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qianoir · 3 years

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IT3D 1 - Hua Mulan

𝐏𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: college students!WayV x Chinese fem!reader

𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞: non-idol au, college au

𝐑𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠: 18+ (Do not interact if you are under 18)

𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: heavy cursing (censored), mentions of sex, nudity, love octogon, foreign humor, overbearing parents

♡ 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 1.3k

𝐓𝐚𝐠 𝐋𝐢𝐬𝐭: @eggbutnotyolk @d1nne @fanficbitchwhowriteskpop @staysstrays

Preview < 1 < 2 < 3

"I've only been in New York City for 15 hours, Xuejiao. And it's huge! I don't know these streets you're telling me!" You shout, ignoring the side-eyes from the passerby city slickers that give New York it’s bad stereotype.

"You're going down 96th Street right? I told you to keep going down. It's a long a.ss street. You'll find the campus eventually- look for the dome!"

The connection breaks as Xuejiao finishes the call, "I gotta go now, I’m trying to get in my astrology professor’s pants after class!" The line goes silent and you huff, opening up GPS to lead you down the forsaken 96th Street. Distracted with directions, some guy crashes into you with his bike.

"What the hell!? Watch where you're going!" You yell picking up your fallen bag- which scattered all of my weeaboo s.hit.

"Maybe if you didn't stand in the middle of the street, you wouldn't have wrecked my bike! You're lucky you didn't get killed by a real car!" You looked up at the ignorant voice and found a young, orange-haired Asian boy. Maybe Chinese, like me?

"I wrecked your bike!? You're really unbelievable.." You placed everything back into the bag and took out your wallet. "Look, I don't have time for this. I'm sorry for damaging your tricycle, or whatever- here." You threw a fully punched Xing Fu Tang loyalty card at the kid’s dumbfounded face and walked off.

It's 9:57 AM, your o-chem class starts at 10 and you still can't find the campus. Why did my parents even make me leave Hong Kong? Because of the government, the pollution? Both countries are f.ucked. I choke there and I choke here.

Finally, I'm here.

You ran to the STEM building and up the stairs to land in a spacious lab room. You hurried to an empty seat near the top row. 9:59 AM.. Thank goodness.

In the midst of the lesson, the door opened to reveal the same clumsy jerk you had encountered a few minutes ago. He rushed to an empty seat, you going unnoticed by him.

Your first 50 minutes of college went by pretty quick. Nothing more than a syllabus review and a small question/answer session.

"I know it is the first day, but you are all in big kid school now, so I am assigning a semester project you will work on for all of this first term with a partner." Each array of your peers groaned at this announcement.

"You will use your knowledge from high school chemistry or an equivalent to complete it." The professor continued, "I will choose your partners and you are both expected to be responsible with it all semester."

"Remember your partner's name so that when I'm done, you can come down to get each other's contact information."

"Man Wol and Ji An.. Ha Jin and Hae Soo.."

The professor continued to call out names as you were caught up in texting Xuejiao about the kid who crashed into you earlier this morning being in your class, only half listening until you heard your name being called.

“Y/N and Yangyang.." Did I miss a racist joke or something? What the hell is a Yang Yang?

You kept texting Xuejiao, deciding to deal with it after class.

"I know it's a lot to take in on the first day, but on the bright side, you don't have to do the project," Some idiots celebrated, "but know that I will judge you harshly on it and I will be teaching at an Ivy League while you get kicked out of an Ivy League, never achieving your dreams." He fakes a sad face and the same idiots fuss.

"Now come meet your partners and have a good rest of your first day!" Your first professor dismissed the first class.

You put your phone in your pocket and stumbled to the bottom of the classroom, calling out for "Yangyang," the name feeling awkward as it rolled off your tongue.

"That's me." You spun around and were met with the trike guy from earlier.

"IT'S YOU!" You exclaimed in unison with him, the space between you two silencing for a second, before you spoke again.

"Oh my God I can't believe I got such a d!ck as a partner." You rolled your eyes with crossed arms.

"Hey! It takes two to d!ck!" Yangyang argues back. You stared at the fellow Asian boy in disgust and dismay.

"What the f.uck!?"

Both of you suddenly broke down laughing, your huddled classmates peeking at you with judgemental stares.

Yangyang calmed down and talked more comfortably with you, "Thanks for the boba by the way. I drank it deliciously.. before I dropped it because I crashed again."

"That's what you get for being a pr!ck to me." You scoffed.

"Oh baby that wasn't being a pr!ck. That was simply getting you warmed up to want me." He tapped your chin to bop your head back while giving a creepy stare.

...

"You're a f.ucking crazy person."

"Like it or not, Mulan, you're stuck with me for an entire semester." He stuck his tongue out at you.

"Mulan?" You questioned.

"Yeah. You're a Chinese b!tch, right?" You glared at him, but had to nod ‘yes’ anyway.

"Cool. I'm Taiwanese.. I need to get to the other side of campus so give me your number so we can work out the details on the project. You wanna meet up at the library tonight?" You agreed and gave him your number.

"Great. See you tonight, Mulan." He winked and jumped out of the room.

Shaking your head at the ironic situation, you walked to the next class with a little over 10 minutes to spare, so you stopped for coffee at the Starbucks on campus.

The shop was pretty small and there weren't a lot of people inside. As you were about to enter, another Asian boy held the door open. "Thank you." You smiled, bowing your head in gratitude.

"Anything for a girl with such a charming smile. Can I buy you a coffee?" He asked.

"No, that's ok!" You replied, not wanting to inconvenience this guy- and besides, he might just be trying to get in my pants.

"Please I insist! Get anything you want!" You decided to take his offer because in the end, it’s free coffee. He was also pretty charming himself, and seemingly harmless.

"Could I get an iced Americano, please?" You ordered. "I'll have the same." The boy told the barista.

You both stood to the side of the bar, talking while the identical drinks were being made. "Thank you for paying, you really didn't have to." "No no it's really fine. I wanted to.. I'm Dejun Xiao by the way, I think I'm in your chemistry class. What's your name?"

"I'm Y/N." "Oh are you Chinese!?" You nodded. "I'm Chinese as well. Are you from China?" "I'm from Hong Kong." "That's so cool! I'm from Guangdong." "Oh nice, nice.." The drinks were handed to you and you walked out together, strolling into the center of the campus.

"What class do you have next?" Dejun asked, sipping at his coffee. You took out a crumpled paper to examine the schedule printed on it. "I have biochem next." "Oh we have the same class!" Dejun announced. "That's crazy! Are you premed?" You asked him. "No, I'm studying forensic science. I want to be a homicide detective.”

Wow this guy is impressive. "Wow, that's awesome.. I want to be a heart surgeon.”

“That’s so cool!” "Thank you." You laughed at his energy. The two of you walked in the direction of your next shared class, conversing and giggling with each other along the way.

You reached your next classroom and found empty seats next to one another. “You can call me Xiaojun, by the way. I think it’s cooler than Dejun.”

“If you have to say your name is cool, then it’s not cool.” Another Asian man walked up to your row.

"Hey man! You're in here, too?" Xiaojun asked. "Yeah! It was a lucky draw." Xiaojun then motioned over to you, "This is Y/N. She's my new.. friend?" He smiled at you, looking for confirmation. Returning his smile, "Yes I am. Nice to meet you." The other male shook your hand and introduced himself. "Nice to meet you, too. I'm Kun."

"She's from China, like us!" Kun was surprised. "Really? Why did you come to America?" "My parents made me." You shrugged. "Wow mine did, too." Kun chuckled and sat down in the row of you and Xiaojun.

I left China, but China came to me. Maybe this year is destined to be good..

To be continued…

𝘲𝘪𝘢𝘯𝘰𝘪𝘳

#wayv x reader #nct x reader #kun x reader #ten x reader #winwin x reader #lucas x reader #xiaojun x reader #hendery x reader #yangyang x reader #wayv imagines #wayv fluff #wayv smut #nct imagines #nct fluff #nct smut #nct angst #wayv angst

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bettsfic · 3 years

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how i got an agent, or: my writing timeline

when i started writing, i had no idea how publishing worked and i had a lot of misconceptions about it. but i just signed my first literary agent so i thought i’d share what my experience has been getting to this point, in case it helps anyone else with their own publication goals. i’m also including financial details, like submission fees and income, because “i could never afford to pursue writing as a career” is something that kept me from taking the idea seriously.

for context, i write mostly literary fiction and i’m on the academic/scholarly writing path. this process looks a lot different for other genres.

i didn’t write this in my pretty nonfiction narrative voice; it’s really just the bare-bones facts of how it went down, how long it took, how many words i wrote (both fanfiction and original fiction), and how much it all cost.

background

2002 - 2005: read a fuckton of books, wrote some fiction, wanted to be a writer but knew it would never happen, journaled every moment of my life in intimate detail

2006: started working full-time (at a chinese restaurant) while still in high school, also started taking courses for college credit; no time to write, and forgot i had ever wanted to be a writer

2007: graduated high school, started college (psych major), still worked at the restaurant, moved out of my parents’ house into an apartment with my boyfriend; my dad got diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer

2008: continued college full-time, quit the restaurant and started part-time as a bank teller, broke up with bf and moved in with a friend at an apartment where the rent was obscenely high; had to pick up a second job altering bridal gowns

2009: continued college full-time, started dating someone else, moved in with him, had to support him, took a third job as an admin assistant

2010: continued college full-time, still had 3 jobs; my dad’s cancer became terminal

2011: my dad passed away; i graduated college with a 3.9 and $31k of debt; quit 2 of 3 jobs; got promoted at the bank; my bf cheated on me and we broke up; moved back in with my mom

2012: a very dark time; also, bought a house (because where i’m from, it’s cheaper to buy than rent)

2013: discovered fandom

2014, age 24

this is the year i started writing and posting fanfic. prior to that i was a compulsive journaler but had no drive or desire to become a writer, despite how much i had written when i was a teenager. it seemed like a very childish dream. at this point i assumed writing was just a phase like all my other hobbies i’d picked up and set down.

but fandom proved to be really healthy for me, and i made some good friends who encouraged my writing and made me want to be better at it. i was really not very good at writing. i don’t think i had any natural creative talent whatsoever, or even a particularly vivid imagination. the only thing i had going for me was the ability to put thoughts into words after a decade of obsessive journaling.

i started writing in spring, and by the end of the year my total word count was 311k. i was making a decent income at the bank, insofar as my bills were covered and i had health insurance. i still had a significant amount of credit card debt from college that i was trying to pay down, and which was eating up all my extra income.

