And now we meet the Official Parting of the Ways. I had previously been able to keep my Harry Potter chapter numbers coinciding with my weeks of learning. Week 5 was kind of rough because I was like, doused in self-introspection and feelings and stuff, so I stretched it to something I labeled week 5.5, but I really don't want to keep doing that, "halving" my weeks and stuff.
This week was super productive. I've started using my whiteboard as a "to-do" list. It is much more effective for me than having a schedule. I really need to be master of my time. I get a lot of things done - and I have weird definitions of "fun" - but I feel totally suffocated and stifled by a set schedule. Having a big pile of things to do and a limited amount of time in which to do them gives me a little bit of freedom; I can pick the "funnest" thing from the list. I can erase it and slowly see my progress over time.
I've already created the whiteboard for the upcoming week and it's...well, my husband says it's totally ridiculous. A full half (or perhaps slightly more) are things that have to do with Czech language learning.
None of my "real life" obligations are on this whiteboard. Only my creative endeavors, most of which somehow involve a computer or a phone.
I am exceedingly pleased with the Quizlet sentences endeavors. I decided to translate all the Czech sentences to English. My friend Petr recorded his voice for chapters 1 and 2, and I love it. I forced my husband to record him saying chapter 2, even though he was kind of annoyed to do so. But this way, I can hear his voice when I run. I love listening to his voice, no matter what he's saying. He was sure to add lots of emphasis. You might even be able to hear me laughing in the background, because he was being so ridiculous. I loved it. I can't wait to goad other Czech and English speaking collaborators into speaking into their respective boxes (every time I say this now, I imagine some inside joke about speaking into a toaster, and that makes me smile).
Let's see, what else. I really should force myself to take a cloze quiz for the same Beauty and the Beast lyrics which I so bastardized about two years ago. My husband, who is a sweetheart, somehow did his tech-thing and got an mp3 sound file of the movie onto my phone, which I listened to while running all week. If you could have seen me, it probably would have made you laugh. I was grinning the entire time. Like, I couldn't help it. It was so fun to listen to this thing that is so familiar, and yet new. I really, really loved it. So now we will have to figure out how to acquire other Czech Disney films. I know, I know, it's...capitalism, American nationalism crap, etc. But Disney intersects really nicely with my mom-world, not to mention my own childhood; I can quote all the classics by heart. In fact, my sister and I often would do just that.
As a little girl, I often wondered why they only sold soundtracks of the songs. I would have loved to have listened to the entire audio.
You know, except the action bits which are just dramatic music. It's the funny dialogue that is so great.
Anyway, it would be really nice to compare my back-then understanding with my now-understanding. I would really like that. So it's on my whiteboard for things to do this week.
I decided to start skyping with my collaborators again this week. I talked with Petr three times and it was so nice. I was actually quite surprised at how much I missed it. He's a great friend. I really enjoy talking with him. His English progress has been improving, too! His daughter was dating a guy name Farář for a while, which really made me laugh. "My daughter's dating the farář." hahaha, did not know that could be a name!
I spent a lot of time texting this week. It is a really fun way for me to explore communicative language learning from this cornfield where I sit. The Quest for Czech Female Collaborators continues. I've been corresponding with several and started texting in real time with several others, including more with my friend Tom's wife who is very nice. She is pretty clever at correcting me; instead of doing it outright, she will rephrase whatever response she has with the corrected version of whatever I said. What patience! I like both this kind of correction and explicit correction.
Basically, I like all correction.
You know, as long as I can tell the other person doesn't think I'm an idiot. If I start to worry about that, then it becomes really difficult to do anything else except freeze up and become paralyzed with worry. I think that has been somewhat exaggerated this time through, probably due to these stupid postpartum hormones.
Speaking of which, I am personally not doing particularly well. I have had a very difficult time sleeping. It is so weird. I'm tired, but utterly unable to sleep. I'll start to nod off and then jolt awake, even though I'm very tired, my eyes are drooping and my head is aching. But I'm not sleepy. It is really weird. Most days this week I have woken up around 4:45-5:30 in the morning (which is too early for 7+ hours of sleep) and been unable to fall back asleep. My baby is sleeping like an angel. Last night he slept 12 hours. None of this would be so bad if it weren't for the pounding ache in my head which is pretty constant. If I focus on doing stuff (like this Czech stuff) then I don't think about it, so it's not so bad. But it is pretty much always there. The longer it continues, the darker and nastier my thoughts become when I'm not focused on something else - though, weirdly, they are never depressed, just full of worry, and randomly I will start to shake. I keep hoping my hormones will normalize. If this continues, then...well, we can cross that bridge when we come to it. All of this definitely affects my learning. It is probably the reason why I have been so immersed in it recently.
You know, besides having a super deep love for Czech.
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