I was too affected last night to fall asleep quickly, and plus my neighbor kept moving things around until midnight. It also probably didn't help that I drank half a bottle of ginger ale, although I don't think I had any after 9. Anyway, I figured out a few things during that time, but I forgot to write a to-do list. That was my one takeaway from the motivational reading I did yesterday--make a to-do list for the next day before going to sleep. So I need to work on that, but anyway...
First, the ebook subscription at Amazon is currently just a dollar for the first three months. I didn't see any books that I particularly wanted to read, but even so for that price I can't really go wrong. They do have the New Yorker apparently, so that could be nice. But I also realized that a lot of the fiction books I would want to read are classics and therefore should be free anyway--I just need to figure out how to get them without too much effort. One thing that I really want to do is get back to reading Shakespeare. In Vietnam I had a goal to read all the plays, but I think I got bogged down in the histories and in the end was about 10 plays away from finishing them all. I'm sure I can access those easily and for free. I'd also like to re-read the Silmarillion again since it is my favorite book, and I think I'll investigate the English books at the local library. Hopefully they will have at least one Malcolm Gladwell book, which is my current non-fiction target of interest.
As for the hobby, I'm thinking about two primary ones. I'm going to give Netflix a shot, but I also want to try doing handwriting. It's cheap, satisfying (I hope), I can do it at work if I like, and it might even come in handy for my grad school courses. I saw some really beautiful ways to take notes which I'd like to try out. For Netflix, I'm going to make a list of interesting-looking shows and movies so that I don't have to feel intimidated by the search when I feel lazy and want to relax.
I was also thinking about getting back into language studying somehow. I downloaded an app for the Arabic alphabet, but it feels strange studying Arabic when I'm surrounded by opportunities to improve my poor Japanese. I think maybe I'll push through over the holidays and try to become familiar enough with the alphabet to be able to sound it out and write it. That's a fairly short-term goal that shouldn't require an large amount of time, and since I won't be memorizing words it shouldn't interfere with my Japanese study either.
My goal for Japanese is to be able to return to the states and be able to read the news in Japanese without feeling so much discomfort that I don't want to do it. Eh, honestly that's a big stretch of a goal, but assuming that it's possible, what do I need to do to work toward it? Obviously, read the news every day. So I need to figure out a way to establish that habit. I also want to improve my speaking ability since I am here in Japan. One way I'm thinking of doing this is by reading the news out loud or shadowing some kind of audio, thus building my comfort level with speaking Japanese so that I can talk to people more easily. Again, need to make a more solid plan for this, and it also needs to be fairly effortless because I can't imagine that I'll want to do a lot of extra study once I start school again. (REVISIT THIS PARAGRAPH LATER)
Since I'll be reading a lot in the new year, I need to figure out a way to make it feel worthwhile. My idea for this is to write my thoughts in a book blog. The challenge with that though, is I don't know when would be a good time for me to write. I generally do most of my reading before sleep, and when I'm sleepy writing is one of the last things I want to do. The next best thing would be to do it when I wake up. I can't imagine having time for this and running in the morning too, though. So here's my plan--wake up at 6, read, meditate, and pray for 30 minutes, write in my book blog for 20 minutes, and then get started on my day. Exercise will have to happen in the evening. At the moment, I'm thinking that I'll end up alternating between dancing and climbing.
I ran into a snag with programming a few weeks back, but today I figured out that it was caused by the graphical library I was using. So hopefully I'll be able to fix that up and get back with my programming soon, though maybe not today. Today I went to church and was once again convicted of the necessity of memorizing the Bible. That's another routine I need to establish, but it will have to come after I finish programming the application.
The game night is on, so here's my to-do list for the day:
laundry (done)
church (done)
book blog for books read last night
shopping for handwriting pens/paper and eggnog
make eggnog
recycle plastic bottles and milk boxes
if time, investigate Netflix/go to the library
game night
First, the ebook subscription at Amazon is currently just a dollar for the first three months. I didn't see any books that I particularly wanted to read, but even so for that price I can't really go wrong. They do have the New Yorker apparently, so that could be nice. But I also realized that a lot of the fiction books I would want to read are classics and therefore should be free anyway--I just need to figure out how to get them without too much effort. One thing that I really want to do is get back to reading Shakespeare. In Vietnam I had a goal to read all the plays, but I think I got bogged down in the histories and in the end was about 10 plays away from finishing them all. I'm sure I can access those easily and for free. I'd also like to re-read the Silmarillion again since it is my favorite book, and I think I'll investigate the English books at the local library. Hopefully they will have at least one Malcolm Gladwell book, which is my current non-fiction target of interest.
As for the hobby, I'm thinking about two primary ones. I'm going to give Netflix a shot, but I also want to try doing handwriting. It's cheap, satisfying (I hope), I can do it at work if I like, and it might even come in handy for my grad school courses. I saw some really beautiful ways to take notes which I'd like to try out. For Netflix, I'm going to make a list of interesting-looking shows and movies so that I don't have to feel intimidated by the search when I feel lazy and want to relax.
I was also thinking about getting back into language studying somehow. I downloaded an app for the Arabic alphabet, but it feels strange studying Arabic when I'm surrounded by opportunities to improve my poor Japanese. I think maybe I'll push through over the holidays and try to become familiar enough with the alphabet to be able to sound it out and write it. That's a fairly short-term goal that shouldn't require an large amount of time, and since I won't be memorizing words it shouldn't interfere with my Japanese study either.
My goal for Japanese is to be able to return to the states and be able to read the news in Japanese without feeling so much discomfort that I don't want to do it. Eh, honestly that's a big stretch of a goal, but assuming that it's possible, what do I need to do to work toward it? Obviously, read the news every day. So I need to figure out a way to establish that habit. I also want to improve my speaking ability since I am here in Japan. One way I'm thinking of doing this is by reading the news out loud or shadowing some kind of audio, thus building my comfort level with speaking Japanese so that I can talk to people more easily. Again, need to make a more solid plan for this, and it also needs to be fairly effortless because I can't imagine that I'll want to do a lot of extra study once I start school again. (REVISIT THIS PARAGRAPH LATER)
Since I'll be reading a lot in the new year, I need to figure out a way to make it feel worthwhile. My idea for this is to write my thoughts in a book blog. The challenge with that though, is I don't know when would be a good time for me to write. I generally do most of my reading before sleep, and when I'm sleepy writing is one of the last things I want to do. The next best thing would be to do it when I wake up. I can't imagine having time for this and running in the morning too, though. So here's my plan--wake up at 6, read, meditate, and pray for 30 minutes, write in my book blog for 20 minutes, and then get started on my day. Exercise will have to happen in the evening. At the moment, I'm thinking that I'll end up alternating between dancing and climbing.
I ran into a snag with programming a few weeks back, but today I figured out that it was caused by the graphical library I was using. So hopefully I'll be able to fix that up and get back with my programming soon, though maybe not today. Today I went to church and was once again convicted of the necessity of memorizing the Bible. That's another routine I need to establish, but it will have to come after I finish programming the application.
The game night is on, so here's my to-do list for the day:
laundry (done)
church (done)
book blog for books read last night
shopping for handwriting pens/paper and eggnog
make eggnog
recycle plastic bottles and milk boxes
if time, investigate Netflix/go to the library
game night
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