Post J-term

In the past week, the madness known as J-term took place. Overall, it was a good experience--much better than last year. Woodworking was great fun. We nearly finished the chairs we were building, and got close enough that we could sit in them. Japanese went smoothly even if it wasn't as exciting or fulfilling. I didn't get anything prepared for the first week of the new semester though, since it was really hectic and I had to prepare something for the next day every day, without having a planning period in which to do it. I slept really heavily all week.

Related to that, my reading has not progressed significantly. I'm still struggling through the BC era of the Chinese history book. Apparently I am 20% finished, but this week I have been skipping entirely or reading just a few pages before falling asleep. I did a lot of driving yesterday and listened to Desiring God for most of the trip. It was so good, I came home and started over reading it on my Kindle. It has all kinds of important reminders, and it also inspired me to return to Jonathan Edwards in the near future.

I only did my fitness routine four times this week, attempting to catch up with work on the other days. Also, yesterday I only did half of a workout because I was shaking--caffeine maybe? Anyway, I have become frustrated with the HabitNest app. It has several bugs, the workouts are too long, and the routines and goals are too randomly generated for my liking. For example, the In and Out Push-up is one of the most difficult exercises I have ever done, but because it is a type of push-up, the goal is 10-20 reps just like the other push-ups. If I do 10, I'm nearly worn out for the day. Well, there is no shortage of fitness apps. I'll do this one until the end of the month and then try a new one.

Reading and praying have continued to go well. Bible memory has continued to be a struggle, but I'm not falling behind. If I up the ante a bit and try to go for 30 verses a day, I think I could meet my goal of starting new verses by February.

No progress on the guitar string. I think I will have some time after school some day this week to go and pick up a replacement. Actually, I need to buy something else from Amazon, so maybe I'll just buy them there. As for Spanish... I'm thinking that I might want to hold off for a month or so until we get most of the way through the French unit in World Languages. That way I'll be less likely to be confused. Regardless, I still haven't developed a plan for that. I expect it will at least partially involve listening to podcasts or watching movies. Maybe I can rope Mom into watching movies or shows with me for some accountability.

First 2024 Check-In

It turns out that journaling on Sunday morning is not as easy as I had hoped. The past two weeks have been somewhat abnormal though. I have made it back to this resolution, although it has turned into afternoon and evening. How am I doing so far?

Reading the Bible and praying has been consistent. Bible memory has been more difficult. I have only gotten over 50 verses one day. Right now I'm averaging 20-30. I'll try to keep over 20 for the next week--at the moment, I don't have a plan to do more. I do it for 10-15 minutes in the morning and 5 minutes or so at night, but when I'm fighting uphill against verses that I can't remember, it goes more slowly.

Bedtime reading has also been satisfactory. Sometimes I have gone straight to sleep, but mostly I have been reading a book surveying Chinese history. It's dry, but I am still in BC. If it doesn't pick up near the end, I just won't buy the second volume. For my other books, I have the book club book, Jonathan Edwards, and I'll probably re-read Desiring God again if I feel inclined to avoid the other options. I have barely read any webfiction since the beginning of the year, and then only my favorite two stories. Fanfiction hasn't had any appeal.

Although I have several gripes with the HabitNest app, I have been using it to good effect. I have been tremendously sore everyday since last Tuesday. I do feel stronger, but I should be stretching more. It's hard to do that when it isn't built in to the routine and I already feel like 30 minutes of exercise is more than I want to spend.

It turned out that the welding class is not available at any community college within driving distance. So, I think I will dedicate some time to regularly studying Spanish. I just made this decision today, so I don't have a plan in place yet. This is not only to help me do a good job teaching World Languages this semester, but also to prepare me for going to Colombia later this year.

I broke a string on the guitar, so I haven't been able to practice recently. Hopefully I'll remember to pick up a replacement sometime this week. No progress has been made on the social front. I'm going to visit Grandpa during Easter vacation, so I think that fills up my travel plans for the year.

Nothing particularly interesting has happened these past two weeks. Last weekend we did have a big book club meeting at Jordan's house. It was fun. However, hanging out with those guys incites me to spend money on alcohol. I really don't need to do that--I certainly can't justify it. In other news, I got all the wood cut yesterday for the J-term woodworking class, and I'm looking forward to that. I guess that is all for this week.