A Quick Update

This is just a quick update for the time being. there might be more later, but I don't know yet. Mostly, I wanted to talk about my little experiment with Anki today. It's not so much trying to use Anki in a new way, it's more just a new way for me. Instead of doing my normal huge set of reps at one time, I'm turning today's reviews into ten reps every ten minutes. Short, winnable games, as per AJATT. If it really works for my memory (and getting through the mega-review I've had brewing), I may continue to do it with all future reviews.

Update 10/3/09

I got sick over the weekend, so I haven't really been working on anything lately. Also, we've been doing spring cleaning around my apartment, so even if I wanted to do much, I couldn't :D
Still, that said, my listening time has gone waaaay up. While I've been giving Kanji a rest, I've been moving up to nearly 7 or more hours listening a day.
Tomorrow, I'm going to try and timebox out my mega-review that's been brewing as a result of not doing Anki reps for 5 days.
And, even though I'm sick, I think I'll go ahead and get a workout (I'm not 100% yet, but I am closer to well than I was just yesterday).

Kanji Progress and General Japanese Update

Well, finishing tonight's review will bring me to 400 Heisig Kanji reviewed. However, I've found that the last two nights of review have been especially hard. Still, I'm not going to give up. This weekend, while I won't have access to my normal computer (meaning no Anki) I'll work on improving my memory for reviews. Maybe it's my diet or sleep schedule, or stress (the last couple of days I've had quite a workload), or that I'm simply not working the stories and components into my memory of each Kanji well enough.
Also, as of late, I've noticed that my earphones are causing mild pain even when not wearing them. For that reason, and in order to more comfortably maintain my listening environment, I'll be getting new headphones this weekend.
Finally, I've kind of got a projection of where I will be in the AJATT method. I figure by May 10th, if I continue at my rate of 25 new Kanji per review, I should be "finished" with Heisig (obviously, to keep everything in my memory, I'll continue to review after that). If I plan to go to Japan for study abroad next spring (I'll leave around March) I'll have around 10 months in the sentence phase before I leave. I doubt I'll hit true fluency by then, but I should have an ample grasp of Japanese, and if I reach fluency within about the same time frame as Khatz over at AJATT, then I should be fluent around August of 2010 (assuming I maintain my listening environment, and considering things like, the possibility that actually being in Japan may make it easier to atain fluency, I'm really thinking It'll be around July-September for fluency).
With all this said, I'd still have to say I'm in the "suck" phase of learning. I can pick out words, and sometimes understand whole sentences, but I have a hard time keeping up, and definitely with responding. Even though I did a year of self-study prior to entering college, and have taken college courses (which use all of the same material I did in my self-study... which in fact, my self-study encompassed nearly everything taught at my school), I feel like, the addition of the AJATT method has, as of late, improved my comprehension and speaking. Things that I wasn't completely sure of how to use are simply becoming more apparent, and I am learning words in context, simply through listening. Yes, it's hard at this point, but it's also been promising. Based on my own experience, I think it is definitely possible to do the AJATT method and attain near-native/full-native fluency and literacy within 18 months.

Edit: I actually didn't finish my review tonight. I had 49 kanji to review in addition to the 25 new kanji (that's almost 75 at one time). I decided to let tonight slide, and just work on getting everything into memory over the weekend (meaning tonight's kanji, and the kanji from the past couple of nights that I've been having trouble with... in addition to the ~75 kanji I'll have added by Monday from not doing reviews over the weekend). It'll be a lot to do on Monday, but i think if I can spend a weekend focusing on keeping things in my memory, and better using creative memory (making stories, putting together components), then I can pull it off and continue to use anything I glean from this weekend.

