to redo it, what would I do? For starters, the book I chose was way too difficult for my level. I would definitely advise to start with a book of adequate difficulty, instead of stubbornly pushing through something that’s out of your league.

In terms of strategy, I would probably first start with the technique of reading a page until I can read every character on it: first focusing on reading and exposure, instead of writing. However, I would limit my scope, instead of going through an entire book with hundreds of pages. Maybe a small children’s book, a single chapter, or even a collection of about 10-20 pages. I’d iterate over this scope a few times until I could properly remember and understand the vocabulary, before moving on. Unfortunately, when using a whole book as your scope, the frequency of recurring vocabulary tends to be more limited, making it harder to commit the vocabulary to memory (at least in my experience).

Once I comfortable with the material within scope, I would either:

Move on to my new technique, focusing on writing characters
Skip right away to the next scope

If I opted to focus on writing here, I’m sure I could handle more than a single page at a time, since I’d be more comfortable with the vocabulary within the scope.

Obviously, I would also keep questioning what works and what doesn’t with this strategy, before considering how to iterate.

But: Why not start with this strategy right away? That’s a good question. For starters, I hadn’t thought of it until I started writing this. Yet, I would like to give my current technique a chance before trying something new. I might actually try this once I complete the current chapter I’m reading (which may take some time, going at a pace of one page a day). Or honestly, whenever I start being unhappy with the current strategy.

Conclusion

Through each of these strategies, I evaluated whether it worked, and what I could try to improve. Sometimes, it was a huge departure from my previous strategy, but it always served as an experiment. I hope what I’ve shared today can help you understand the value of iterating through your process. Each step should serve as a lesson, and should hopefully get you closer to something that works for you. Although it’s important to remember that, what “works for you” might also be a moving target, since we’re also growing and changing over time. Thus, what works for me today might not have worked for me a year ago. And similarly, what works for me might not work for you. So I’d encourage you to experiment on your own processes and iterate to figure out what works best for you!

On that note, good luck with your own projects and endeavors, and remember to keep trying to trying different strategies! What matters is not whether what you’re currently doing the best and most optimal solution, but that you try things out, evaluate them, think of potential alternatives and refine your findings into a next iteration. I wish you all success on your own journeys. And as always, stay curious!

Learning to Draw People Challenge – Second Pause Discussion

This was written March 28, 2024 as part of the 2024 Learning to Draw People Challenge

Introduction

Hello everyone and welcome back,
As stated in Learning to Draw People Challenge – Day 23 (2024/03/16) – Dawn of a new Break, I had to take a break from my Challenge once again due to some issue I’ve been facing. I decided I would talk a bit about these issues, along with what I’m planning to do in the interim.

Stress and Issues

Let’s first talk about the various contributors to this pause. First of all, the primary reason for coming to Taiwan was to learn Chinese, and this should remain a priority. Obviously, my Chinese classes require both time and mental effort. On top of that, I try to read in Chinese every day, which can take a few hours (for barely any pages), and leaves me mentally drained. This thus limits the amount of effort I’m able to expend on other endeavors.

Speaking of time, I do spend a lot of time on transit, taking the metro and bus from where I live to school and back, along with some significant delays while waiting for the bus. This is a non-negligible chunk of my day that can’t be disregarded, during which I tend to be idle and not really “productive”.

Beyond that, I’ve also been stressed. Not only do I have exams every week, but it’s also been tax seasons, and my current situation complicates matters. I also have to figure out what I’ll to do this summer, and the uncertainty is eating at me, along with worries of issues with the timeline and my visa.

Next, through a combination of different elements (including insomnia, stress, and the amount of things I was trying to handle at once), I was becoming sleep deprived, which negatively impacted my ability to focus, and in turn both my motivation and ability to perform involved tasks. This means that forcing myself to stay up later for the challenge gradually made my situation worse, and I therefore need to find a solution on this front.

Another big issue is how much idle time I waste on the internet, especially during the evening or weekend. A big example of this is Youtube browsing, continually and mindlessly watching videos, yet not getting any value from it. Shorts in particular are rather egregious and problematic. I start watching some videos, but have such a hard time stopping, even if I know I ought to.

