Clear the List: June 2016

Hi guys! So, I’m a little late with June’s Clear the List post – but in my defence, I’ve spent the last three or four days packing up two years’ worth of stuff in preparation for my move back home. It’s turned out to be a lot of stuff.

Still, that’s given me time to think about my goals for this, the first of the summer months – so let’s get on with it!

Last month’s goals were kind of a mixed bag; I started out really strong and that dwindled a little after I came back from Amsterdam and had to start finishing up, seeing people, doing last minute things, etc. I don’t think things went too badly though.

Let’s take a quick look:

May’s Goals

• Study Japanese for 20m/day or 8 hours total. – I did it! I studied Japanese for more than 11 hours in May, and though a lot of this involved watching TV, I don’t mind. It’s getting back on track!
• Study the language of the day for 20m/day. – I didn’t manage to use the habit tracker as much as I meant to, but I don’t think I did great on this. German was fine, Mandarin and Spanish not so much.
• German – read, translate and write. – I did a lot of reading, but none of the translating or writing. So kind of half-done.
• Make progress on my New Year’s Goals. – Again, for German, this was pretty good – I read a lot and I watched a lot of TV. I need to work harder on my other languages, particularly Mandarin.
• Hit my goals for the first month of the Super Challenge. – I’m going to write a longer post about this tomorrow, but suffice to say I did well for German and not so well for the other languages.
• Write two blog posts a week. – Nope; I managed five in total and only one of those wasn’t some kind of progress update. That’s to be worked on this month.
• Take part in Story a Day May. – I didn’t write anything. Oops!
• Workout 30m/day, 3x week. – I worked out some, though not as often as I’d like. Hoping to pick that up again in June.
• Walk 6,000 or more steps a day. – I definitely didn’t manage this every day, but I think I did on most days – and I had some high-scoring days, step-wise, in May as well.

Now, onto those goals for June:

Language Goals

• Study the language of the day for 20m/day.

• Study Japanese for eight hours total. – I’d like to hit fifteen hours total for the 6WC too, which finishes on the 13th, I think.

• Read one chapter a day. – I’ve got plenty of things to read, I just need to get into the habit again.
• Do one translation a day. – Again, it’s all about getting back into the habit. I’ve also recently joined gengo.com as a translator, but there aren’t ever any jobs for German! 🙁
• Write one text a week. – I have a list of things I can write about; it’s sitting down and getting it done that seems to be the “tricky” part.
• Hit my Super Challenge and New Year goals. – For the SC, I’m sticking to the nine pages a day/15 minutes a day goal, since I did well in May. For my NY goals, it’s: 550 pages, 5h25m of media and 1,375 words.

• Study more. – Try and study on at least half the days I should this month. I need to get back into the habit of learning characters through Memrise/Anki and reading texts.
• Instagram. – If any of you are following my instagram (@xuexisprachen), then you’ll have seen I’m doing a series on HSK characters, in particular those from HSK 1. I do know all these characters already, but I thought it might be good for other people, and it has me practising writing dialogues and sentence patterns. I’m hoping to keep this up through May.
• Write. – I don’t speak Mandarin often, so I really need to practise my writing; that and it’s a better way to learn characters, imo.
• Hit my Super Challenge and New Year goals. – For the SC, same as with German – I’m sticking to the basic goals for the first few months, even if that means I fall behind. For my NY goals, it’s: 105 pages, 70h of media and 1,370 words.

• Study more. – Same as Mandarin; try and hit half my intended days this month. I need to put a concerted effort into Spanish; I can read some, but I’m not going to improve without some active input.
• Hit my Super Challenge and New Year goals. – For my NY goals, it’s: 155 pages, 13h of media and 710 words.

Non-Language Goals

• Workout. – I’m aiming for 3/4 times a week, but honestly once a week would be good at this point. I’m still using Blogilates, but I recently re-discovered Darebee too, so that’s fun. I’m also thinking of joining a gym when I get back to the UK, which will make this easier.
• Write. – Aiming for 500+ words a day (which I’m already smashing). I’ve started taking part in Jukepop’s Summer Writing Project, so that should keep me going; and I’m going to count the words I write for this blog too, since there are so many. 😉
• Get a job. – I’m currently unemployed. Ahhhh! Well, my teaching assistant contract has ended here and I’m going back to the UK on Tuesday, so obviously I am between jobs. I need something for the summer though, so hopefully I’ll come back in July and say, ‘yay, everything’s fine, I’m not going to go bankrupt in London’. I’m hoping to find tutoring jobs (hence the pages I’ve added to the blog about online tutoring for English and other languages…), but if that doesn’t work out then I should find something somewhere else.

Phew, that’s it. Well, I’m off to carry on packing – let me know what your goals are for June! The summer’s beginning to ramp up here (just as I’m about to leave, ofc), so is anyone else feeling inspired by the longer days and good weather? Or does it just make you want to relax?