Month: January 2017

Posted in Personal, Selfstudy, TOPIK, Uncategorized

Getting productive

Posted on by 카밀라

Time is flying by and before I know it I’ll be heading to Korea with my sister, which means that I don’t have a lot of time left to prepare for TOPIK anymore. As I have mentioned before, I don’t have a lot of time at the moment, but I am finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel! While it is tempting to just wait until things go completely back to normal, I have decided to start upping my study game now, and I am crazily excited about it.
I have been planning my new study schedule for a few days now and I guess today is my first official day following my plan.
The key to being able to follow a study plan is to constantly change it up based on what you are able to do (or simply based on what you feel like doing) at the moment. I think that many people forget to be honest to themselves and therefore end up making unrealistic plans, which is of absolutely no use to anyone.

Anyway! My study schedule starts with the Italki Language MindBuilder Challenge! Yes I did indeed sign up for it, and I already have my 12 lessons booked with 효진쌤 & 혜선쌤! The first 1,5 weeks will probably be terribly exhausting since my schedule is already pretty booked, but I have tried worse and feel confident that I can power through it with a good result. And after that I have a full weeks vacation without too many plans, so I will be able to study and recharge my energy. I’m ready!
The time I spend in the bus every morning will now be dedicated to my story books and my trip home after work will be dedicated to my favorite podcasts and audio books.
As for study books, I am currently going through TTMIK’s Korean phrasebook for travelers, while making some notes for my sister, however I pretty much already finished it, so I guess it’s not really a part of my new schedule.
I will be using following books for my plan this time:
– Useful Chinese characters for learners of Korean
– 한국어 문장 쓰기의 모든 것
– Korean grammar in use Intermediate + Advanced

I’m also trying to decide whether or not to start 서강 한국어 쓰기 2. I can’t really decide.
I will be studying and trying to learn new things, but more than that, my focus will be on reviewing and closing the gaps that I have when it comes to using the Korean language. This is something that I have a tendency to skip pretty often and of course that affects my learning. So I’m not really making any rules about how much or how long I study every day with this plan, my only rule is that I need to study something new and something old from each book, every single day. I’ll also be making a bigger effort to use my Quizlet app during my short free periods during the day and in general try to be more productive with the time I have available for language learning!

Time flies so fast lately and I have to really run if I don’t want to miss out on anything, but I know that things will become better in just a few weeks and I know for sure that I will appreciate all of my efforts as soon as I sit down to take the TOPIK exam again.
More than anything, I hate regretting the things that I did not do, so here’s to being productive!

Posted in Personal, taekwondo, Uncategorized

A day of accomplishments

Posted on by 카밀라

Today has been such an insanely busy day, and not much ended out as I had planned it. I guess that isn’t really anything new, haha!

Early this morning I took my written drivers licence test, which I was supposed to take over a month ago. Sadly though, an administrative mistake happened and I ended up having to wait until now – without any theoretical of practical driving lessons. This has been causing me so much stress since driving well doesn’t come naturally to me and putting everything on pause like that for a month, meant that I lost the almost non-existing confidence I had in my driving skills.
Anyway, I finally took the test this morning and passed without much difficulty – Yay! This means that I am now one step closer to finishing this whole drivers licence process (So many hours that will soon be available in my daily schedule! Not to mention all the time that I will save when I no longer have to take the bus!), as well as a step closer to being able to join ‘my’ Taekwondo class!

When I got home I had a ton of boring things to do before my italki lesson with 효진쌤. We haven’t had a lesson together in two months because of schedule conflicts, and I was really looking forward to seeing her again. She’s a lot of fun!
I ran around like crazy to get everything done, and then just a few minutes before the lesson, my driving instructor called and wanted to have a driving lesson with me immediately after my italki lesson. Sigh.. I was terrified since it had been so long since I had a driving lesson, but I knew it would only get worse if I waited so I agreed, and just like that the rest of my day became busy.I’m really proud of myself for not postponing and it looks like I might take the final driving test withing 2-3 weeks. Exciting and horrifying!

When I finally got home, I ate dinner and sat down to confirm the italki lesson from earlier, since I hadn’t had time when it ended, and then I noticed this!
Turns out today’s lesson was my 100th lesson through italki! If that isn’t an accomplishment then I don’t know what is!
italki100

Even though I hope that tomorrow will be less hectic, I’m still pretty happy with the results from today! Now It’s time to go to bed and start on a fresh note tomorrow. If things go as planned then I will be able to study a lot tomorrow! Just what I need after a stressful day!

Oh, and I still haven’t completely decided what to do about the italki language challenge, but I think I will take part in it this year too!

Posted in Personal, Selfstudy, Uncategorized

The (italki) Language Mindbuilder Challenge

Posted on by 카밀라

As 2017 is beginning and most of the people around me are busy with their new years resolutions, I myself is busy working, studying and planning my first trip to Korea. Even though I enjoy doing things in my own pace, I’m not really too bothered by my busy schedule. I enjoy most of what I am doing at the moment, and the things that I don’t quite like, are only stepping stones to the things that I really want to do, so I’m fine with a little suffering (sorry, I’m in such a dramatic mood, haha!)
As I am starting to work my way through this new and exciting year, I have been thinking a lot about time management and what I need to do better in order to make more room in my schedule and this made me think about the Italki language challenge (Read more about the challenge here). If you have followed me on the blog for a while, then you will probably remember that I joined their first language challenge of 2016, and I ended op completing the biggest goal, which was having 30 hours of italki lessons in a little over a month (Read more about that here). I had a ton of fun and I certainly can’t deny that it was very helpful to my learning. I definitely do no regret doing it! However, I am struggling to decide whether or not to do it again this year. First of all, I had a full month off from work last year, which meant that the time aspect didn’t really matter, but this year I only have a week off in February. The smallest goal this time is completing 12 hours, and finding room for 12 hours during the 28 days of February, can be a bit of a challenge with my schedule this year. Also, there’s also the economical aspect. I spent quite a lot of money last year, because I wanted to accomplish the 30 hour goal. And even just 12 hours, can become quite pricey.
However, on the other side – wouldn’t it be a great tradition to create with myself? Start every new year with an italki challenge! Also, I already tend to spend a lot of money on my love for languages. Just think about the amount of money I have spent on books, and even worse, shipping! Yikes! I guess it’s pretty much the same. And it’s not like I can’t afford it to be completely honest.
Maybe I could even find yet another teacher and switch between them all. I bet that would be a fun way to keep myself on my toes!
Also, it certainly would be a great way to prepare myself a bit for my Korea trip this summer. Not to mention that I honestly don’t feel like I did my absolute best, during last years challenge.

Ah.. What to do, what to do.. Should I make room for the challenge in my schedule this year?