Clear the List: April 2016

Hi guys! We’re four days into April now – how’s your month going? Is spring springing where you are? We’ve finally got good weather now; and I had such a good March that things are great – so it’s time for me to talk a little bit more about last month! 🙂

So first things first; the great news I got last month is: I’m going back to uni in September! I’m going to City University London to study Audiovisual Translation and Popular Culture and I am soooooooooooo excited you guys have no idea. While it is amazing and I’m sure it’s going to be so much fun, it also means I’ve had to re-evaluate my priorities for the next few months. Nothing big – I’m still going to keep studying the four languages I’ve got going on, but I am adding an emphasis to German and Mandarin that will be reflected in my goals from now until at least September.

But anyway, on with last month’s goals:

• Study Japanese for 20m a day. Uhhhhhhh nope. I’m trying you guys, but for some reason this is very difficult for me to do. I already haven’t managed it so far for April – so I think I’ll change it a teeny bit this month, but I’m hoping to get there.
• Study the language of the day for 20m a day. Again, nope, though I think I did a little better than with Japanese. I watched a lot of Águila Roja last month so Spanish was good and I’ve been attempting to be more consistent with my German reading.
• Make some progress towards my New Year’s Goals. Well, some progress was made, so this counts? I still couldn’t find anything I wanted to watch in German, but I read a fair amount of Die Herren von Winterfell, so that’s good.
• Complete the IGLC. Haha, nope. This is one of those things that I need to put work into to plan out a little in advance, because otherwise I kind of get stuck halfway through and give up.
• Blog at least once a week. Honestly, I’m not sure why I put this because I knew I was going on holiday and I should have known I wouldn’t have posts together and ready to go before that. I only blogged three times, which was kind of annoying, but three posts are better than none!
• Workout for 30m a day/four days a week. I mean, again, I was on holiday for two weeks, so though I didn’t workout then, I walked a lot (we’re talking 10,000-30,000 steps a day). I think I kind of did okay on this goal, though I am scared I’m going to die at the half marathon this coming Sunday. I probably won’t. Probably.
• Write at least 500 words a day. Sigh, no.
• Walk at least 6,000 steps a day. I did not manage this every day, but I did manage it the vast majority of days. I don’t have the tracker with me now to check, but I feel like I only missed a handful of days before the 21st and then none after – so I’m going to count this one.

Some thoughts about last month: Daily goals are generally not working for me. I do want to work on consistency in my behaviour, because I know that habits are great, but I’m not good at enforcing those behaviours upon myself, which is causing me to not hit my goals. I’m going to change that a little this month, with a combination of daily + monthly goals and see how it goes for April. Also, Easter holidays starting mid-March (I left Austria on the 21st) meant that I didn’t really knuckle down and do anything – and then I was away. Plus, I forgot that I would be exhausted when I returned (we travelled to Spain and all over Morocco, which was incredible, but I don’t think I’ve ever been so tired in my life!) so the 30th/31st were days when I didn’t do much but work, eat and sleep. Still, these posts are great for month-to-month highlights of what I get done well, so there’s that. 🙂

Here are all three of the posts that went up last month:

• Clear the List: March 2016
• New Year’s Challenge: Progress Report #005
• A to Z Challenge 2016: Theme Reveal

And my April goals:

Language Goals.

• Hit my goals for German and Mandarin. These are the separate goals I’m working on to prep for uni, and are as follows:
  • One chapter of German a day (currently reading: Die Herren von Winterfell).
  • Two pages of Mandarin a day (currently reading: 哈里波特与魔法石).
  • One text per language per week (to be posted on lang-8).
  • One practice translation per language per fortnight.
  • Read translation books for 30m a day.
• Study eight hours of Japanese. That works out to 16 minutes a day which is below my previous goal, but not by much. I want to see if having a goal for the month and the ability to chip away at that will help more than having a daily goal and having to keep up the momentum.
• Study the language of the day for 20m a day. Languages of the day can be Mandarin, German or Spanish, depending on the day (today is supposed to be Mandarin). I need to try and practise all four skills as well (listening, reading, writing, speaking).
• Make some more progress on those New Year’s Goals. Since I’ve been reading Die Herren of Winterfell, I’ve started watching Game of Thrones in German (I’m only on season two!), which has given me some more incentive. Still, my targets this month are:
  • German
    • Reading: 570 pages
    • Writing: 1,225 words
    • Media: 6.25 hours
  • Mandarin
    • Reading: 95 pages
    • Writing: 1,220 words
    • Media: 62 hours (hahaha yeah okay)
  • Spanish
    • Reading: 150 pages
    • Writing: 625 words
    • Media: 10 hours

Non-language Goals.

• Finish the A to Z Challenge. If you’ve been on my blog in the last few days, you’ll have seen this is going on – I’m writing this month about 26 different endangered languages. I’m really hoping to finish that this year, though I know I’ll need to schedule a few posts in advance (I’m having visitors towards the end of the month).
• Write 35,000 words. It’s CampNaNoWriMo time! I’ve set myself a 35,000 word goal because I figured that wasn’t too strenuous (though I haven’t started yet, so…) – hopefully this will get me back in a writing mood.
• Work out for 30m a day/three times a week. I do not feel prepared for the half marathon, in that I know I won’t run the whole thing, but I do feel better than I did at Christmas. Still, I’m not being terribly consistent with exercise so I think this routine will help. If I don’t swear off exercise next weekend, of course! 😉
• Walk at least 6,000 steps on 80% of days this month. That’s 24/30 days I have to do it – I think that should work. I usually end up with one day a week where I don’t manage it because I just stick around my flat, but I’d like to see how many days I am succeeding.

That’s all for April’s goals then! What goals do you have for this month? Anyone else planning a change to their language-learning routine – or routine in general? Sometimes it’s nice to shake things up a bit. 🙂

(And, as ever, if you fancy joining the Clear the List linkup, here are the rules:

1. Share your goal post whether it includes your aspirations for the month or year. Submissions unrelated to the theme or links to your homepage will be deleted.

2. Link back to this post. You can use our button if you wish.

3. Follow the hosts: Esther from Local Adventurer, Lindsay from Lindsay Does Languages, Mariah from Food, Booze & Baggage, and Shannon from Eurolinguiste.

4. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT RULE: Please visit the site of the person who linked up immediately before you and leave them an encouraging comment! By hosting this linkup, we’re hoping to create a positive community where we can all share our goals. If you do not do this, you will be removed from the linkup.

5. Share on social media using #ClearTheList.)