I also shouldn’t understate the fact I’ve been trying to spend some time with new friends I’ve made in Taiwan, along with just exploring some areas, or trying to get new experiences here. I’m visiting a completely different part of the world, I might as well try to make the most of it. Moreover, I think such activities ought to be good for my mental health, which is primordial for achieving any of my goals.

Finally, the time I spend on my articles can undoubtedly be overwhelming. I first need to spend time on the action itself (in this case drawing). I then go meta and analyze what I did while writing about it. But it doesn’t end there, since I also review my article afterwards, which also requires a significant chunk of time. (And funnily enough, in classic Shawn fashion, I’m sometimes tempted to go another layer of meta deep and write an article about my review process, the kind of changes I make and what I’ve learned on that front). All of that usually results in a few hours spent each day on this project, which can get into conflict with the other previously mentioned elements.

Priorities

So, a lot of these points definitely highlight that I need to organize some of my priorities. Some priorities that should rank higher than this blog and the drawing challenge include:

Learning Chinese
My Health (Which is why I started swimming)
My Mental Health
My Sleep
Enjoying my time in Taiwan

This is just a quick blurting out of my thoughts, and I should personally do a deep dive, but it’s still a useful thing to quickly consider, and try to balance. I also think it’s important to note that (and forgive me, this will be a little abstract):
Even if element A is more important than element B, it doesn’t mean I should completely neglect B for the sake of A. For example, if I decided socializing was more important than something else, it doesn’t mean I should just spend 100% of my time socializing, but instead that I should prioritize finding some time to socialize. We could consider each of those priorities having a “quota” of sort.

Next steps

Based on all of this, what are my thoughts for moving forward? Well, I think there are two big things I want to work on, which I’ll likely turn into their own project on here:

Trying different techniques to improve my sleep, along with evaluating them and recording my subjective experience.
Work on a method to change how I use Youtube to make it healthier for me. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time, and think I’ll try to work on a browser extension. Stay tuned for more details.

I think these two things should help me a lot with tackling large projects such as my Challenges, by both limiting how much time I waste, and allowing me to feel more refreshed, motivated and focused. (And yes, the Youtube issue is also impacting my sleep). But that’s not where things end. I’ll also need to keep working on my physical health, which for now means going swimming weekly (hopefully eventually twice a week).

Finally, because I know that my stress is a big issue, I also will want to find ways to properly relax. One potential solution might be to look into meditation. And let’s not forget my mental health, which is also something I need to keep in check.

Conclusion

Thank you all for your patience and understanding. I’ll keep you updated on my progress and let you know what I learn from all of this. More updates to come in the future, so stay tuned!
Have a nice one, and take care of yourselves!

This post is followed by Learning to Draw People Challenge – Take Three

Retrospecting on my Winter Term

This was written March 10, 2024, published March 24, 2024.

Introduction

Hello everyone,
as you likely already know, I’ve been studying Chinese in Taiwan for a few months now. And with the Winter Term ended roughly a week ago, and being a little underwhelmed with my performance, I figured I should retrospect. Note that I didn’t fail or get awful grades overall, but am still disappointed with some of the results, and feel like I haven’t learned or retained as much as I should have.

Ultimately, while it’s painful, there’s no point hiding from my shortcomings, and I should instead explore them to evaluate how I could improve moving forward. So here we go.
(Also, my apologies for the delays. I procrastinated on reviewing this article for a good two weeks.)

Retrospective

First and foremost, I think I struggled with a discipline issue. Unfortunately, this semester I had very few incentives to stay ahead and prepare. I think one of the biggest deterrents was that we had a chapter exam two days after finishing the material. Thus, I always felt like I should keep studying this material until after the exam, instead of preparing for the new chapter, even as we started it. For example, suppose we finished Chapter 1 on Monday, and had our exam on Wednesday. This meant that on either Monday or Tuesday, we would start Chapter 2, and during the second hour on Wednesday, continue with Chapter 2. However, I wouldn’t feel ready to start studying Chapter 2 until Wednesday after class, multiple days into the chapter. This means both that the first few classes going over a new chapter were inefficient for me (not being prepared), and that I fell behind and felt like I constantly had to catch up. The latter being further compounded by having been sick a few times in the semester, which meant missing material and having to recover. (On top of some classes missed for weaker reasons, which I’m not proud of, but it’s pointless to pretend it’s not the case).