2015, age 25

i continued writing through 2015 and went to visit @aeriallon, whom i’d met in fandom and who told me i should consider applying to MFAs. i was miserable at the bank and knew i wanted to go back to school, but i didn’t think there was a chance in hell a grad program would accept me, since my writing wasn’t very good and i hadn’t so much as taken a single english class in undergrad. she told me to just look around and do a few google searches to see what i found.

when i started searching, i assumed i would probably be more compelled toward an MEd or MSW programs and go the therapy route, which is what the plan had been in undergrad before my dad died and my life got derailed. i never wanted to be a banker, but i’d got a promotion into commercial finance that paid decently, so i took it and told myself i’d work for a year before going back to school. but then i kept getting promoted and one year became many.

i ended up being more drawn to creative writing MFA programs because they seemed to want people with weird backgrounds like mine. also the classes sounded fun and the programs were funded. i didn’t know how i would be able to afford my mortgage payment or sell my house on a fraction of the income i was making at the bank, but i figured i’d apply and see what happened.

it took 6 months to get a writing sample ready to apply to MFAs. it was the only ofic story i’d written as an adult, and in retrospect i had no idea what i was doing because at that point i didn’t read literary short fiction. but i got the sample as good as i could get it and completed my applications. i applied to 6 schools and got accepted into 1.

in 2015 i wrote 250k. i can’t find my application spreadsheet from that year, but i probably spent between $300 and $400 on application fees. early in the year, i had finally managed to pay off my credit card debt and save a little bit of money.

2016, age 26

the school i got into was within driving distance of my house, so i didn’t bother moving. i tried to quit the bank but my boss convinced me to stay on 2 days a week working from home. i agreed to it, because my grad stipend wasn’t enough to cover my bills, and i was counting on what little savings i had accrued to get me through the program. i still had no drive or interest to publish. i mostly just wanted to go back to school so i could learn how to be better at this thing i really enjoyed doing.

in the MFA, as you might imagine, i had to read a lot of stuff and write a lot of stuff, and was encouraged to begin submitting some of the short stories i wrote for workshop. i was not particularly into the idea, considering it seemed like a lot of work for little reward, and also i didn’t think my stories were very good.

i also started teaching english comp. i hated it and decided that after the MFA, i never wanted to do it again. haha. hahahahahaha

in 2016 i wrote 343k. i didn’t apply/submit in 2016 so i didn’t pay any fees, but my grad stipend was $14k for the academic year, plus the income i was making at the bank.

2017, age 27

i did a complete 180 and decided i loved teaching more than anything else in the entire world, and i was willing to do whatever it took to become a teacher. i realized that to become a teacher, i needed to publish. begrudgingly i started submitting to literary journals. i also applied to summer workshops and got into tin house, which i highly recommend if that’s something you’re interested in. at tin house i met my dream agent, who seemed really interested in my work and encouraged me to query her as soon as i had a book done.

a lot of personal drama happened that year. i was still working at the bank in addition to teaching a 2/2 and taking a full course load. in summer i had a long overdue mental breakdown.

2017 was a rough year. i wrote 149k. this is the year i started keeping a dedicated expenses spreadsheet. i spent $174 in submission fees. tin house tuition with room and board was a little over $1500 + travel. i thought it was worth it because i met the agent i thought i would later sign, but that didn’t pan out. (i made some great friends though!!) tin house was definitely an unwise financial decision; i paid for it out of what little i managed to save in 2015.

2018, age 28

early in 2018, i went from teaching comp/rhet to creative writing, which only cemented my desire to teach writing as a career. i realized i was far better at teaching writing than writing, but i knew i had to keep writing to keep teaching (shocked pikachu.jpg), so i kept submitting to journals. i got my first story accepted. i didn’t receive any payment for that publication. i quit the bank early in the year (finally! after 10 years!) and was terrified about money, in part because my student loan payments were coming out of deferment and i was still paying off my hospital bills from my breakdown.

in spring semester, i won a few departmental awards (totaling $500ish) and got a second story accepted (again, no payment). i also got accepted to another workshop which i will not name because i hated it. i graduated in may and defended my thesis in july. the thesis would later become my short story collection, zucchini.

in fall, i stayed on at my school as an adjunct, and started writing training wheels which would later become an original novel called baby.

i wrote 450k in 2018. i paid $373 in submission fees. i was also nominated for an award for one of my publications but didn’t win. the workshop i went to was like $4000 with room and board (it was a month-long workshop). i got 75% of it covered with scholarships and i paid for the rest of it out of my savings, and even though i’d intended to drive there, my mom ended up buying me a plane ticket. again, i met a lot of big-wig writers i thought for sure would help me get an agent. i told myself i was networking, and that publication was all about Who You Knew. but that turned out not to be true for me.

as an adjunct i made $3200 per course, and i taught 3 classes in fall. in winter, i got my shit together and started applying for creative writing PhDs, mostly to convince my family i was doing something with my life, with no expectation that i would get in. in winter i applied to 2 schools. with application fees and the GRE, i ended up paying well over $500.

2019, age 29

in spring semester, i taught 2 classes while i revised training wheels into baby. when i had a completed manuscript, i finally pulled the plug and used all my networking contacts to get my dream agent i’d met at tin house. i queried her, and a very popular and well-regarded author i’d met at the other workshop emailed her on my behalf to tell her good things about me. i thought for sure i had it in the bag. this author also touched base with a few other agents whom he thought would like my work.

i didn’t hear back from any of them. not even a “no thanks.” i set down querying for a while.

i got a third story picked up and published around this time, and i was paid $25 for it. they also nominated me for an award, and i don’t think i won? but i can’t find out who did win so idk.

my grandpa passed away and i decided to sell my house and move in with my grandma so she wouldn’t be alone. i got rejected from both PhD programs i applied to and decided to get a “real job” instead, and began applying for random positions that offered health insurance, because i knew i was drastically undermedicated and it was becoming a Problem.

near the end of spring semester, i moved out of my house, put it on the market, and was interviewing for a community development manager position for a nonprofit. at the same time, i found out about another university that was taking late-season applications, and i applied. five days later, i got accepted. one day after that, i got a job offer for the nonprofit. since i had no idea how long it would take for my house to sell, and being unable to afford both rent in a new city and my mortgage payment, i deferred my PhD acceptance for a year and decided to work at the nonprofit for a while. the risk was that i could only defer my admission, not my funding, so there was a chance that the following year i wouldn’t get the same funding package.

i lasted one month at the “real job” before i had another breakdown and ended up quitting.

my house sold for well under the asking price and i received only $4000 in equity once it was all said and done. that’s a lot of money to me, but considering that i’d been paying on the house for 7 years, i was expecting a lot more.

i had a year to kill until the PhD so i decided to take a break from teaching and apply to artist residencies instead. i applied to 8 residencies and got accepted into 4, but only ended up attending 3, because the 4th was outrageously priced and there was no indication of the cost when i had applied.

in winter i picked up querying agents again. i queried 10 agents every other week. i also got a ghostwriting gig writing children’s books that paid $800 a month.

in 2019 i wrote 417k. i spent $441 in submission fees (to residencies and contests, not agent queries. never pay money to query an agent!!). i ended up teaching 3 classes fall semester.

2020, age 30

i started out the year driving across the country going to residencies. the first cost $100 (no food), the second cost $250 (A LOT OF VERY GOOD FOOD), and the third paid me $500. i was at the third when the pandemic hit.

the query rejections started rolling in. i gave up in february after 60 queries. of those 60, i received 7 manuscript requests for baby, but the consensus was that it was too long and plotless (you got me there.jpg). at the second residency completed and revised zucchini and decided to begin querying with that instead. i could only find a few agents who accepted collections so i only queried 16. i got one request for the manuscript but then didn’t hear back. i gave up in april shortly after the pandemic hit.

when i figured the collection, like the novel, just wasn’t publishable, i started submitting to contests which is the more standard route for the genre. i submitted to 12 in total and was a finalist in 1. i was rejected or withdrew from the rest.

the PhD program reached out to ask if i was still interested in starting in fall, and i said i was, so they put me in the running for funding again and i was accepted. the stipend was $17k per academic year.

like most of us, i got totally derailed in spring and stopped doing basically everything. the ghostwriting gig started paying $1500 a month and i also started my creative coaching business, which slowly but surely began to supplement my income. i also received the $1200 stimulus.

when school started, i quit the ghostwriting gig. i had no intention to continue querying either book, but i saw a twitter pitch event called DVpit (diverse voices) and decided to participate. for those who don’t know, a twitter pitch event is where you tweet the pitch for your book and use the hashtag, and agents scroll through the tag and like tweets. if an agent likes your tweet, you query them.

i got one like, so i followed up with the query. the agent asked for the full MS and a couple weeks later followed up with the offer for representation. we talked on the phone, she sent me the contract, i asked for a couple changes, and then signed!

so far this year i’ve written 375k and paid $518 in submission fees. i’ll give more details when i do my end of year roundup next month. oh, and i finally paid off my student loans.

totals

word count: 2.3 million

agent queries: 77

agent MS requests: 9

agent rejections: 28

agent no responses: 44

short story submissions: 86

short story acceptances: 3

short story income: $25

total submission/application fees: $1472

my (final) query letter

honestly this query letter probably isn’t very good which is why i got such a minimal response, but it got the job done eventually.

Thank you for expressing interest in ZUCCHINI through this year's DVpit event.

ZUCCHINI is a collection that views sex through an asexual lens. It poses inquiries into constructs like gender, sexuality, and love to dissect the patriarchal/puritanical foundations from which our social perspectives often derive. Being a collection about asexuality, each story portrays a relationship that develops from forms of attraction other than physical.

In one story, a grieving widow purchases her first sex toy; in another, a woman uses sex to cope with the death of her abusive father, and later in the collection faces the long road to recovery; an administrative assistant seeks out a codependent relationship with her boss; a masochist hires a professional sadist to lead him toward self-actualization; a woman begins to recover from her sexual assault by staging a reenactment on her own terms; and lastly, two lifelong friends in a queerplatonic relationship decide to get married. Asexuality is an under-acknowledged identity within the LGBTQIA community and is often misunderstood. In seven stories, ZUCCHINI dissects the notion of attraction, explores the intersections of sexual identity and trauma recovery, and conveys the experience of intimacy without physical desire.

Three stories in the collection have been published in literary magazines. “Lien” appeared in volume 24 of Quarter After Eight and was nominated for the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers. “An Informed Purchase” appeared in the summer 2018 issue of Midwestern Gothic and won the Jordan-Goodman Prize in Fiction. “The Ashtray” appeared in issue 16 of Rivet Journal and has been nominated for a 2020 Pushcart Prize.

Complete at 53,000 words, ZUCCHINI is a collection in conversation with Carmen Maria Machado’s HER BODY AND OTHER PARTIES, Lauren Groff’s FLORIDA, and Samantha Hunt’s THE DARK DARK.