A Long Time Coming

No joke. It's been nearly two months since my last post. Being in college, I don't have too terribly much time on my hand... so I kind of let this slip. In fact, I've let a lot of things slip. For one, I have to come clean. My workouts... pretty much stopped once I hit school again. Tomorrow, I think I'm going back to the gym though. I know since I've quit my workouts that I feel a lot worse for it, not to mention, I've likely gained back most of the weight I did lose over the break. Still, I have at least slightly improved my eating habits, and am working to more thoroughly enjoy things not of the greasy or sugar-laden variety. In addition, though I stopped my Heisig Kanji reviews, I've got them underway again... for one, it's easier just to start from one and let the reviews come naturally. The way I was going about it, I was trying to study this big chunk at one time, instead of letting things come in with a smaller limit... I'm actually farther now in considerably less time (tonight I went to 350 Kanji in about 16 days of doing Heisig again). Another thing is, I'm steadily working towards a more complete Japanese listening environment. At the moment, I have around 3 hours of Japanese language audio on my mp3 player. Otherwise, I've listened to instrumental music only in the last few days. Also, I have access to monolingual dictionaries, and more audio if I want it. I think I'll probably be done, or nearly done with Kanji sometime around May or June, and at that point hit the sentences phase according to AJATT (I would do Kana... but I kind of already know them, and can't unlearn them to relearn them @_@). Also, I plan to do a study abroad trip around spring of next year through the next fall, unless something comes up. I think I'll set that time as my goal for at least a decent level of conversation, and work to near-native/fully native fluency while there.
Finally, my conlang... has had no work done to it as of late... I'm just kind of too busy working on projects for classes, Japanese, or hanging out with friends to work on it. Really, I think I want to get fluent in a language lots of people speak (Japanese) before I worry about something that basically only I will speak.

Back

Well, I haven't posted for some time. And I would say I blame WoW, but really, it's all me. The good news is that I have kept up with working out, and still drinking more water. But I have kinda let Japanese reviews slip. Then again, i am waiting for school to start up again so I can work on them with my GF. That's really about it for now, so thanks and bye.

Back

Well, I'm back from Christmas. I worked out again today, and even though I skipped reviews on Anki, I managed to remember almost 100% on the first 165 Kanji in Heisig. Woohoo.

Workout Day 3

This is the third consecutive day I've worked out. Before now, if I did work out, it was sporadic, but not anymore. From now on, I'm going to try and workout just about every day. Tomorrow being Christmas, I will make an exception, but come Thursday, it's back to the gym. Another good thing is I'm drinking more water... in fact, I've only had water or milk since Monday evening. As for what I'm doing, these past three days have been a mix of cardio and weights, with some crunches thrown in to try and defeat my belly. But I think I'm going to start doing weights every other day, just because I've noticed that doing weights every day (and this has only been three days) makes it harder to do them the following day, which I guess means I need to let my muscles rest. I'm still going to do cardio every day, but it seems that mostly works my legs. So I'm also going to do crunches every day, but I'm going to try and do more, spaced throughout the day.

Heisig

I'm doing the Heisig deck that comes pre-loaded onto Anki, and it's going smooth. Not to mention I've decided to start twice daily reviews. So, now that I can do the first 165 with over 90% retention, I'm going to start adding another 20 a day. However, I'm still annoyed that I can't figure out how to configure it so that I get the same cards each day, but with a few new ones, without making it think I'm starting the deck for the first time, because I want to review all the cards I've done so far, as well as see new cards that I will review the next day, and so on.

Workout Update

So my second official day of working out. Surprisingly, spending an hour at the gym's not as hard as I thought it'd be. Of course, I still don't completely know what I should be doing... and to make things worse, I get home only to be conscripted into making buckeyes (like Reese's, but better!). Hopefully, I'll avoid the temptation... but I dunno, these are like, once a year treats. Who the hell passes something like that up?
Still, once the buckeye assembly is complete, I'm going to do research. I really need to know what would be the best course of action in burning a lot of fat, without getting too big.

Japanese Today

Ok, so, I reviewed some Heisig on Anki, but I really want to figure out how to keep it from adding 15 every day, so I can spend some time doing the first 165 for a few days, and then start adding 20 a day maybe. That way, I can get through the 2000ish within a few months, then on to sentences!
My biggest problem will likely be the immersion environment. I'm broke, and MP3 player-less...
so listening to Japanese all the time will be difficult for a while.
I'm setting a goal of being pretty much fluent in Japanese by the summer 2010, and getting Kanji under my belt before summer 2009 will be a big step towards getting that done.

A what?

