Clear the List: November 2015

Well hey! Am I the only one who feels like the end of this year is just racing by? No? Okay. Anyway, it’s November already so I guess it’s time to start getting ready for Christmas (I’m mostly kidding) and do all that fun beginning of the month stuff – like this blog post. 😉

October has been another busy, busy month (which is why I think it seemed to speed past) but I think I’m all settled into Vienna again and getting used to my school schedule, though those early starts are still a killer. I’m feeling really optimistic about November, but I am going to try and keep some manageable goals – and hopefully not too many of them.

First things first though, let’s take a look back at October:

• Study the language of the day for 15m. Ha, so I managed this on nine days. Wow. Not exactly as great as I was expecting, but I have a lot more incentive to do better this month.
• Reach certain points in my language textbooks. I also didn’t really achieve much towards this – though I have started the final lesson in my current Mandarin textbook, so I am 90% sure I will be done with that this month instead.
• Read at least 150 pages for the tadoku challenge. I read about 80 pages I think and I’m going to talk about this challenge in a little more depth later this week, but 80 pages are 80 pages and I’m still happy with that.
• Workout at least three times a week. Nope. Just noooooooope. I want to focus on this one pretty hard this month; I’m walking a lot but I really want to do some pilates/yoga as well and get used to doing it regularly again.
• Blog at least once a week. YES! I did it! I posted to this blog eight times last month – so really, twice a week. I’m so happy with this; I really want to grow this blog and have it be helpful and a regular schedule is going to help so much.

These were the blog posts from last month:

1. How I Keep a Language Notebook
2. GCSE German #006: Topics – Free Time (Freizeit)
3. Clear the List: October 2015
4. Review: The Art of Language Invention by David J. Peterson
5. GCSE German #007: Culture – Nationalfeiertage
6. GCSE German #005: Topics – Relationships (Beziehungen)
7. 6WC: November 2015
8. GCSE German #004: Culture – Oktoberfest

And now, onto my goals for November! 🙂

• Study Slovak + the language of the day for 15m each. So because of the 6WC, I’m going to try and study Slovak everyday, but I’ve scheduled out German, Mandarin and Spanish – so it’s going to be two languages a day until the challenge is up. This amounts to 30 minutes of language learning a day – though I have a few days this month where I doubt I will study, as I’m going to have visitors. Still, I should end up with a minimum of 13 hours of study this month – though I think it will be significantly higher than that.
• Reach certain points in my language textbooks. I’ve cut a couple of lessons down for these goals, though I am still hoping to finish up to lesson nine in Colloquial Slovak and I want to complete NPCR 4. They’re the big goals here.
• Go to Bratislava and use some Slovak. There really are no excuses – it’s only an hour away, so I can visit just for the day and I have my weekends free, so I can always nip over the border. I’m hoping to go tomorrow but I’ll see about that; it might end up being later in the month. Still, it’d be nice to see if this studying has paid off – and I want to get some really good sour cream doused food!
• Workout at least three times a week. I’m going to follow the Blogilates calendar but it’s been a while since I’ve worked out properly so I’m going to count doing at least two videos as hitting the goal for the day.
• Blog at least once a week. I did it for one month, let’s see if I can do it for two.
• Complete NaNoWriMo. Yesssssss November! I haven’t won NaNo for probably three years but I have all this free time so I want to spend some of it writing again. 50,000 words in one month? I can do it, I’m sure.

Whew, okay. I think this post was shorter than last month’s? Maybe not. Either way, what are your goals for this month?

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.

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