If ZUCCHINI is of interest to you, I would be happy to send you the manuscript. Per your guidelines, I've appended the first twenty pages below, which is the entirety of the first story.

what comes next

i’m going to spend january revising the collection per my agent’s feedback. when i send it back to her, she’ll shoot it out to the first round of publishers. my understanding is that the goal is to get multiple offers on it so that it has to go to auction. if there are no offers, she’ll do another round of submissions, and so on, until we’ve exhausted our options. if that happens, we’ll reassess, but by then hopefully i’ll have another novel finished.

meanwhile, i’ll be continuing the PhD which entails teaching a 2/2, workshop, and 2 lit seminars per semester. i’m also still doing my creative coaching, writing fanfic, and working on my original projects. in summer, i’ll finally be moving to hopefully start going to school in person next fall.

the PhD is a 3 year program with an optional fourth year. i don’t see myself finishing in 3 years so i do plan to take the extra year unless something comes up. after the PhD, i’m not sure what i’ll do. a lot will probably change by then so i’m trying not to commit to one idea. i might apply to post-doc fellowships and tenure track positions, or i might leave the country and teach overseas, or i might move to LA and try to get in a writer’s room somewhere. i’ve got a lot of options.

overall thoughts/stuff i learned

first of all, you don’t have to go through all of this to publish a book. you could feasibly just write a book and query agents. the only reason it took me this long is because my PTSD brain was sabotaging me every step of the way and i didn’t start taking anything seriously until i found something i was willing to fight for (teaching). i went the MFA/literary route but other, faster routes are just as good. maybe better. probably better. actually if there’s any chance you can go a different route, you should take it.

reflecting on all of this, very little of it has anything to do with talent or being a good writer. nor does it have to do with being at the right place at the right time. i’ve only made it this far because i took very small steps over and over again, and during that walk met people who could help me -- the authors who have mentored me, the editors who accepted my stories, the agent who signed me. and as i got further along my path, i started being able to help other writers in the way i was helped.

i don’t believe i’ll ever be a great writer. the best thing i can say about my writing is that it’s competent and accessible. everything i write sets out to do something and most of the time it gets the job done. i don’t imagine i’ll ever be able to financially support myself with publishing, and i’ll certainly never be famous or well-known, but i’m good enough to keep making progress. i’ll probably continue to find opportunities that are adjacent to writing and that will keep me afloat, pending my health and provided the country doesn’t devolve into civil war.

probably the most important thing i learned in all this is that having a wide appeal isn’t the goal. you don’t write to be lauded or liked. you have to stay as true to yourself and your interests as you possibly can, so that the people who come across your path can see you and help you. you’ll need those people; no one gets anywhere alone. if you pander, if you’re too concerned with praise and success or being adored, you won’t make it very far. the rejection will eventually kill you.

with all that said, my advice to you is this: never stop writing. the ability to share our stories is the single most precious thing we have. you can’t let anything stop you from telling your stories the way you need them to be told.

#writing advice #the writing life #writing update

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sanakoreanlangblr · 3 years

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2021 Goals

Heyy! I’ve decided to put my goals for this year here, hoping that that might motivate me further, and maybe motivate someone else as well. Good luck everyone! And please take extra care of yourselves and your health, mental or otherwise! Everything else can wait.

This year has been difficult for all of us. As for me, even now, the upcoming semester is a big question mark. Currently I’m studying in France, and this semester I was supposed to go on an exchange to Taiwan buuuut that’s not happening anymore, as it has been cancelled. So per my school’s requirements I need to find an internship in the place of expatriation, which is a pain now. And that basically just means I have no idea where I’m going to be in the coming year or what I’m gonna be doing ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Sorry, needed to complain for a bit, as I am going absolutely insane with the stress…

Anywayyyy, I still hope I will be able to uphold most of these goals, wherever I will end up. I tried to not make them overly big, so that I won’t get burned out too fast. But I have a whole year for those, some of these have dates for which I could expect to finish but I will not keep to them very strictly. Whatever happens, happens :))

Also, sorry if there are any mistakes, English is not my first language!

Korean (A2 -> B1)

1. Do 100 lessons of grammar from the HowToStudyKorean website.

I’ve started a few grammar books but in the end decided to settle on this website as I like its explanations best, and it provides the most example sentences when introducing each point. A nice touch is also the fact that it includes a list of a number of new words before each chapter, which gives me some new vocabulary to learn :)

So far I’ve divided the grammar points introduced in lessons into „to learn”, „to revise”, „already know”, and turns out I have:

66 „to learn”

35 „to revise”

32 „already know”

So if I did 3 points a week, I should be done around August.

2. Read 2 little stories per week from “Easy Korean Reading for Beginners”.

There is 30 stories in the first one (I already did 5), so I should be done by the middle of April.

3. Do one chapter per week from “My first hanja guide”.

I just got this book for Christmas and haven’t had the time to fully go through it so we will see how it goes.

4. Do Anki at least three times a week.

Every day would be preferable but I know that would last like a week at most.

5. Have iTalki lesson at least once a week.

That one is not a problem as I have been doing one or two per week for the last year, but I would just like to keep it up.

6. Try writing at least twice a month, and at least 2 pages.

Yeahhh that one is a bit of a bother, as writing still takes me a long time so we will leave it a twice a month and see how it goes.

7. Watch one youtube video per week on Korean grammar or vocabulary.

Generally I would say my goal is to use Korean more, as I know quite a lot but when I’m speaking I tend to go towards the easier words and grammar, which is why I am thinking that writing more could help me. And also I really want to focus on learning vocabulary as that’s always been a pain for me, I’m more of a grammar lover :))

French (A2 -> hoping for upper B1/ beginning of B2)

1. Finish the intermediate grammar book. I’m currently doing „Grammaire Progressive du Français” Intermediate edition, for A2/B1.

The problem is that my grammar knowledge of french is a mess , so going through this book is a bit of an annoyance, as most chapters I technically know but each time I find some nuance I wasn’t aware of... therefore I need to go through it, even the chapters I would have assumed I know :|

So I divided the chapters the same way I did Korean, into „to learn”, „to revise”, „already know”, and I ended up with:

14 „to learn”

34 „to revise”

4 „already know”

So technically if I did 2 points a week, I should be done in June.

2. Read the two french books I got for Christmas (“Les aventures d’Alice au pays des merveilles” and “Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours”).

3. Read at least two of the Harry Potter books in French.

I have started the first one this week, and I can tell it’s gonna be a very very slow process. It’s the first book I’m reading in french so it’s a bit difficult and frustrating but hopefully it’ll get better as I go along.

4. Watch at least 4 french movies, with french subtitles.

5. Learn a french song.

6. Read one story per week from „French Stories for Beginners”.

These are quite easy, but they are a nice practice for switching to books later on.

I don’t know if I’m gonna keep this one in, depends on how much my reading of actual books will progress.

7. Get to point 5 on the Duolingo tree.

I use Duolingo mostly as a revision tool, so I’m not really going to focus on it much, but still want to keep it up.

8. Watch one YouTube video per week (on any topic).

9. Listen to two podcasts per month.

10. At least one iTalki lesson per week.

11. Do Anki at least 3 times a week.

I really need to listen to french more, as I’m good at reading and I usually understand that pretty well, and I’m not the worst as speaking, but I am absolutely terrible at listening :| So that’s a priority.

Chinese (tbh I don’t know...end of HSK1/Beginning of HSK2 -> let’s say the goal is HSK3 for this year)

1. Finish the book „Integrated Chinese”

I’m having a tough time to pick a book from which to learn but I guess for now I’ll continue with that one.

Again, I divided the points in the book to „to learn”, „to revise”, „already know”, and ended up with:

47 „to learn”

11 „to revise”

15 „already know”

So doing 2 a week I should be done in July.

2. Learn 15 characters a day

I am way behind on learning characters.. I remember the words well but I didn’t put enough time to learn the characters at the start and now that’s gonna be a bit annoying to catch up on :|

3. Finish the drama „Go Ahead”.

4. Watch 3 Chinese movies, with both English and Chinese subtitles.

5. Have one Italki lesson per week.

6. Learn a children song in Chinese

7. Watch one youtube video per week on grammar.

8. Do Anki twice a week.

Generally focus more on characters. My speaking isn’t terrible (well besides the tones), but I need to work on the grammar a bit more as I seem to mess up the structures quite frequently. I need to put more work outside of my lessons. Since I found out I’m actually not going to Taiwan this semester my motivation has fallen a bit, but on the other hand I now have more time to prepare for fall, at which point I will hopefully be able to go!

Personal

Read 20 books.

I have always loved reading but in the past two years the amount of books I’ve read has gone down, which upsets me a bit… On the other hand the amount of fanfiction I’ve read is tremendous, so there’s that. However I would like to make more effort to read this year, especially since I’ve accumulated a huge pile of books over those few years.

2. Workout regularly.

Right now I’m at home, so that should be easy to do. I don’t really know what’s gonna happen this semester, so we’ll see what I’m going to do about that later.

3. Eat better.

Meaning: cut down on sugar, eat more veggies and fruit.

4. Get a bit closer to my ideal weight

I’m not necessarily focusing on that this year as the previous one has been hell and really managed to deteriorate my mental health back to high school levels... but still hopefully working out a bit and eating less sugar, more veggies, I will be able to lose a tiny bit of weight. But overall I just want to focus on being a bit healthier.

5. Clean out my wardrobe

Sorry that’s a silly one but I’ve been getting to it for half a year now and I’m just too lazy to do that... maybe once I put it here I will have some motivation

6. Take care of my face and hair

So my sensitive skin hates wearing masks and needs extra care these days I need to really focus on it and baby it, to not go back to the awful red mess it was two months ago

As for my hair, I have kind of 3a curls which I haven’t been taking care of properly and plus I damaged them with hair dye (still I refuse to give up ginger hair, I blame Merida). So now during lockdown and quarantine season I finally had some time to read up on hair care of curls, and honestly after a month I can already see the difference, and well I hope for the best :)))

7. Get a tattoo

It’s something I’ve always put off since I either didn’t have the money or time. And now again both are problematic, so I will wait for the decision until I know what my school semester is going to be like. Maybe this time I will find a good moment! (Although honestly saving up for travelling after all this is over is also a great idea :))) )

8. Don’t go to sleep at 5

Yeah so during lockdown and because of online classes my sleeping schedule got so messed up I don’t even know what to do about it anymore. And while my goal isn’t to switch it to 10 pm, cutting it to 2 am at max would be nice

9. Watch 25 movies

10. Sell/donate the things that I don’t need

I’ve accumulated a huge pile of books, movies, CDs, Xbox games, art products - that I need to get rid of - and I’ve been saying that for like three years now, about the same pile of things. I will try to do that one this year!

I hope everyone’s 2021 will be a ton better than 2020! Keep fighting!

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crimsonbluemoon · 4 years

Note

krii7y 1 1 14? 👀

Okay, last one of the night!

AU: RoomatesTrope: Friends to loversPrompt: “okay, maybe i’m crazy but did i just hear you say that out loud?”

Pairing: Kriity

In Smiity’s defense, it’d been a long day.

The snow that had come in overnight hadn’t been enough to cancel campus, but still soaked the bottom of his pants when walking to class. The first teacher never showed, stealing a precious hour of sleep from him. He didn’t want to trek back to his dorm room and wake up John, and the walk would be just long enough that he’d only get a few minutes before coming back out in the shitty weather. So he sat in the cold library, which had terrible service, and tried to keep himself from going insane between classes.