A conlang! To finish the last of the introductory posts, I'm going to reveal my hobby. I've sort of had an interest in doing this for a while, but always felt it was just somehow too weird, that my friends would find it weird, or that I'd never get anything out of it. Then I remembered who my friends were (Hi friends!).
So I'm going ahead with it. But wait, I've yet to introduce it properly. It's conlanging. Or, making a language.
Inspired by Tolkien, and really inspired by Mark Rosenfelder (zompist.com), I've decided to try my hand at language creation.
My biggest linguistic inspirations are Japanese and English, thus far. I also like the sound of Old English and Latin.
Still, I'm not an expert linguist... hardly an amateur. So, maybe I won't quite get everything right away, but as I develop my skills, develop and revise my language, you will be along for the ride.

Enemy Spotted!

The enemy? My gut. I don't know how bad off I am when it comes to my weight. I know I'm overweight, heck, maybe even obese. And it's no wonder. Most of my life since, say, age 11, has been sedentary. And since starting college this past fall, things have just gotten worse. As it stands I'm 6 feet tall, and a hefty 245 pounds.
So, after some inspiration from Glowing Face Man, and the fact that the apartments I live at have a free gym (small, but free, and rarely used by other tenants), I've decided to start working out.
Today (or really, yesterday) wasn't the first time ever going, but it's the first time I'm counting.
So, what am I doing on these workouts? Well at the gym I use there are two treadmills, a stationary bike, and two of those things that look like skis. there are also some weight machines.
Mostly so far, I've favored the stationary bike and ski things. Treadmills just scare me for some reason, I can't say way, but every time I've gotten on one, I've felt as if I were in danger.
So, when it comes to today, I spent 20 minutes on the ski thing, 5 minutes on the stationary bike, and about 15, 20 minutes with weights.
In the future, my workouts will probably be more focused, more planned out. But for now, I'm just going to keep going. The hardest part of working out isn't the labor, it's showing up, being motivated. And I think I have that down.

You, Me, and Japanese

Well, mostly me. Still, I've studied Japanese since September 2007. And there's even been improvement since then (OMG, really?!)! But to be honest, I've found that I don't have the confidence to speak to many of the Japanese exchange students at my college. I have at least a little. And I've picked up a few things. But my fundamental problem is rooted mainly in my methods.
For the past year, I though I could learn Japanese using a more traditional method; the textbook. And I found I improved, I could read, I felt great... until I realized mostly I could just read things in my textbook. And though I finished the first volume in (I was using Genki, by the way) some months, I still couldn't read some of the Japanese books I owned (and still own, and still can't read). And even though i was turned onto the AJATT method some months ago, I had yet to put it into effect. Until now. Err, a few days ago.
Essentially, the AJATT method is limited on grammar, and all about exposure. Exposure in the extreme. And even though I was impressed, nay, inspired by the author, Khatz, I had yet to try, to believe in AJATT. The method just seemed to fly against common sense. Kanji before anything? Study sentences? What?
But I've realized, through actually using and SRS, the primary tool for this method, how it really comes together.
You may ask, what is an SRS. Well, it's just flash cards, except better. And your hands don't cramp after making thousands. There's a better explanation at http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com. Using the Heisig cards preloaded with the program Anki, I've found out how effective an SRS program is, in just a few days. I'm seriously remembering things better. Not to say I'm doing perfectly (I decided to work on the first 150 Kanji in Heisig at once... yeah, may be a few days before I start adding more to that number). But by hand, repetition is less effective. And I'm good at remembering that way! So now that the SRS is working for me, and that Heisig's RTK is actually looking promising and doable within 3 months, I may go ahead with more of the AJATT method.

Without fail, an introduction!

I'm new to blogging. Or for that matter, anything that could be considered social on the internet. I lurk forums, always a reader, never a poster. I don't do MySpace or Facebook... I only recently learned I was on Twitter.
But I've decided I need some motivation in my life. I figured, what better motivator than an audience. I doubt I'll become well known, but by writing about the things I do, perhaps I won't relapse into bad habits.
Specifically, what I think will largely be seen is a detail of my attempts to lose weight, my study of Japanese, and perhaps even some of my conlang (yes, I'm a dork, get used to it).