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[Weekly review]

What have I done well?

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• Finished my first short-medium length ( fanfiction ) story. Writing a story was always on my bucket list since young. I finally stepped out of my comfort zone and completed one. I never thought I could write more than 15,000 words after graduating. The writing experience was surprisingly enjoyable, and I will keep writing as a hobby.

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• Became comfortable with imperfections. The number one thing that stopped me from creative writing was that I knew I could write a masterpiece. I fear failing and writing something quite crappy. When I accepted that my first piece would be bad, the stress lifted off my shoulder. It came out a lot better than I expected.

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What can I improve?

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• Stay focus. I was too into writing and did not pay much attention to all my other commitments. My brain could not process anything else well apart from this story I worked on. I pretty much spent every minute I had spare writing for four days straight because I was so in the zone of it. Despite all the joy of writing, I need to learn to keep it a bit calmer. I wish that I could not worry about anything else in life apart from what I want to work on. But life does not work in that way :(

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Delayed gratification - we all heard great things about how it will help us achieve our goal. My personal experience is: don't overdo it and be too harsh on yourself, especially when you have quite a few commitments in hand. Control yourself to go against your natural desires require a lot of energy and willpower.

I am constantly juggling with a handful of commitments in life: workout (to be fit and slim), studying, working (actual job, side hustles, personal projects etc.).

Ideally, it is more effective to only have one commitment at a time, but it is simply unrealistic for many of us. I found it is far easier to be on top of things when I fulfil my desires in other aspects: play games, or have a nice drink whenever I want. During any stressful times, I found there's no way to keep it together without letting most of my commitments go and leaving only one.

I am a firm believer of Arthur Schopenhauer's idea:

"You are free to do what you want, but you are not free to want what you want" . Delay gratification is good, but please don't apply it to every aspect of life. Drop a few commitments if it's necessary, and go on easy on yourself.

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I had my wisdom tooth pulled out last week. I was under the weather for two weeks. I felt oddly fatigued other than the pain. Well, these two week wasn't actually bad at all. I had a great time reading books, playing games and doing nothing. Now I felt so much more refreshed as the pain was almost gone.

I usually feel guilty about taking time off and doing nothing productive. Maybe I need time-off more often 🤔

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“Consistency is more important than quality”⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

I heard this from Podcast "Not Overthinking" (by Ali & Taimur Abdaal, episode "Why do we struggle with consistency?09APR2019" ) this week, and it has been a great wake-call for me.

I have always been struggling with consistency in many aspects of life. And my perfectionist mindset is the main cause of it. Whenever I have the idea of "impressing others by my high-quality work", I go on the same loop:

1) the first time, I spend too much effort perfecting everything;

2) the second time, I procrastinate a lot because of how stressed I was feeling (an internal battle of do not want to put so much effort as last time, yet I want high-quality outcomes)

3) eventually, I give up on things because I worry that I cannot deliver good quality work / it is too much effort to do.

For the things I did not expect myself to do well in, like Python learning, I have managed to be very consistent without trying to be. This process is enjoyable and stress-free as well.

Maybe the key to consistency is to throw away the perfectionist attitude and enjoy what we do.

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When reading something quite technical while I was tired, I started to do little doodles or diagrams to help my brain to understand. They helped me get through a lot of heavy readings, and now looking back, my doodles are kind of cute.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

If anyone is wondering, I made this doodle when reading “Introduction to Networking” by Chrles Severance. I was trying to understand the role of routers in packet transferring from one location to another.

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I set all of those tasks for myself, yet I'm too burnout to do most of them, so I just spent hours watching MBTI memes video instead 🤣 productivity isn’t it (I had a good laugh, so I don’t care anymore). at least I will be feeling better tomorrow after all of this

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Don't ever feel guilty about not sticking to a plan.

The truth is: I like to plan out every hour of my day, yet I don't always follow it. Being super organised and planning everything out isn't for everyone.

I am someone who loves planning and stay-on-top-of-everything all the time. At the same time, I am also a rebel in the heart who adores spontaneous excitement and disobeys rules.

I used to force myself to strictly follow my plan and try hard to abandon the other side of my nature -- suppressing ones' nature is extraordinarily horrible and emotionally draining. It led me to frequent burnout and eventually to a severe mental health issue.

Now I give myself a choice every time I plan - to follow or break. I do whatever I feel up for at the time. Weirdly, having such a choice makes me feel I am in control of life and encourages me to get things down (also more likely to follow a plan).

For anyone who experienced similar problems: don't feel guilty and start self-blaming when things don't work for you in life. There are many ways to be on top of everything and live your ideal life. Accept your nature and find the way that works for you.