A pop quiz in his second class and the most boring presentation of the industrial revolution made his next two hours unbearable. It didn’t help that despite the snowstorm outside, the air conditioning had kicked on, and Smiity’s sweatshirt was too soaked from the snow to wear. He shivered through both his classes, and nearly cried when he went to the dining hall and saw they were ‘closed due to weather’. How could they make students go to school but not feed them?!

On the walk home to his dorm, a car going too fast splashed him with dirty, iced water from the pothole his student loans were supposed to pay for. It hit his sweatshirt, his face, and his rented school books. The wear and tear of the water on the pages alone was going to cost him at the end of the semester. So tired from the day’s events, Smiity barely tried to blink back his tears as he fumbled up the stairs to his room. His books flopped onto the floor in a wet pile, but he was just too worn out to care. Instead, his legs dragged him to the couch, wet jeans and sweatshirt left in a heap before he crashed face first into the cushions. Everything was sore and cold in his body, but he just didn’t have the energy to-

“Hey.” A warm hand touched his shoulder, and Smiity sighed at the familiar touch. “Shit, you’re fucking freezing.”

“Cold outside,” Smiity muttered, wondering if John could just keep his hand on him. He was warmer than the couch, and the gentle swipe of his thumb over the back of Smiity’s neck helped some of his stress melt away.

“Yeah can see that. You want me to start a shower for you?” The thought of hot water running over him was enough to make Smiity moan.

“Don’t tease me,” he said, melting at the warm laugh that John gave before squeezing his shoulder.

“Its turning a knob, not a blowjob. Though that’d be another way to warm you up.” Smiity turned his face into the couch at the joke, knowing his cheeks would be bright red. John didn’t mean it, he couldn’t, but that didn’t stop Smiity from wishing he did. The cushion pressed against his mouth helped hide his grunt of displeasure when the warm hand pulled away, his ears picking up on John moving into the bathroom. If he strained his hearing, he could pick up on the water hitting the solid wall of the shower, John’s voice barely laying over it. “While you shower, want me to order some Chinese?”

Which was Smiity’s favorite food. John didn’t mind it so much, but Smiity knew that he only offered to get it when Smiity needed a pick-me up. Because John, for all the snarky remarks and lewd jokes, knew Smiity better than anyone else. And God, did that make hiding his feelings so much harder. John was his favorite human being, hands down. He’d keep him forever, if he could. Fuck, he’d probably loved him for over a year at this point, so really what was eighty more years of unrequited love if he could just be near him-

“Okay, maybe I’m crazy-” John’s voice cut off his stream of consciousness, but a horrible realization came when Smiity felt his lips pause mid-sentence. There was no way, there was absolutely no way- “but did i just hear you say that out loud?”

“Oh my God.” Smiity was quick to flip on his back and grab one of the pillows off the couch, wondering how long it’d take for him to suffocate himself. Before he could try, the soft fabric was pulled out of his hands, John’s face looming over his on the couch. Defeated by the day, his weary body, and his emotional roller coaster, Smiity went limp on the couch, the tears from before welling in his eyes. The first tear rolled back and into his ear, which was just his terrible luck. Now he was gonna have swimmer’s ear from his own damn crying-

“You know I’m not a big fan of love confessions that make you bawl after. Really makes me feel like you hate being in love with me. Which is a lie, cause I’m a fucking delight.” John’s joke make Smiity cry harder even as he laughed, closing his eyes when warm hands wiped his tears away.

“Shut up, John. My life’s sorta falling apart, and it’s only Tuesday,” he mumbled, pressing his palms to his eyes to try and push the sadness back into his head.

“I don’t even get to try and make it better? Rude.”

“You did make it better with a shower and food. Then I…” He couldn’t even say it, still ashamed that he’d let his mouth run.

“Then you told me you loved me, and now I’m waiting for your dramatic ass to calm down so I can say it back.” The simple way John tossed out the information made Smiity jerk up on the couch, sitting straight to peer down at his kneeling roommate.

“W-what?”

“Dude, I offer you blowjobs and Chinese food all the time; how did you not know I love you? You think I do that shit for Nogla?” The arched eyebrow and roll of John’s eyes proved he thought Smiity should have just assumed these tasks implied love, which was so random and stupid and John-

“I’m in love with an idiot,” he laughed, hands scrambling to pull John closer for a kiss. The jarring movement rammed their noses together, making tears spring back into Smiity’s eyes, but the continued string of bad luck only made him laugh harder. And when John finally slotted their mouths together, he could still feel his giggles vibrating their lips.

It was a terrible day, but at least Smiity was loved.

#Anonymous #Krii7y #Meme boys #Kryozgaming #Smii7y #<3 #Crimson drabblez

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hyuckie-bby · 4 years

Text

Cup of Coffee ~ Chapter 1|N.JM

Hello! I am back! Sorry about not updating, but I was extremely busy with school ;-; Luckily, I have another 2 weeks off, therefore I will continuing to update more frequently! I hope everyone stays safe!! And thank you all for reading, I hope you enjoy <3

Chapter 1| Preview

Jaemin x Reader - Mostly Fluff, Traces of Angst

A coffee shop is not just about a “cup of coffee”; rather it is a symbol of a thorough experience.

It’s a journey a customer takes from the moment he or she lays eyes on a cafe storefront for the very first time to when they approach it, enter the place, order their coffee and have it over and over for the hundredth time.

Word Count: 1.3K

The morning sunlight sweeps through my curtains, and my arm drapes over my eyes to shield them from the blinding rays entering through my window. I am not enamoured with the thought of exiting the comfort of my warm blankets, yet nonetheless, I force my half-asleep body into a sitting position against my assortment of pillows. I take a deep breath, filling my lungs with fresh air, watching the world around me come into focus.

I shift around in my comfortable fortress of blankets some more, feeling tempted to fall back asleep for another ten minutes. The urge to feed my stomach is stronger, motivating me to unceremoniously lift my sheets and exit my room, tiredly combing my fingers through my unkempt hair.

I walk into my kitchen, observing my roommate, Lisa, who is quietly sipping her morning cup of java. I inhale the lingering smell of roasted coffee beans while looking for a clean mug.

Even when half-asleep, Lisa looked drop-dead gorgeous. Her tall elegant frame was hunched over the island counters in the centre of the room. Her hair was messy, but straight, and jet black. If I stood close enough to her, I would be able to smell the vanilla notes in her shampoo from her shiny hair that was washed yesterday evening. She was still lounging around in her pyjamas, an oversized plain white t-shirt which just slightly exposed her collarbones, and which bunched up around her pair of grey plaid shorts. The area around her nose was littered with soft, faint freckles and her large captivating copper-coloured eyes stared back at me.

"Hey," Lisa muttered, her voice still laced with sleep. She continues, "You forgot to buy groceries yesterday". I strolled over to the fridge and glanced inside. She was right. There was nothing there except a couple condiment bottles and the leftovers of Chinese take-out out noodles that I had purchased earlier this week. This wasn’t even my first full month of the semester at my University and I still managed to eat like I've been starved for days, every day. What can I say? I looove food.

I still felt bad for not buying the groceries even though it was my week to do so. "Sorry, I'll go out and buy some later today," I replied. Suddenly, the tiredness disappeared from her eyes and she stared me down with a shit-eating grin on her face. "It's okay. Besides, as revenge, I already drank the rest of the coffee".

"What? Are you kidding?” Spoiler Alert! She wasn’t.

I groaned so loud that I was sure the neighbours could hear me through the paper-thin walls of our apartment. Furiously, I glanced at the time that was being displayed on the empty coffee machine.

7:15 am

My first class, unfortunately, started at 8:30. As a biotechnology major at university that I attend, I so luckily had organic chemistry at the beginning of the day. (obviously sarcasm) I wish that I could sleep through my class and simply watch the lectures online, but sadly, this course was one of the many that I am taking this semester that does attendance regularly. Consuming my daily intake of coffee was a necessity every morning to keep me awake. Therefore, it was decided that I would have to pay a visit to one of the nearby cafes on campus.

Cafes in all their glory, are the worst. They are crowded places that have the longest lines, sell overpriced drinks and the food is less than desirable. I don't know many pastry desserts and club sandwiches that improve by sitting around all day in a glass container, under artificial lights. But alas, I trudge over in the direction of my room and search for an outfit to wear under my pile of clothes in my closet.

ʕ •ᴥ•ʔ•ᴥ•ʔ•ᴥ•ʔ•ᴥ•ʔ•ᴥ•ʔ

Moments before I exit the shared apartment, Lisa comes running up to the door, and clumsily searches for a pair of shoes to slip on. My roommate looks stunning, like always, as she adorns a pale blue t-shirt with lace trim accents, neatly tucked into a light beige mini skirt. I can also see the subtle red lip tint that she applied onto her plump lips.

"I'm going with you, I promised to get breakfast for Mark," she informs me while haphazardly, slipping on her favourite pair of gold sandals. I snicker as I hear the name of Lisa's crush slipping through her lips. She developed feelings for Mark Lee, our mutual friend who shares a class with Lisa later in the day. I nod my head, signaling to her that I understood her words, and opened the door, while she adjusted the delicate gold coin pendant that hung around her neck.

I'm counting my steps, letting my feet hit the pavement, Lisa trailing slowly behind. Her soothing voice and the honking of cars along the busy streets is the only thing I let myself hear. Soon enough, I look up and see the unfamiliar sight before my eyes.

The cafe in the blazing sunlight looks more comfortable than I had remembered. I rarely pass by this particular street anyways, as I prefer to take the shortcut that I discovered while once getting lost on my way to the campus. I somehow always leave the house 5 minutes later than I am supposed to, no matter how early I wake up, and therefore, had to find a solution to solve my tardiness.

Outside the cafe, there is a menu standing on the ground, outlining the daily special. Obliging to Lisa's calls, I step through the large glass doors. The building's concept itself plays on the warmth of natural earthy textures with modern classic colours, giving the café a contemporary and down-to-earth look and feel. This modern and earthy look is achieved through the use of contrasting neutral and bright colour palettes, natural textures, and premium lighting fixtures with rustic accents. There are large windows that allow the sunlight's rays to seep through and cast a glow upon the counters. There are also lively, green plants, and lovely hanging succulents scattered throughout the room.

"Hey, have you decided what to order yet? You're going to be late for your class if you keep staring like that." Lisa's voice snaps me out of my dazed trance. Truthfully, I have not yet decided what expensive drink I would like to indulge in, being too busy secretly admiring my surroundings and the decoration of the coffee shop. I would never tell Lisa or myself this, my stubbornness making an appearance, and is set on passionately disliking cafes in all their glory. "What are you getting Lisa?" I ask her, addressing the girl who stood beside me by her name.

"A caramel macchiato with extra whipped cream and a watermelon lemonade for Mark", she replies, in a sing-song voice, excited that I seem curious for once about her order. I was planning to buy the same drink but soon realized what a big mistake that was, as I was not interested in consuming a sickly sweet liquid. I also wouldn't have thought that a cafe would sell watermelon-flavoured drinks, but I guess you learn something new every day.

