Spring(board) of April

It’s the first day of a new month! Oh hey, it’s April Fool’s Day. I kind of wish I had a prank in mind, but not enough to actually spend time on it. Anyway, things are strange with the virus shutting everything down, and I’m not especially happy because my pollen allergies are bullying me, but I’m going to give this month a good go. My hope is that it will serve as a springboard into May—I’ll set up habits and procedures that will allow me to stay productive as I enter a more normal mode of life.

Yesterday was kind of my springboard into this month. It was a little on the busy side—I went shopping, spent two hours cooking, and wrote an excessively long blog post. I did spend some time on Factorio, but I don’t think it was in excess of two hours. I didn’t read fanfiction, and instead finished A Gathering of Old Men. After that I was still quite awake, so I read about half of my old favorite Carry On, Mr. Bowditch.

SCHOOLWORK
In the end I didn’t reach my schoolwork goal, finishing at 90 minutes instead of 120. Still, I worked with focus and completed the reading and the quiz. Today I’ll try to hit 2.5 hours to make up for yesterday. I already did thirty minutes, so I’m feeling good about that, and eager to get back to it.

EXERCISE
I danced with the dancing socks on my shoes. It was a tolerable situation, but pivoting was still a bit difficult. I’m going to try using a floor protector tonight. Sadly, I didn’t clean afterwards. I also had difficulty remembering the moves, and I felt that I looked silly most of the time.

I did a plank last night but forgot to do one this morning. Even though I worked my abs heavily during my dancing session, I managed to hold out long enough to nearly finish F2L at a casual pace, meaning at least a minute. I didn’t actually time it because I was too lazy to walk to the playroom and get my watch.

VIOLIN
I found an app that was almost exactly what I’m looking for, which will give me a record of my intonation as I play a scale. I wish it had a metronome, but I can use that separately without much effort. I didn’t practice yesterday because I ran out of time, but I’m going to try to do so today, and hopefully find my target piece.

SPANISH
I researched the ACTFL certification and found that it was indeed the test that I needed to study for. Unlike the JLPT which is pass or fail, the evaluation is more like the TOEFL, in which everyone takes the same test and the result determines your level. Overall, I think this is a better way to test, and it means that no matter what result I get, I’ll have something to show for having taken the test.

The OPI (Oral Proficiency Interview) test which is the requirement for educators seems very practical and communication oriented. That’s good, but it also means that it will be difficult (for me) to study for because it really requires interacting with native speakers. I remembered that we do have native speakers at church though, which will make it easier. Also, I have found a good resource specifically oriented to this test, so I’ll investigate it a little more and try to develop a plan for working through it. Preparation for the OPI will involve oral and aural skills, and I still think that my grammar needs focus. Today then, I’ll look for a grammar resource to work through.

RUBIK’S CUBE
It’s really difficult to count doing an algorithm 30 times. I’ve found though, that if I do an algorithm from the solved position three (or sometimes six) times, I wind up back at solved position, so that helps me to count. For new algorithms, if I work from solved position to solved position three times a day, three times each time, I think that will be sufficient. For reviewing algorithms, I’ll do one of these loops for each algorithm that I’m not comfortable with, preferably each review session. So, to summarize my schedule, I’ll have three deliberate practice sessions a day, in each of which I’ll work from solve to solve three times for the new algorithm and once for each unfamiliar algorithm. I’ll then do recognition training of the new algorithm twice.

This should be a good schedule when I transition to full CFOP, but it turns out that I only have two more OLL algorithms to learn for 2-step CFOP. From Friday, then, I’ll continue my unfamiliar algorithm review and replace the new algorithm practice with two more recognition training trials from a bank of all the OLL algorithms (except antisune which I can do in my sleep).

MEMORIZATION
I reviewed four Psalms yesterday and did really well with all of them except Psalm 20. That might have been the first time I’ve reviewed Psalm 20 in the past three years so, in which case I didn’t do too poorly. I think I’ll be able to get the first 20 Psalms to 90% by Friday, so instead of Monday I’ll start on 21 from Saturday.

BIBLE READING AND PRAYER
I read Mark 7 (?) and prayed for two people. Prayer was uncomfortable. I’m out of practice.

I’m going to make a list of tasks for the month too, but once again they’re a bit too private to post here. As for my Extolling Log (about people in my life), I think I need to set a time for it so that I don’t forget. Just before reading would be most ideal, but in the past that has been a difficult time slot to stay faithful to. I’m thinking that I will set a timer for five minutes for this task, and maybe if I do that I can succeed in this task even when I don’t feel like it.