On the topic of discipline, I also have a tendency to leave things to the last minute, causing sub-optimal results and poor long-term retention, due to both the lack of time, and added stress.

Another thing that caused me trouble was that I tried to do too many things at once. For example, I had December in Photography which I maintained throughout the month of December. I also tried to have a social life, and on top of that, I decided to join two classmates in trying to prepare for a “skip-level” exam, studying material meant for the next term. This last one was usually two 2h sessions each week, and unfortunately, this mostly caused extra (and unnecessary) stress and worries, but very little language gains.

Accordingly, I must admit I will have to learn to say no. And not just to others, but also to myself. Before accepting a new commitment, I should figure out how much it will impact me and its value, before evaluating whether it makes sense for me.

Another issue is that I haven’t properly reviewed the previous material as the term progressed, only waiting until the final exam for a proper review. But all of this extra vocabulary and grammar is generally useful, so I should really make efforts to practice it, not only for exams, but also language acquisition.

Next on the list, my mental health issues. Throughout the term, I had instances where it got particularly rough, feeding into my stress, and resulting in a vicious cycle. And this turned into inactivity, further making me fall behind and once again feeding this downward spiral.

Another unfortunate reality, I have a lot of trouble with sleep. This stems from two issues: Insomnia, and late-night procrastination. For some reason, I have a lot of trouble convincing myself to go to sleep, and instead idly waste my time. And having an early class forcing me to wake up at 6:30am made this matter a hell of a lot worse. And this also made me much more tired and less attentive in class.

Finally, while it has been a little helpful with my Chinese long-term, I think forcing myself, on a daily basis, to read a book that’s too advanced for me has been an impediment. It’s generally been mentally taxing, and also fairly time-consuming, sometimes requiring 2h for about 3 pages. And unsurprising, I feel fairly mentally drained by the end of it, meaning that studying my normal curriculum because even more arduous.

Lessons?

Based on all of this, what should I do to improve this semester? Well, first and former, I think I need to have more self-discipline. Having dictations daily is definitely going to at least help me not fall behind on the vocabulary. But beyond this, I should also make sure to stay ahead of the material, and maybe have a schedule in place, dictating by when I want to be done with what material. And obviously, learning to say know and limit my commitments will be invaluable.

I should also make sure to review previous material on a regular basis (both vocabulary and grammar). In terms of vocabulary, I think trying to transcribe (by hand) the dialogues through listening to the should be a good exercise, and a good way to identify what words I struggle with the most. As for the grammar, normal review, along with trying to use it during discussions, should be sufficient.

Next up, my busy schedule. One important thing will be to evaluate the actual value of a commitment before accepting it, or being willing to cancel it if its value becomes negative. I will also need to find a way to limit the impact of this blog on my studies. But this blog is a work in progress, and part of the experience is learning what works best for me, and sharing with you these attempts and my conclusion. So I’m convinced I’ll manage to figure something out.

Finally, my sleep, health and mental issues all have a significant impact on all of this. For the sleep, I will need to figure out how to limit the nightly distractions. Having a later class should definitely also help a bit, although I’m worried my days will in turn feel shorter. Beyond that, trying to get into more healthy habits like swimming should also be good. Otherwise, it’s a constant struggle that I’ll have to monitor, but it’s also nothing new to me.

Conclusion

And thus, a new semester begins. Last semester was a disappointment, but this one doesn’t have to be. I think reflecting on why I struggled and investigating potential area of improvements are important. Hopefully this new term goes a little better, but only time will tell.

Hope you have a nice one everyone, and keep on learning!