"That's cool", I respond, "And I'm sure that Mark would like that", ending the conservation as Lisa walks confidently up to the counter to place her order. It was also no secret between any of Mark's friends that he loved watermelon. I'm sure that even the campus knew about his slight obsession since he only takes shots of watermelon-flavoured liquor if they have a bottle of it at frat parties. We always make sure to buy one if the events were being hosted at his shared apartment.

Feeling awkward standing alone next to the entrance door, I mustered all the courage that I had in me at 8 am, and following Lisa's actions, I walked up to the unoccupied counter.

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hideyseek · 4 years

Text

50 Questions You’ve Never Been Asked

tagged by @usersoup <3

What is the colour of your hairbrush? it is .. black and turquoise, though i must admit that since i’ve cut my hair i rarely use it.

Name a food you never eat? huh. caviar? i tend to forget about the existence of foods i don’t eat until i’m on the instacard website. chocolate ice cream, i guess. that’s like, a normal-person food i never consume.

Are you typically too warm or too cold? i am constantly too cold. as i type this i am in my apartment in sweatpants under a blanket and my roommate is in shorts and a tshirt.

What were you doing 45 minutes ago? mm i was reading a room of one’s own, at risk of sounding like the pretentious humanities major i am. i’m reading it out of desperation (we are in possession of the writer’s block and we would like to give it up as soon as possible), after having had it in my head to read since i came across a lin-manuel miranda tween in like 2015 telling all young writers to read it

What is your favourite candy bar? i don’t really like.. candy. twix or butterfingers, if i had to pick one at gunpoint.

Have you ever been to a professional sports event? yEAH u fucking bet i went to winterguard international championships twice in high school and bands of america championships once (both as part of my school’s winter/colorguard). i’ve never gone to a pro sportsball match though.

What is the last thing you said out loud? oh, are you really out there alone? (at my roommate, who is on the balcony with a desk lamp rigged up for optimal dirtball making).

What is your favourite ice cream? vanilla. or hazelnut. i fucking love hazelnut.

What was the last thing you had to drink? not to associate myself with brands, but i am drinking sprite as i type this.

Do you like your wallet? yes! i had my wallet nicked on a bus in the middle of the semester and my replacement is a lovely narrow black folding wallet that i am infinitely fond of.

What was the last thing you ate? the dregs of my cheezits, pepper jack flavor

Did you buy any new clothes last weekend? mm no, though during my phone call with my grandma earlier this week she told me i should buy more clothes no less than four times. she thinks i should own and wear more “pretty girl clothes” and i haven’t the heart to tell her that i think gender is fake.

The last sporting event you watched? i participated in a harry potter pub quiz over zoom the other week, if that counts. otherwise, probably something televised and american football related, several months ago.

What is your favourite flavour of popcorn? KETTLE CORN KETTLE CORN KETTLE CORN KETTLE CORN KETTLE CORN KETTLE CORN

Who is the last person you sent a text message to? oH thank god i have an interesting answer to this one -- my stage manager/playwright friend, whose recent play i am dying to get a copy of.

Ever go camping? yeah. my family used to go every august with some family friends.

Do you take vitamins? mm just vitamin d. (fuck off this was not meant to be a dick joke).

Do you go to church every Sunday? nah.

Do you have a tan? not anymore... even during the semester i spend most of my time underground in a basement rehearsal space or in the on-campus computer labs. (hence the vitamin d)

Do you prefer Chinese food or pizza? these are?? not equivalent at all in terms of scope? chinese food, of course.

Do you drink your soda with a straw? nah. can-to-mouth for me.

What colour socks do you usually wear? depends on how cold i am: i have some very lovely warm purple socks and some red and black socks that my dear friend gifted me for christmas last? year? but otherwise i have just sports shoes height white socks and black socks.

Do you ever drive above the speed limit? i am gay, i do not drive.

What terrifies you? failure, mostly. i hate that that’s my answer, but there you go. failure, or being putting myself in a situation where i don’t really have a choice in what happens to me.

Look to your left, what do you see? mm, i just moved from the study to bed so: the empty space in the loft bed railing where the ladder is, a blank wall, the edge and hinges of the bedroom wall.

What chore do you hate? none, really? i’ll get really passive-aggressive about some of the small apartment tidying things in my head, but not often enough that anything comes to mind now.

What do you think of when you hear an Australian accent? how my linguistics prof last semester had folks self-identify if they spoke non-american english in the middle of lecture

What’s your favourite soda? hm, hm. oH. there’s a vietnamese sandwich place in my hometown that has the best lychee soda. (a handful of google image searches informs me this is elisha aerated brand)

Do you go in a fast food place or just hit the drive-thru? hm, most of the time when i’m going to fast food i’m going to in-n-out with either a pile of theater people or my high school friend group, so sitting. er, going in.

Who’s the last person you talked to? roommates, in person.

Favourite cut of beef? i could not name cuts of beef if u asked me to really nicely. actually jk i know uh, ox... oxtail? i like oxtail soup.

Last song you listened to? am in the middle of listening to trenchh by cavetown but i’ve been alternating fob and cavetown and bastille on shuffle on spotify.

Last book you read? ella enchanted by gail carson levine, because it is my #1 comfort book.

Favourite day of the week? i like thursdays. they just sound nice.

Can you say the alphabet backwards? if i had like, several minutes, i probably could do it. but everything after w would involve me counting (counting? reciting?) from the beginning.

How do you like you coffee? i’ll drink it any way but black. i have discovered i do not like dalgona coffee. but i like the dark chocolate mocha that peet’s does in the winter a ridiculous amount.

Favourite pair of shoes? i have this pair of converse that’s grey stripes that always makes me feel like a Cool Arts Student, even though it’s actively terrible for my arches.

The time you normally go to bed? to bed? midnightish. to being asleep? usually 1-2ish.

The time you normally get up? eleven in the morning, apparently, since that’s what’s been happening now that i’m not setting alarms. during the school year, usually 7:30 or 8 because i work in the scene shop half the mornings of the week.

What do you prefer, sunrise or sunsets? conceptually? sunsets. aesthetically? also sunsets. metaphorically, though, i prefer sunrises.

How many blankets on your bed? i’ve got a blanket (duvet, maybe? comforter? i have never really vibed with these western concepts of bedding) and another knitted blanket.

Describe your kitchen plates: black and square and slightly chipped because roommates and i get a bit aggressive with cramming them onto the drying rack.

Do you have a favourite alcoholic beverage? i like hard cider. (i like soft cider better than hard cider, but the apple taste drowns out the alcohol taste enough for me to have a pretty good time.)

Do you play cards? haha yeah. whenever i’m home i play 24 with my little brother and lose a lot. or my family’ll play 21. or BS, which i fucking hate because i cannot lie for shit.

What colour is your car? still gay, still don’t drive.

Can you change a tire? mmmmmmmmmmm no. i have a shocking lack of car-related life skills for someone holding down a job that mostly involves wrenches.

Your favourite province? oh boy. hubei province, bc there’s no country specification and this feels less impersonal than if i were to just point somewhere in australia.

Favourite job you’ve ever had? hm, let’s limit this to work i’ve done for money, just to narrow the field down. (i tend to like the work i do a lot.) i really really enjoy working as a sound technician, especially as a mic assistant (it checks my “meeting people” box and my “helping people with their emotions” box and my “storytelling for an audience” box because at the theater i work at, pre-show mic check is me talking about my day and has resulted in a handful of people telling me i should try standup). the hours and pay are kind of crap, though. you don’t get friday nights when your friday nights are spent backstage of the same show you’ve heard twenty million times at this point. i also enjoy teaching computer science, because i just fucking like computer science. christ, i just,, miss being at work :c the production of newsies i was gonna do this summer got canceled.

How did you get your biggest scar? mm, pass.

What did you do today that made someone else happy? i, hm. everything that comes to mind feels vaguely manipulative, since i can’t really tell if people were made happy? oh! i had an extended slack conversation with one of the academic interns for the cs class i help teach that was basically just us bonding over word humor. he seems like the kind of person who would have gotten a kick out of it.

I tag: @kittog @wali21 @capt-ann @lemon-yellow @iamanonniemouse @raccoon-sex-dungeon @snakesonacartesianplane @eternalflarg @swimmingseafish (do it if u want! don’t let me bully u into anything)

#tag game #SOUP I LIKED THIS A LOT! THANK U #no pressure friends #!#but also i enjoy holding knowledge about the people i like

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nimium-amatrix-ingenii-sui · 4 years

Text

@youhavereachedtheendofpie has tagged me to share five random things about me so you can get to know me a bit better. It’s hard to pick five random things with no prompts, but I’ll try my best.

1. I have two kids, both of them boys. During the first pregnancy I was asked whether I’d try to raise my kids bilingually and I said no, I know how bad it feels to be bored in school and maybe English classes will be the only challenge for them. Naturally, the resulting child picked up English pretty much by himself around the age of three (well, by watching the BBC CBeebies bedtime hour, actually). Never let people tell you that kids can’t pick up languages just from watching TV, because that one certainly did, and so did his brother a few years later. (I assume it helped that they already heard English while still in the womb because the husband and I also watch lots of English-language television and occasionally talk English amongst ourselves or to our Anglophone friends? But at any rate, there was never any kind of structured language learning or “one parent only uses target language” stuff). So that worked well. :P

2. You may have concluded from the above that English isn’t my first language. I started learning it in 5th grade, then took Latin in 7th and French in 9th grade. My school also offered Chinese as an extracurricular and I tried it for half a year, but was incapable of remembering or reliably hearing the different word stresses. When I chose Japanese as my third subject at university, a lot of friends’ parents went “But why don’t you do Chinese? The Chinese economy is booming so that would be a lot more useful”. Which was doubtlessly correct, but a) I was never interested in going into economy and b) as I had already found out that I found Chinese terribly difficult, why should I subject myself to like 12 semesters of it? Japanese at the very least had more grammar. And no word stresses.

