“When I Was A Child, It Was Clear To Me That Life Was Not Worth Living If We Did Not Know Love. I Wish

saturday, march 6 • a february recap & march setup

my march bullet journal spread was inspired by my recent feb-cover-up situation 👀 because i’m actually quite liking the additional pOP! of color that i can add into my bujo with the random construction paper i have lying around uwu but ya dis an overview of my spreads that i made in a 10pm-dimly-lit-tired-trance last weekend hAHaha

also im not sure of where to take photos now in my new apt (i miss my old room’s lighting during golden hour ft. the nice flowy curtains), but i’ll figure it out this is small potatoes u know what i’m sayin’

September 21 2017

Some of the MUJI notebooks I painted this summer; it’s bittersweet that I have to go back to UCLA soon and can’t paint any more until winter break :c

managed to grab a nice spot in my school’s library before i went for training!

How to practice speaking in a foreign language

Hi! I’m learning many languages, including French and Spanish, and I wanted to perhaps share some advice for practicing speaking, because it can be a very daunting task.

Listen! I know I sound like a broken record saying this, but input is everything. Listen to podcasts and watch TV shows and youtube videos. Listen as often as you can, and if you have a conversation coming up with a native speaker, then try and listen to your target language for half an hour or so before.

Shadow! This means listen to a recording of a native speaker, and repeat what they say after they say it. You could try using Easy Languages videos, as they usually have subtitles.

Keep on working on your vocabulary and grammar! For this, an extra tip would be to focus on your weak areas. For vocabulary, immerse, and look up words that you don’t understand, and maybe put it in a flashcard app if you think that it would be useful. Grammar-wise, just drill the rules into your head, and say correct sentences out loud. Try to understand them rather than just memorise them.

Make a native speaker friend! This is the best advice I can give. You can find a buddy on language discords, or apps like HelloTalk and Tandem. If you are a beginner to intermediate student, then just talk about whatever comes up. If you’re an upper intermediate or advanced student, then make an active choice to speak about difficult subjects like literature, music or politics. Make sure to look words up as you go!

Speak to yourself all the time! Narrate your actions, and try describing what is going on around you. You can also just talk about your thoughts and feelings about things.

Keep a notebook of words you don’t know when practicing, and look them up later! This is pretty self-explanatory. If you are speaking and forget the word for ‘toaster’, then write it down and look up the meaning later on.

Learn set phrases and fillers! This is very important if you are learning a language for an exam, because then you can find ways to use advanced phrases above your level. Try lifting them out of books, conversations, podcasts and TV shows, and put them in a flashcard app like Quizlet or Anki to memorise.

Avoid your native language! Using your native language as a crutch won’t serve you, as much as it will make things easier in the short term. Try to speak around words, using the words that you already know. You could say “a place where you do exercise” instead of “gym” if you forgot the word for it. Try doing stuff like that and eventually your speaking will become more fluid.

Be brave! People aren’t as judgmental as you might think, so put yourself out there!

Thank you for reading this post! I hope it was useful to you!

I'm a big fan of extensive reading apps for language learning, and even collaborated on such an app some 10 years ago. It eventually had to be shut down, sadly enough.

Right now, the biggest one in the market is the paywalled LingQ, which is pretty good, but well, requires money.

There's also the OG programs, LWT (Learning With Texts) and FLTR (Foreign Language Text Reader), which are so cumbersome to set up and use that I'm not going to bother with them.

I presently use Vocab Tracker as my daily driver, but I took a spin around GitHub to see what fresh new stuff is being developed. Here's an overview of what I found, as well as VT itself.

(There were a few more, like Aprelendo and TextLingo, which did not have end-user-friendly installations, so I'm not counting them).

Vocab Tracker

++ Available on web ++ 1-5 word-marking hotkeys and instant meanings makes using it a breeze ++ Supports websites

-- Default meaning/translation is not always reliable -- No custom languages -- Ugliest interface by far -- Does not always recognise user-selected phrases -- Virtually unusable on mobile -- Most likely no longer maintained/developed

Lute

++ Supports virtually all languages (custom language support), including Hindi and Sanskrit ++ Per-language, customisable dictionary settings ++ Excellent, customisable hotkey support

-- No instant meaning look-up makes it cumbersome to use, as you have to load an external dictionary for each word -- Docker installation

LinguaCafe

++ Instant meanings thanks to pre-loaded dictionaries ++ Supports ebooks, YouTube, subtitles, and websites ++ Customisable fonts ++ Best interface of the bunch