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06OCT2019 SUN

Study hour: 5H59M

I have been watching the documentary “ #Explained ” on Netflix recently. The episode about #Anxiety and #Mindfulness really inspired me and remind me how much I used to enjoy meditation. I have difficulties to feel my emotions or connect with my inner-self. It is really hard for me to know how stress or exhausted I am. Sometimes, I have a sudden breakdown, couldn’t tell others why I am upset because I literally have no idea why. Daily meditation is definitely necessary for my final year

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Hi there! 💕 How do you count your study hours?

I use apps like FocusTimer, which count what time and how long you have been study (can’t use phone at the main time).

Another one I use is Focus To-do which use promodomo method and also record your study hours.

Basic timer can also be used (which I use whenever I am study on campus)

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Where did you get your iPad case?

From amazon

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Our exam period is coming soon... Anyone like me who struggle to stay awake by having caffeine? 😂

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☕️ My body really struggles with strong coffee, or even more than one cup of weak coffee (it makes me feel really headachy and sleepy). 🍵 Tea doesn’t do much to me (I drink it because it taste nice).

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I am was struggling with material tutorial questions so much (I am not great at essay question), but I felt finally feel that I starting to know how to do it this morning. Very happy about it

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“ Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

—— By Viktor E. Frankl from “Man's Search for Meaning”

(I am currently reading this book. Highly recommend✨)

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I’ve been asked a couple of times now what my approach to self-study is, and this is my messy attempt to answer that question. All of this is true for me, and might not work for someone else; still, I hope it may help somebody!

1. Getting acquainted with the language

When you’re learning a language with a different writing system than your own, that’s the first thing you have to tackle, of course; but I usually try to get some background information even when the alphabet used by my target language is the good old Latin one. One thing I pay extra careful attention to is phonology: you want to get the sounds right from the very beginning, before you develop any bad habits (also, learning IPA changed my life). Having an accent as close to a native’s as possible is not necessarily the goal (I do like to work on that, but to each their own), but being understood is! And incorrect pronunciation can sometimes hinder comprehension, in some languages more so than in others. So don’t obsess over it, but don’t overlook it completely either. Getting to know the sounds of a language right away can also help you understand what people are saying a little quicker, and figuring out how new words might have to be read. Wikipedia is usually not bad when it comes to phonology, and Omniglot is a good resource as well.

2. Finding a good textbook

I’m a free spirit so I often find myself not looking for a textbook right away, and just chaotically absorbing information from different sources (see immersion below). When I do set my mind to choosing, though, I try to stick to one well-made textbook that I like, which should possibly contain clear grammar explanations as well as exercises. The temptation to hoard resources is strong – and I’ve succumbed to it myself more than once haha –, but I usually try to steer clear from using more than one textbook at the same time (although I do have separate, more thorough grammars on the side more often than not). I’d rather use a physical book if I have the chance, but if that’s not your thing or you don’t have money to spend on that, that’s okay: you can find loads of perfectly good books or websites online!

3. Compulsive translation

Anyone who’s been following my blog for a while probably knows that I love translating virtually anything: from songs to poems to short stories. It’s something that has always been a part of my life, and I thoroughly enjoy doing. It’s also an awesome language learning technique, which will help you enrich your lexicon and teach you tons of new turns of phrase in your target language. It works both if you translate from your native into your target language and vice versa: find a good bilingual dictionary (I prefer paper dictionaries because they provide more examples of usage, but again, you do you) and look for equivalent expressions, don’t just translate word for word! It might work sometimes but not always. When it comes to translation, Reverso Context is a great resource for some languages, because it provides translation in context, taken from a massive corpus heavy on subtitles – which you shouldn’t trust all the time, but will help you as long as you put some critical thinking in.

4. Immersion (you don’t say)

What a surprise, right? I usually start listening to music / watching video content right away; I wasn’t that big on YouTube before but language learning has made me change my mind. You don’t have to get everything: even if you understand 3 words out of 20, this will help you grasp the rhythms and intonations of the language. This depends on how many similarities my new target language shares with the ones I already know, but as a general rule I use Italian (or English) subtitles in the very beginning, then move on to subtitles in the target language and finally get rid of them entirely. Some people will argue against subtitles of any shape or form, but I can only speak for myself and they’ve helped me quite a lot in the past. The way I see it, reading is also essential: if I don’t have time to leaf through novels, I usually check out at least an article a day in my target language and write down the words I don’t know, plus their Italian translation.

5. Routine – the good kind

In short words, I strive to make the new language a part of my life. There are a thousand things you can do: change your phone settings? Great! Check out the news? Even better! If you’re out of ideas, here are a few suggestions. And don’t worry if you struggle at first: in fact, the start of this process is a bit rocky for almost everyone. Consistency, however, is the key: once the early, most difficult days are over, all of this will start to come natural and stop feeling like a chore! The more you do it, the faster this process will be.

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Have my Finite Element Analysis Test in a couple of hours. Hope it all goes well

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Feel so cozy with a hot drink and candle 🕯

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I keep changing and modifying my layout. A bullet journal is a tool, and it is only as useful and helpful you make it be.