3. I chose Japanese because one of the hyperfixations that got me through my teenage years was martial arts, mostly of the Japanese kind. When the bullying started in grade 6, I naively thought that practicing a martial art would help me to defend myself, so I started judo (the most common-place). It didn’t help me in that respect, but it was the first sport that I actually enjoyed doing, and it gave me something to feel good about when school was shit. Somewhat later during a sports day I discovered that there was a karate club in [main city] and that fascinated me, so I went. My mother didn’t like that at all (both because it was a 20-minute drive and because she thought karate was too violent) and I had to pay the quite significant membership fee from my pocket money and get there and back on my own (by bus, the 20-minute drive takes 40 minutes). This didn’t put me off, though, and after a while she stopped griping about it (probably also because she saw that karate was by no means as violent as the movies make it look). The karate club also offered boxing, aikido and capoeira, and I practiced capoeira for a while until the coach left (which was after a short time. Not my fault, I swear!). In university, I also did some iaido, kyudo and kendo. I stopped all of it after university because I grew sort of too lazy to drive to practice once I no longer was in Cologne for university. I do miss it. I try to push myself to get back into judo at least (because there’s a club where I live now), but haven’t yet managed. :/

4. I’ve always wanted to become a teacher except just after graduation when I actually signed up for university. Part of it was that I had just escaped school and didn’t want to go back; part of it was that we were actively discouraged from becoming teachers in ANYTHING but the STEM subjects. So I studied three very separate subjects (English, Japanese studies, and Cultural Anthropology) with no very firm goal (”maybe journalism”) instead. I did, in fact, work in journalism for a while (not the kind that required Japanese language skills or cultural anthropology, though). After my extremely well-paid (for a student job) student job with the company where my then-boyfriend and now-husband worked, I always felt exploited as a freelancing journalist (or rather, I didn’t feel exploited, I realised that I was being exploited), although I liked the work as such. Fortunately, a few years ago my part of Germany noticed that they don’t have enough teachers, particularly for the languages, and canvassed people who had any vaguely related university education AND two years of job experience in Whatever. So I am now going through the somewhat gruelling process of turning my Master’s degree (Magister, strictly speaking, since I studied under the pre-Bologna system) into a teaching degree and telling myself that I should just have listened to my teenage self. I enjoy the teaching, though. And I probably would have found dealing with the students a lot more challenging if I had started it as a young insecure woman just out of school myself. (Now I’m a middle-aged insecure woman, which makes all the difference.)

5. The then-boyfriend, now-husband and I bought an old farmhouse in 2007 (holy crap has it been 13 years already?!), which we have been renovating on-and-off ever since then. We did a lot of renovating during the first years, so we’re sort of burned out on it now (not to mention finances). Unfortunately, the people who owned it before us didn’t put much care into it, and if they did, they made it worse. Also unfortunately, the husband is a bit of a perfectionist, so there are no make-shift compromise solutions for anything. Fortunately, the house is a timber frame construction from just after the Thirty Years War, back when people still Built To Last (TM), so there’s no real hurry. It just looks, well, like a construction site. We got used it it but it’s embarrassing whenever we get visitors, especially if they were last there like three years ago and it still looks the same. There’s actually significant process in some places (the former pigsty, which had partially burned down in the 1970s and since then been claimed by various elder and willow trees, is now a fully functional workshop/laundry room/boiler room/larder, for instance), but the living parts of the house are... well. Incomplete. Knowing what we know now, we should’ve bought a caravan and renovated the house first, then moved in. Oh well. The garden, however, has made a lot of progress, and I still love working on it (unlike the other renovations, of which I am thoroughly tired ATM).

Five things! I did it! And I tag @vefanyar, @veliseraptor, @mainecoon76, @grundyscribbling, @heartofoshun, @independence1776 and whoever else feels like talking about themselves! Only if you want to, of course. Otherwise, feel free to ignore.

#me me me #about the author #memery #thanks for the tag!#rambling

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rigelmejo · 4 years

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Just a bit of a self reflection:

Studying Multiple Languages at Once:

French and Japanese were generally easy to keep separate in my mind, because they are quite different, and also because I had a good 6 months of French study to the point where I was in the A2 area of using the language before I started Japanese. So, they were at different levels - my french was getting close to intermediate when my japanese was starting at bare bones beginner.

And that is a tip polyglots have often given, if someone plans to study multiple languages at once: to get some level of skill in one language before starting another, and/or to have each language you’re studying at different levels. In this way, you’re rarely studying the exact same skills in both languages at the same time. For example, when you’re first learning japanese pronunciation, you are well past basic pronunciation in french and more focused on intermediate grammar. When you are learning basic everyday conversational skills in japanese, you’re learning how to write letters and essays and talk about special topics, etc. When you’re learning how to read kana in japanese, you’re already past basic reading in french and moving onto slightly more difficult reading etc. And then theoretically, you’d wait until you’re japanese (or equivalent 2nd language) is past those beginning learning tasks before adding another language to study.

For a short time I did have a 3rd language I was studying - Russian. At that point, my French was pretty solid, my Japanese was in the “starting to struggle to read manga” stage lol (but that was beyond absolute beginner, since I already knew many common words, basic kanji, all of Genki 1 and some of Genki 2, some other grammar etc). So Russian was the only language I was an absolute beginner in. I only needed to learn Russian because I was dating someone who spoke russian, who’s roommates all spoke russian, who’s family and baby brother all spoke russian, and it was helpful for me to be able to understand basic russian so I could understand all the daily household conversations I ran into. Also, so I could understand texts, and help babysit their baby brother. So I really just focused on basic everyday conversation skills. I learned high frequency words, words they used, the writing system, glanced through a summarized grammar guide, and listened to a podcast focused on speaking conversationally (and some basic grammar I’d need to speak/listen to others). In a few months I got where I needed to be. I ended up dropping Russian when that relationship ended later, since I didn’t need Russian anymore (although one day I might study it again so I can read, since I’d just started managing to read stories in Russian toward the end). My point though is, it was not hard to study it in addition to the other two languages.

I think that is because: Russian’s different enough from both French and Japanese in order to not cause confusion, I was not a beginner in either other language so I was never studying the same level or topics in two languages at once, and my French was advanced enough that I could put it on “pause” or only study 20 minutes every few days for some moderate improvement over time. Most of my French study at that point was just immersion reading/watching. Japanese in contrast was more difficult, I had to spend either most of my time on Japanese or on Russian to see significant progress in either - so of course both were slowing the study of the other down. I didn’t make significant gains in Japanese until I dropped Russian. So ultimately, I think it’s easier to study multiple languages, if only one language needs large amounts of study for improvement - and the other language(s) just need maintenance and improvement through immersion (so improving listening skills, or reading skills). I once had some success just working on French grammar, while more actively studying Japanese - but that was because the grammar study was mostly review and me formally filling in “blanks in knowledge” so it wasn’t very intensive.

Another tip polyglots tend to give: try not to study two similar languages at the same time. And, if you do, see the above point about AT LEAST making sure those languages are at significantly different levels so you don’t further add to your own confusion by studying the same “level” similar pronunciation/grammar/writing system topics etc at the exact same time. So like, do not start French and Spanish at the same time. You certainly can - and I think any progress is good progress. But I have tried to do this, and it definitely made everything more confusing for me. I tried to start Spanish after a year of French study. That was TOO SOON for me to try. I still did not have a solid grasp on French pronunciation, because I hadn’t studied it enough. Likewise, I had a vague recognition of French spelling but could not really easily differentiate it from Spanish or Italian. So when I started studying Spanish at that time, everything just meshed together in my head and both languages confused my understanding of the other. I did not make much progress. So I put off Spanish for another time. The upside of that experience is that I definitely realized where I should be focusing my goals in French - I read a lot more grammar at that point paying much more attention to conjugation endings and spelling, and I made listening a main goal of mine and did listening/shadowing practice regularly after that until I improved a bit. I still think my French listening, and pronunciation, is pretty basic at best. But I’m a lot better at differentiating between French and Spanish and Italian now. I am much better in my own internal mind voice, at sounding out words differently depending on the language - they’re no longer one “meshed” sound in my head, but very distinctly different sounding languages. A lot of that had to do with lots of French listening practice, and then when I started Spanish again I did a lot of Spanish listening practice to really hammer home how different they sounded. At 2 years, Spanish was a lot easier to start studying. I no longer ran into the confusion issue between the languages nearly as much.

At that time, there was no great concrete need for me to progress in Spanish - I was not trying to read, watch, or speak with anyone in Spanish regularly. I had mostly been studying out of a simple broad desire to learn some Spanish. So I ended up putting that off for a later time - for when I’ve got more concrete motivations and goals for the language. Meanwhile, at that point, I’d been doing French mostly just through immersion and comprehensible input - very easy to do or not do, just over time picking up more words, and since i’d accomplished my goal of being able to read the novels I wanted to read, I was fine with that “mostly maintenance and a bit of listening improvement/vocabulary improvement.” I had also been doing Japanese - as usual, intensively, as either 30% or 70% of my time depending on the day or my goals for the month (versus spanish for the other portion). I’d been doing Nukemarine’s LLJ Memrise Flashcard Set, still chipping away progress at improving my reading comprehension. Eventually I got burned out from flashcards (because I TRULY hate flashcards, and while I APPRECIATE how much SRS seems to help people learn, I deeply desire a spaced repetition study method where I don’t have to touch any flashcards at all...)

So I paused my japanese study a bit, moving it to just ‘immersion’ like french - every once in a while playing Kingdom Hearts in japanese, and slowly chipping my way through some of my simple manga.

Then Chinese came in like a surprise. A big megalith of a surprise. Weirdly enough, I had deja vu of seeing a clip of Guardian, in a dream I had, like a month before I ever actually saw or heard anything about it in real life. Then I got into SOTUS and the thai drama community on tumblr by extension, and Guardian popped up occassionally as a show mentioned - which I had zero recognition of. Then, one day, that video clip from my dream was on my tumblr dash in real life, and I felt mega deja vu upon seeing it. And I played it, and it was just like my dream. Which was bizarre. So, since I’d seen this show name dropped a few times, and it’d been in my dream before I ever knew about it, and deja vu finally happened as I ran into the exact same thing in real life - I decided I might as well check it out.

So I did. And it was exactly, specifically, everything I love in a story. It also immediately reminded me of that one semester in High School I took of Chinese - because when I was watching the show, the words learned back then were all I recognized (the numbers, ni hao, xie xie, zai jian). So while I watched I picked up some words, since it was frustrating (and a disappointment to my old Chinese class and teacher’s efforts) that I clearly knew so little. I used google translate to look up some characters and phrases. I looked into the hanzi a little in my spare time. By the time I finished the show, I was aware there was a novel for the book and at the time it was only 1/3 translated into english. So BAM - there was one giant motivation to learn chinese. So I could read the book.

Nothing interests or motivates me like characterization and stories, and the details that build those things. Nothing in my whole life, for any of my life, ever captures my attention and my passion like these topics. So yes, wanting to learn to read in a language JUST to read a novel and get the full story, the characterizations and metaphors and themes the author originally intended with their creation, is exactly the kind of thing I do.

(Incidentally, that’s also what drives me to study Japanese - some of my favorite artists and writers from childhood to adulthood create japanese stories, and at some point in my life I WANT to experience them in japanese with their most authentic intent and delivery... because often nuances are changed from a small to quite large degree in translation, and I want to also get to experience the original story closest to how it was intended.)

So with Chinese, once I was sure I wanted to learn, I made myself a somewhat solid study plan - since I’ve studied languages enough now to have a rough idea of what helps me most. I stuck to it. And I dropped all other language studies, except as passive immersion (on occasion I pick up a French or Japanese book and just read a bit to make sure I’m retaining what I know passively, even if the ability to actively recall words is fading a bit). I have been intensively studying Chinese.