== Has 7 word learning levels, which may be too many for some

-- Hotkeys are not customisable (yet) and existing ones are a bit cumbersome (0 for known, for eg.) -- No online dictionary look-up other than DeepL, which requires an API key (not an intuitive process) -- No custom languages -- Supports a maximum of 15,000 characters per "chapter", making organising longer texts cumbersome -- Docker installation

Dzelda

++ Supports pdf and epub ++ Available on web

-- Requires confirming meaning for each word to mark that word, making it less efficient to read through -- No custom languages, supports only some Latin-script languages -- No user-customisable dictionaries (has a Google Form to suggest more dictionaries)

Hey, can you suggest some books and poems dealing with mental illness, something along the lines of 4.48 psychosis by Sarah Kane?? ps. you have an impeccable literary taste 🖤

i’m sure if you’ve read 4.48 psychosis then you’re aware of how full on it is so trigger warnings apply for all of these, read with caution. i’m sure there’s many more novels out there but these were the ones that came to mind first <3 

the centre cannot hold, elyn r. saks 

madness, marya hornbacher

collected poems of sylvia plath (& the bell jar)

girl interrupted, susanna kaysen

mrs. dalloway, virginia woolf

no exit, jean paul sartre 

waiting, marya hornbacher

an unquiet mind, kay redfield jamison

blue nights, joan didion 

hunger, roxane gay 

the particular sadness of lemon cake, aimee bender

prozac nation, elizabeth wurtzel 

today's adhd sidequest: spent way too much time making a minecraft experience/hotbar template for study purposes (hey at least i kept it relevant)

the armor/health/hunger doesn't really correspond to anything (i only filled them in because my printer ran out of color ink) so it's mostly just for aesthetics

i didn't know what to do for level number (also purely aesthetic) so i just went with my age, 23

the hotbar has blank spaces for me to draw what i'm using to study that day! so here i have my laptop, my visual timer, my notebook, my pen(s), my snack (goldfish crackers), and a bottle of water

the experience bar has 17 segments so i broke my assigned reading into 17 goals by page number (listed below). as i reach each specified page i'll fill in one segment of the experience bar. when it's full i'll have finished!

right now i'm just using this for my reading assignments since they tend to drag on for a while and get boring. but i'm going to try to use it for other types of assignments too!

i'm not sure if anyone will see this post since this is a pretty new blog and i don't have any followers yet but if anyone would like me to post the blank template or if you have any ideas about improving it please let me know!

types of study breaks for every situation

if you realize you’ve been studying for hours: grab a snack to refuel your body and watch a sitcom to refuel your brain. then back to the books.

if you’re feeling stressed out: take some deep breaths, text your friends, maybe stare at a wall for a few minutes. gather yourself.

if you can’t seem to focus: get moving and get outside. take out the garbage, check your mail box, maybe walk your dog. just get moving and get fresh air. it’ll help bring you back.

if there’s something else going on in your life and you can’t get it off your mind: write down what’s going through your head, sort of like a diary entry. it’ll help you work things out.

if you’re just mentally and physically exhausted: set a timer for 25-30 minutes and take a nap. any longer and you’ll hit REM and you’ll wake up feeling just as tired. once you wake up, get some caffeine in you.

if the material is boring as hell: find another way to study. see if there’s a crash course video online about it or draw out what you’re trying to learn in diagrams and pictures to make it fun.

if people around you won’t shut up: listen to some music. soundtrack and classical music is always good because they won’t absorb you as much as music with lyrics. white noise (like ocean waves, rain sounds, etc.) also works.

if you only half understand a concept: call/message a friend who’s not in the class and try to teach the material to them. this will help you mentally work through the material and will help you remember it as well.

7.12.19 // these pictures are from earlier in this week when I was writing an essay on David Hume’s case against miracles. Seeing as I just made a post about how I write essays, here are the pictures of me frantically worrying about this one in particular (tap for better quality idk tumblr does this to me)

17.5.2020 // Sunday

Woke up past 10am today and felt kinda shitty (which I usually do when I wake up late); but I pushed myself through an hour of cardio, made myself a nice hearty lunch and managed to finish one lesson of Korean notes! As the Movement Control Order extends to another month I really wanted to make full use of it so I started taking foreign-language-learning seriously. Hoping this momentum continues and I don’t slack off halfway.

I hope you’re adjusting well to the new normal, sending my best wishes! 🍀✨