Well, um, hi.
So I haven’t updated in a while, as was noticed enough that I did get a comment checking in that I was okay, which was a little surprising to me, but welcome (I’m often taken off guard by the fact that anyone has ever really read these blogs, in a lot of ways I’ve viewed them as a personal indulgence and nothing more, but it’s disarming in a positive way), and since then have dragged my feet on writing something more official. I tend to shy away from being too direct about my personal life in this blog, because front and center it’s supposed to be about my language learning journey, not me, and while there’s an intersect there, I’m not really super interested in writing what amounts to a public weekly diary.
That said, my personal life has thrown this whole project entirely off the rails in such a profound way that talking about the project inevitably involves talking about my personal life. And after dragging my feet a bit since saying I’ll write this little explainer update, I suppose it’s time to just do that.
So…last time I posted, I was “getting back into the swing of things” after a vacation with my partner, focusing on my new job position that was about to start, and feeling better about things. Since then, a number of very big, very important events have happened.
Number one, obviously, was the start of my new job position. This was a change that ended up being extremely good. I like the new job a lot more than the old one, and it comes with upgrades to basically everything going on for me. It’s more money while significantly lower stress.
Number two, after a lot of talking and planning, my partner and I decided to move in with each other. This is very good news that I’m extremely excited for. Addendum to this news: my partner currently lives halfway across the US from where I live, and where I live, there isn’t really room for another person to move in and feel comfy and at home. This means it’s the both of us moving into a new place together, with that being me across the city, and her across the country. This move is still ongoing, with everything meticulously planned by ya girl, the neurotic weirdo who will methodically keep logs of language learning progress, and set to complete in about two weeks.
These two things together as they’ve unfolded and intersected with me, my mental energy, and my day to day, have destroyed this project and reduced it to ash.
I tried, very hard, to keep things going on pure life support with it. I reduced my focus on Japanese to ‘a lesson to keep from breaking streaks,’ which got swallowed up by ‘spend gems in Duolingo to preserve streaks because you can’t.’ I missed a blog posting entirely by accident by it suddenly being like Thursday when did that happen, and I said I’d make up for it the next week to myself. And then I missed that week. And the next. And the next thing I knew, I dropped Japanese entirely and went back to just maintenance Duolingo on Spanish to keep the streak going, something that takes no effort, and I let language learning go for the time being.
So, where does that put me and this blog? I don’t really have an answer to that question right now. I’m still in the thick of planning my move, the move-in time frame for that is first week of July, and I’m afraid I just don’t have the mental bandwidth to keep this blog going, nor work on language learning while that’s still going on. After it stops, too, I’m going to be very distracted in a lot of my spare time, enjoying the new living situation, but also getting the thousand little things bought or set up that one needs in a home together with a partner. I’m also still largely settling into this job, it’s lower stress and I’ve gotten in the groove of it, but there are some ‘ramping up’ things I’m trying to focus on that keep me pointed in a different direction than thinking about picking up Japanese again.
That said, I don’t think my language learning journey is really over? Like, I mean, I don’t think it ever will be, we are all lifetime learners of languages, and I will never be fully done with Spanish, or with English for that matter. But beyond that, I don’t think I’m done with trying for new ones, too. I was getting Japanese slowly but surely, I just don’t have the head for it right now, but I might have that later. I don’t know, though, I have a lot of things I want to focus on, and from the direction my life’s taken, Japanese is, unfortunately, not that high of a priority for me in that regard. There has been some heavy consideration of going back to school to pursue a degree in finance, which would help with my actual career path, and I’m not sure I have it in me to work full time, pursue a degree around that, and learn Japanese. There’s only so much bandwidth a poor woman’s brain can have, and I feel frequently at my limit with my life as-is.
I’ll try to be less of a stranger around here, though, and if I do have anything language-related to say, I’ll say it. I feel like despite pulling a lot of focus away, my Spanish comprehension is still nice and sharp, which is good, and it might be worth delving into that more deeply at some point soon when I have the time and energy for it. I don’t have numbers to provide for tracking, because I really don’t have anything to track right now, but what I do have I’ll try to provide ad hoc.
Until next time, whenever next time is with this roller coaster I have going on, TTFN.
Fumbling Toward Fluent 