Treading Water

[lupestripe]

Last night's Japanese speaking test proved to be quite difficult, despite the copious amount of revision I put in. I don't think I've ever put so much effort into learning a languages to get so little out of it, but I am progressing and that's the main thing I suppose. The test, being recorded in an interview situation speaking into a microphone, was quite nerve-wracking even though there were only four people there while I froze halfway through as my brain failed me. On top of four hectic days of work and a Japanese lesson beforehand, doing the test after 9pm was perhaps a little too much for me. I had learnt so much that I wanted to say but only got to say about one quarter of it as I bumbled through the five minute process. Granted I was no better or worse than the other two taking the test but I know I could have done a lot more, I just panicked. I also learnt the questions too, not realising that we were only being marked on the answers we gave. This took up a fair bit of time of my learning so I could definitely have done better. Still, the teacher told me that I had passed and that's all that matters at the moment - I can't dedicate loads of time to this due to my other commitments.

It's looking like there will be a second year class and hopefully in the centre of the city. Having missed the main test week last week due to being in Poland, I had to go to the Thursday class in Headingley last night, which in term time was illuminating - to get there on time for a class that starts one hour later than my usual Wednesday class necessitates me leaving work at exactly the same time due to the commuter bottleneck that that part of Leeds is. This is one of the reasons why I gave up Russian so I'm hoping year two Japanese will stick in the heart of the city. Whether I do it or not is another matter - I do struggle to find the time to fit everything in and there's so much more I want to do with my life. At present, I feel trapped on the same treadmill of work - gym - Japanese and do very little else. Granted those three things are going well but if you add socialising into the mix, there's little time to do much else. Wolfie and I get very little alone time or free weekends and I've already had to give up creative writing due to the lack of time I can dedicate to it. I want to learn guitar or drums, read more and watch more movies too but alas time is never on my side.

One of my problems is that I'm struggling to get up for work at the moment, hitting the office around 11am each day. I can decide my own hours, which is both a blessing and a curse as it just panders to my laziness. I'm hoping lighter mornings and a warmer house (I refuse to put the heating on in the mornings as we are in for so little time) will help things and I can start getting to work around an hour earlier. Any earlier than that and I get caught in rush hour so it's not really worth it while it's often the case that I have more work to do later in the day than earlier anyway so really early starts don't benefit me. It doesn't help that work is insanely busy at the moment and I don't have time to stop, boosting my feelings of tiredness and thus contributing to my lie-ins. In addition, a bus every ten minutes into town means my starts are creeping later and later - there used to be an express bus every half hour that gave me a morning target but they removed the service. It would be useful if they could install it again.

The gym is a necessity as my weight is creeping back up and although I could go straight after work, that would mean enduring the soaps on TV rather than some half decent drama (and Crimewatch) which is on at 9pm. It does take up three of my weeknights (although with the city centre Japanese class being at 6pm and not 7pm as in Headingley, I can go to the gym afterwards which is another advantage of city centre classes) but it is important, as I don't see me cutting out the beer and socialising.

I would love to dedicate more time to Japanese and to finally learn a language fluently rather than the piecemeal situation I have now. I've got six more lessons to go this year and then nothing into October, so there's plenty of time to think about what to do. Hopefully I can get a better balance and resolve this as I'm quite frustrated with how things are at the moment, but then that's typical for me when I feel I'm treading water.

Comments

[porsupah.livejournal.com]

It could, of course, be that a self-taught system like Human Japanese might be the better fit for you - that way, there's no time-consuming commuting involved. (I wonder if there are any live language courses that meet using videoconferencing?)

I refuse to put the heating on in the mornings as we are in for so little time

Back in Sussex, I used to just leave the heating on quite low (13C or so) all the time, when heating was justified, turning it up when I got back, as leaving it completely off meant it took a couple hours to get back up to temperature, probably using about as much energy in the process.

But whatever you do, please don't beat yourself up over a lack of time! You're achieving quite a lot, and have a good social life. Of course there's always more that one might wish to accomplish, but unless you work out how to clone yourself, or transfer yourself into an android body, you really do only have this much time and energy available. And you're actually doing a very good job of doling it out!

[lupestripe.livejournal.com]

The reason I do the courses though is that it motivates me to actually do something. If I self-learnt, I'd give up on it way too easily.

Regarding the time issue, it's a real struggle really, there is so much stuff I want to do but I never really have the time or the motivation. I do do a lot, but it's never really enough. It's probably just me being harsh on myself.