A4.1.20 meta

I'm really, really pleased with my Czech learning right now.

I think this comes from a combination of factors:

• I can perceive my improvement, though I'm still really not anywhere close to where I'd like to be. 
• I feel satisfied with and extremely confident that my plan is flexible enough to work over a prolonged period of time and yet strict enough to make sense and remove the difficult burden of having to figure out what to do next. It also does a great job of getting my collaborators to help me the most in the least obtrusive (to them) way. A lot of thought went into designing this feedback loop in an intelligent way. I also really love that this plan allows me to work steadily onward without relying too much on other people. Like, it gives me permission to move forward and not wait. It also incorporates all potential contexts in which I am exposing myself to Czech, including the scriptures, which I did not really know how to incorporate before. I also like that this plan gives me concrete, small ways to ask for help. That is a key component in this elaborate game; people are not going to magically know what I need. I have to make an effort to ask.
• Multiple people recently praised me in small, believable ways. If they were to make up something fantastic or exaggerate my skill, it would be meaningless. If they were to lather it on, it would also be meaningless. But instead, I feel like their praise was genuine, and by extension their confidence in me. It is a good feeling. 

The very last piece of my feedback loop was a final test on the 10 words I studied, and then corrections. As I suspected, it was a very trivial thing to ask someone to make for me, though I will need to be careful who and how I ask for it in the future. I do not want to be obnoxious. 

Great. Just in time for CHRISTMAS, i.e. a mandatory PAUSE because everybody is super busy and wrapped up and involved in their own family and all that stuff. Myself included. Oh well, because this plan is flexible, I can just immerse myself in extra reading if I happen to find some time to myself. But that is looking a little doubtful. Which is frustrating, but in an okay way.

On a personal note, my postpartum mental health has been improving. I have had fewer anxiety attacks this month. However, it seems that migraines are or will be a continued trial for the near future, and they are without a doubt connected to shifts in my hormone cycles. Not that fun. Actually, it's pretty terrible. But at least I do not have postpartum depression. The shakiness, the horrible nightmares, the night sweats, the migraines, the sudden out of nowhere feeling totally paralyzed and unable to get up and DO anything - unfortunately all these things continue and definitely impact my learning. It didn't help that I was sick all last week and have not even fully recovered yet; exercise is like medicine for my mental health. On the plus side, I have gone down a pants size without really trying. Having walked this road four times before, I know it will be really long and hard to get back to my old self.

At least my mental energy and capacity is back! I look forward to starting 2019 with a TON of energy for Czech learning :-)