A great thing about Chinese, is it has so much art - shows, novels, music, active fandoms, communities around the world. The chinese internet feels as vast as the english one, with just as many endless things to discover. Even if I only ever had wanted to read priest novels - Priest has written a TON, and a TON are going to be adapted into dramas, and MANY have audio dramas if I ever want to listen to them! That’s years, decades, of content I already know I’m interested in! Then if one expands the content they explore, like I did, there’s so many other artists to run into and fall in love with! I ran into MXTX’s The Untamed, then mdzs, and that’s yet another megalith of content and fan communities and other novels by that author! That’s also an intro into a genre I didn’t even know existed, and there is SO MUCH MORE in that genre to be discovered! It’s an endless treasure trove of fantastic beautiful breathtaking creations, and efforts, and art. It’s bottomless, and once it caught my interest it ensured I’d have ample motivation to keep studying, and knowledge that whatever improvements I make will pay off for years and decades because I’ll have all of this content to enjoy over time. I’m guessing... for english learners, a similar thing is experienced. I would imagine, if I’d been as passionate about Japanese content, then I might have experienced this with Japanese. (However, for me, I’m not actually interested intensely in very much content in japanese except for my specific lifelong favorites... I imagine that might change if my ability to read improves, then maybe I WILL discover jdramas and jnovels that capture my overall lifelong interest more overwhelmingly... another big difference between my interest levels surely has to do with me being able to usually find english translations of the japanese stories I love, whereas with Chinese probably 40% of the things I’m interested in have no english translation - some of Daomubiji, some dramas with actors I like, some audiodramas, many novels, and FAN CONTENT which is HUGE is often untranslated like amazing fanvideos and fanfictions and fancomics).

I knew based on my Japanese studies, how long I should estimate it was going to take to do absolutely anything BASIC in chinese. So I dropped any other intense language studies, focused all my attention on chinese, and am still doing so. I knew both Japanese and Chinese are considered Category 5 languages by FSI, taking a minimum of (88 weeks) 2200 hours to learn. I knew based on my personal experience with Japanese, just how long it took me in that language to hit what I consider milestones for my personal goals.

Like: how long until I know the 1000 most common words, how long until I understand past/present/future tense, how long until I can parse what sentences mean if I have a dictionary (recognizing the different sentence components), how long until I can understand the gist of short captions and lines in daily life situations, how long until I can watch short basic videos for the gist of meaning, how long until I can read very simple stories like short daily life comics, how long until I can read straightforward summary texts (like wikipedia, news articles), how long until I can read Graded Reader stories for gist meaning, how long until I can read short stories in general for gist meaning, how long until I can read short things for complete/near complete comprehension, how long until I can read a page of a novel for gist meaning, read a page of a novel for near/complete comprehension, then a chapter, then a book, how long until I can watch a show in the language for gist meaning, how long until I can navigate a game menu screen or website navigation in the language, how long until I could talk about basic A1 topics, how long until I could discuss most any topic on a basic level, how long until I could start discussing topics more in depth, etc.

In French, I had the “easy” baseline of how long these things took me. In Japanese, I had a “hard” baseline - because these things took YEARS in japanese and I only ever reached a few of those milestones in japanese. I still have a long way to go in Japanese. But, for the milestones I did reach in Japanese, I had an example of how long it took me in a Category V language to reach them.

I planned my Chinese study accordingly. I knew what helped speed me up in Japanese the most, so I added those study methods to Chinese immediately - learning common characters, listening. I knew what helped with all my language studies and added those too - learning most common words, past/present/future tense, reading a grammar guide, and READING/consuming target language content frequently. I immersed myself in French often when I’d studied French, but with Japanese I rarely did that until 2+ years into studying the language. I knew it was a good way to gauge my progress, and suspected I’d improve in reading/listening faster than I had in Japanese, if i DID IT MORE this time around for Chinese.

---

Reading Specific Tangent:

I was right. My Chinese has been steadily improving about half as fast as my French. The slower speed is to be expected, since Chinese generally takes much longer for native english speakers to learn than French. But my Chinese is also improving significantly faster than Japanese - twice as fast so far. Which is extremely motivating for me, and exciting. I could not be more grateful. I am so absolutely ecstatic that I can currently watch Chinese tv shows without subtitles if I want to and follow the gist - I still can’t do that in Japanese! I’m so excited I can read Chinese sometimes without a dictionary, and often with a dictionary - my Japanese lags behind at basic-reading-with-dictionary and absolutely NO ability to read complex text like paragraphs or light novels or news even with a dictionary.

I plan to keep focusing a lot of structured study on Chinese until I can read Priest novels comfortably with a dictionary. Right now, I can read them with a dictionary, but the speed is so slow because I have to look up too many words per page, so it’s not comfortable. I think, if I’m being optimistic, I’m about halfway there. As long as I keep studying consistently. Measurably, I’m in the middle of HSK 4 knowledge wise, and while I think getting to HSK 6 will only make me ‘intermediate,’ I do think that should be enough knowledge to be able to read what I want with the help of a dictionary a bit more comfortably than I am doing so now. If I’m supremely lucky, all the reading I’m doing right now will pay off, and maybe reading will be very comfortable with occasional dictionary lookup once I get to that rough HSK 6 goal. (I definitely think personal ambiguity tolerance matters - in Chinese, the statistics I’ve often found indicate readers at HSK 4 go in generally knowing only around 50% of words in target language texts, which is brutally low compared to the statistic of 98% comprehension to comfortably read extensively. Now... when I was first starting to learn French, I immediately dived into reading when I had pitifully little comprehension, like 50%! So I’m used to it feeling brutal at first, and still trying to do it! Then as my French improved, I experienced 70% comprehension and up as so refreshingly easier, that I didn’t personally see it as a slog (even though it very much still is a slog of ambiguity, dictionary use, and accepting you can only understand the gist usually and only occasionally specific details).

With Chinese, pessimistically you hit the 70s percentage of comprehension in HSK 4 - HSK 6, and don’t get to the 90% at all. Optimistically, you hit the 70s% in HSK 3, and by HSK 5-6 you’re at 95-98% comprehension which is MUCH more comfortable for pretty much everyone. Which.... I can say from my own personal experience, that lines up. Once I passed HSK 3 knowledge and in the middle of HSK 4, I feel much more comfortable reading anything I want. Yeah, it’s still BRUTAL. But it’s more the slog French was at 70% comprehension - it’s hard to read for more than a few pages if the material is difficult, and its easier for me to read difficult materials for ‘gist meaning’ rather than precise details, and it’s easier for me to read simpler-materials for longer periods of time. But I can, technically, read any material with a dictionary without feeling lost and incapable of comprehending the main ideas. So if this trend continues, by HSK 6 I should actually be closer to the 90s% comprehension wise, if not well into them, at which point reading will genuinely feel comfortable in comparison to the difficulty of it so far. In contrast, if someone has a lower tolerance for slogging through ambiguity than I do, they might find 70% comprehension absolutely unbearable and give up.

According to studies (one is “The Percentage of Words Known in a Text and Reading Comprehension” by Norbert Schmitt, XiangYing Jiang, William Grabe), people generally do not feel comfortable reading to learn new words/for enjoyment until around 98% comprehension. Even in the 80s% and low 90s%, often people will find it too frustrating. So for a language like Chinese... where often the official study levels like HSK may theoretically get you to the 90s% but not always the high 90s%... then even after the highest HSK level some people will find it too frustratingly ambiguous to read! And with the pessimistic estimate, HSK 6 will only get them to 77% comprehension - so if they’re uncomfortable with a level of ambiguity I am used to, they’re going to hit a wall at how frustrating it will be at first to start reading! And all these percentages are based on spoken language comprehension - its likely all novels/long text are going to be at least somewhat more difficult, further lowering the % likely comprehended.

So... for a Chinese language learner, it is beneficial to either have a high tolerance to consuming content despite high ambiguity, or else to get yourself used to it. Because no matter how high an official level like HSK you study to, you’re likely to have to start off at a frustratingly low comprehension level when you first start diving into target language content. A comprehension level low enough that it’s expected for you to be frustrated. I... already went through this kind of intense frustration and just kind of slogged my way through it in French, and thankfully I studied French long enough to see what the payoff down the line was for such an attitude. I personally think my reading comprehension in French improved as rapidly as it did, precisely because I did start reading immediately (even when I was reading stuff I only comprehended 50-70%). I was fortunate to experience in real time that comprehension % increase through the months as I read more. This gives me an example of how the process should work with Chinese and other languages eventually, if I do the same thing.

With Chinese, my comprehension % has increased half as fast, so the difficulty is harder for longer, but ultimately I’m still seeing the difficulty slowly lessen as my comprehension slowly improves. In my own experience, I also feel I had to consume a lot more chinese content than I did French content, in order to see my comprehension increase. So: Chinese is taking 2 times as long to improve, and also I am consuming content almost every day in comparison to about half with the once-or-twice-a-week French content I used to consume. So not only am I bearing the less comprehensible % levels longer, but I’m also dealing with it more often with more content regularly. Of course it is going to take a tolerance to bear ambiguity... in order to make yourself do this the way I did. A tolerance where, even if you had it for another (in theory easier) language, you will have to exercise that tolerance more for Chinese. At least, once you’ve decided to start reading.

My point is that... one should try to be willing to tolerate to a higher degree of ambiguity when consuming content in Chinese, then they would normally tolerate in their native language. Because it seems like whether one starts at a low level, or a ‘high’ level, they’re going to eventually have to dive into content with a higher ambiguity than they’d probably prefer at first. And it will take practice building up that comprehension level through consuming real content, until that level finally gets up to what is considered more universally ‘comfortable.’ And if you, like me, can view what’s less comfortable as ‘more comfortable’ in comparison to where you started, that perspective has made the experience feel more bearable for me. It might help make it more bearable for others?

When I browse Chinese learning forums, I usually see a few kinds of approaches to this steeper comprehension percentage, in comparison to say a language like French. 1st approach some people do is to learn ALL the characters they can beyond HSK (usually 3000-4800), and learn 5000-10k most frequently used words (if 5000, then some words outside of what HSK covered) - before they dive into reading. 2nd approach is those that decide to dive into reading at HSK 4-6, and make flashcards for the new words they come across - deciding that they’ll have to keep learning new words/characters anyway, for a significant amount of time, until they can read comfortably. This 2nd approach further splits into people who use software to make unknown-word lists ahead of time and pre-study all of them, and people who use SRS flashcard software to either pre-study those words or study while reading. The SRS flashcard crowd usually either also bases their cards on all the new unknown words they’ll need, or at least the words that pop up frequently in the new material they’re reading. A 3rd approach is people who rely on graded readers and learn words mostly through reading (outside of focused HSK/course/other study), then eventually get to the HSK 5-6 level and get frustrated by the low comprehension % they have of native target language material, so they move next to drama subtitles/comics/simple novels and either bear through the low comprehension for a while, or also use approach 1 and/or 2 above once they branch into the more complicated stuff.

These approaches all overlap each other a bit. The big differences are just how some people deal with the low comprehension % by pre-studying huge amounts of material (to boost their comprehension at least for the one material they’re trying to consume) - like pre-learning all the new words in a book before trying to read it, or learning all the new words in the first chapters of a book so that in the future your comprehension % of the book is a higher level then it was at the very beginning. And the other people, who decide they’re going to bear with lower comprehension % for the sake of wide exposure and volume of material consumed. This second group would be - people following the Massive Immersion Approach, people who read for gist comprehension of main ideas rather then near/full comprehension of text (so 2nd approach SRS people who might add new words to study if they pop up frequently, but will also skip studying a lot of unknown words they run into), 3rd approach people who generally don’t make pre-study lists or plans and just kind of brute-force consume the content until it gets easier, etc. While I’m sure there’s MANY arguements out there about which way works better, which ways are more ‘efficient’ - I personally think either way eventually results in improvement in comprehension. The big difference is a decision on trade off: do you decide to study much bigger BULKS of information upfront, in order to temporarily make comprehension % higher for a specific new material you’re trying to comprehend, or do you study nothing upfront and bear with lower comprehension % for a longer duration of time as you consume a specific new material? Over time I would assume both approaches will result in future content eventually being more comprehensible, until it eventually becomes a high enough comprehension % that the learner no longer feels it requires bulk study ahead of time or high tolerance for ambiguity.

I feel that, at least with studying Chinese, that question above about trade offs is relevant for a longer duration of time than it is for languages categorized as ‘easier’ for a learner to study. Like, French? I would guess, that if UNLIKE ME, you learned the 3000 most common words immediately, then started with graded readers (either during that word learning or after to increase vocabulary level more), and worked your way up to native target language content, you would generally find reading to be a comfortable level of comprehension all the way through. 3000 high frequency words in many languages gets you to about 95% comprehension. That’s still a little under the 98% comprehension you need to start reading and picking up most new words comfortably from context. But the 95% would get you close enough that graded readers, and simple texts would be easy to read extensively. And hopefully eventually, even more complex texts would be bearable with a dictionary and you’d quickly get to a point where your comprehension eventually increased to that comfortable comprehension % level.

#rant #language study #japanese #chinese #french #if u ever read my long rants let me know #i realize they're way too long and a little weirdly structured #since they're mostly notes for later #but yeah #if you're trying to study multiple languages maybe some of this is useful #also if u study chinese just like #be aware the % unknown words is just kind of #steeper when learning chinese compared to a language considered 'easier'

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bich-the-moss · 4 years

Text

50 Questions You’ve Never Been Asked Before

Thank you @agoodafternoon !!!

1. What is the color of your hairbrush?

Black

2. A food you never eat?

Not a fan of most fish

3. Are you typically too warm or too cold?

My hands and feet are always freezing. I’m pretty sure it’s a circulation issue.

4. What were you doing 45 minutes ago?

Trying to enroll in classes for next semester before realizing that I can’t take most of the ones I picked out because my advisor approved my schedule without telling me i needed to complete pre-reqs for them 🙃

5. What is your favorite candy bar?

Three Musketeers

6. Have you ever been to a professional sports event?

I got to see 2 SF Giants games in middle school.

7. What was the last thing you said out loud?

What is this? Weeb Central?

8. What is your favorite ice cream?

Brownie

9. What was the last thing you drank?

white zinfandel

10. Do you like your wallet?

It’s fine. I want to get a smaller one though.

11. What was the last thing you ate?

Carnita quesadilla

12. Did you buy any new clothes last weekend?

No, last time I bought clothes was right before everything shut down for quarantine.

13. The last sporting event you watched?

I think it was the Super Bowl?

14. What is your favorite flavor of popcorn?

White cheddar

15. Who was the last person you sent a text message to?

My pal Tony.

16. Ever go camping?

A few times with my family. We went to Sequoia Park twice when I was 11-12 and then we camped on a beach in San Diego a few years ago.

17. Do you take vitamins?

Collagen pills to help with my hair. It’s not very thick and it falls out easily if I’m stressed. They’re kind of helping though.

18. Do you go to church every Sunday?

Sort of. My family is pretty religious, so I kind of have to go. But my parents go through dry phases where they won’t even think about going to church for a few months. It’s off and on.

19. Do you have a tan?

My mom likes to say I’m the J-Lo of the family. White in winter, Mexican in summer.

20. Do you prefer Chinese food or pizza?

Chinese

21. Do you drink your soda with a straw?

If it’s an open cup with ice, I’ll take a straw.

22. What color socks do you usually wear?

White

23. Do you ever drive above the speed limit?

Always.

24. What terrifies you?

Hurting people

25. Look to your left, what do you see?

My window and curtains

26. What chore do you hate?

Folding laundry

27. What do you think of when you hear an Australian accent?

Outback Steakhouse

28. What’s you favorite soda?

Pepsi

29. Do you go in a fast food place or just hit the drive thru?

I like going in and sitting inside.

30. Favorite cut of beef?

Carne asada

31. Who’s the last person you talked to?

My sister

32. Last song you listened to?

Half a Person by The Smiths

33. Last book you read?

Just Kids by Patti Smith

34. Favorite day of the week?

Thursdays are underrated

35. Can you say the alphabet backwards?

Yes

36. How do you like your coffee?

Bold but sweet

37. Favorite pair of shoes?

My docs for casual stuff. Chelsea boots for things I want to dress up for.

38. At what time do you normally go to bed?

Who knows anymore? 1-4 am?

39. At what time do you normally get up?

9:30-11 am

40. Sunrise or sunset?

Sunset

41. How many blankets are on your bed?

1, it’s too hot for 2

42. Describe your kitchen plates?

I have two sets. Circular ones that come is purple, red, orange, and green, and square plates that are all teal.

43. Do you have a favorite alcoholic beverage?

White wines and rosé are fun. Triple Sec is good too.

44. Do you play cards?

Nope

45. What color is your car?

Black

46. Can you change a tire?

I’ve never had to, but I think I can figure it out

47. What is your favorite state/province?

I like California even though everyone in my area hates living here lmao

48. Favorite job you ever had?

I was a barista up until everything shut down. I hated most of the customers, but the actual work was fun

49. How did you get your biggest scar?

I have two noticeable scars that are about the same size so I’ll just talk about both.

The scar on my thigh is from walking through some bushes. We were at a barbecue, it was getting late, and I had to carry my little brother to the car. I took a short cut through the bushes on the side of the house and scraped my leg on a stray branch. It wasn’t bad at all, but still left a scar. It’s faded a lot over time too, so it’s down to about 3 inches.

The scar on my ankle is just a bad shaving accident. I managed to take a chunk out because I was too busy singing Young Americans to pay attention.

50. What did you do today that made someone else happy?

A friend of mine is really touch starved. She didn’t get much physical affection growing up and she has an aversion to touch now. She got drunk and sick last night/this morning, so I came over to help her. I asked if I could rub her back while she was throwing up and she was fine with it. Then at one point she said “this is the most anyone has ever touched me. It’s nice.” She hugged me for the first time when she started to sober up

I’m too lazy to tag everyone so if you see this, consider yourself tagged <3

#tag game #long post

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qianoir · 3 years

Text

After Midnight 3 - Stars

𝐏𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: college dropout!Ten (WayV) x fem!reader

𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞: non-idol au, angst with fluff on top

𝐑𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠: 13+

𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: cursing (censored), lying, family problems, mentions death of reader's father, romance

♡ 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 1.9K

𝐓𝐚𝐠 𝐋𝐢𝐬𝐭: @staysstrays

Preview < 1 < 2 < 3

Your head was pounding from your ears drinking in the tantrum of a 3 year old boy, the cries diving straight into your ringing eardrums. A young couple showed up with their child who started offing himself about your café not having some made up hybrid cake he wanted for the last 10 minutes.

The boy started flailing around and knocked his mother's iced Americano out of her hand in the process, landing the freezing and pungent liquid all over you.

The LED clock above you flickered with a new hour, freeing you from the café’s dark roasted chains. You ripped the soaked apron over your head and stuffed it into the back room’s washing machine before taking hold of your belongings and rushing out of the building after saying a quick “good-bye” to your mother- who was not about to deal with the coddled boy and you leaving all at once, so she kicked the spoiled family out, them following your irritated trail on the way through the doors.

You were walking fast to have a little costume change before meeting up with Ten and his friends, 5 o’clock coming within the next 20 minutes.

Y/N

Heyyo I had a little accident at work so I'm going to stop by my place to clean up before heading over to yours.

Once you were in your own space, you peeled the rest of the coffee soaked clothing off of your body, sticking the wet collection into the washer to cold soak after dressing up nicely.

TEN

d.amn it y/n you are too old to be soiling yourself

???

Y/N

That’s not what I meant!

TEN

Whatever ;p

Stepping out into the bright evening air, you realized you don't even know where the hell to go. The napkin with the address was in the pocket of your apron washing back at the café.

You recognized the street that leads to Décalcomanie, the street that leads to Myeongdong, and one leading to a duck shop.

Admitting defeat, you texted Ten.

Y/N

hey so I left the napkin with your address in my apron.. which I don't have would you mind sending it to me?

TEN

such a handful~

You followed the GPS to his address. His apartment building was on the other side of your school you usually metro to, so it was a pretty tiring walk. Arriving fashionably late, you knocked on door number 117.

There was a lot of commotion and screaming, as you were previously informed. Finally, Ten opened the door and waved for you to come in.

Taking your shoes off at the entrance, you saw three guys tackling each other, two others playing video games, and one really fine looking man behind an island in the kitchen.

"Hello!!" One of the guys being tackled shouted and waved at you which got him punched in the back by the guy orchestrating the tackling. You hesitantly waved back "Hi Y/N!!" The boy in the kitchen said with a charming smile.

"Lovely place." You said to Ten with a giggle as he closed the door with an annoyed look on his face. "Y/N, these are my friends,"

He took you over to the couch where the two players were. "This is Sicheng and Xuxi," The two boys playing Mario Kart threw a glance your way and waved with a smile. "these fools are Hendery, Xiaojun, and Yangyang.."

Hendery strained to wave again under the two boys with a big smile on his face, as did the two others. Ten swayed you into the kitchen and introduced you to the last man. This guy was so handsome, like the Asian bachelor. "I'm Kun." The man greeted, kindly.

"It's nice to finally meet you, Y/N. Our Ten always talks about you." Yangyang says walking towards you two. Ten sent him a glare. "Is that so?"

"At least I'm not blind from having my head up my ass all day, Yangyang shut up!" His voice cracked, making you and Yangyang erupt in laughter.

"Anyways, if you'll excuse us- I invited Y/N here for us to be alone." He took your wrist in his grasp and led you to a room.

Ten pet a space on the bed for you to sit down while he leaned over his desk, searching on his laptop. A slow beat filled the room. You recognized this song- the song your dad would play for your mom in the car on long road trips: Something by The Beatles.

Something in the way she moves

attracts me like no other lover

Something in her style that shows me

I don’t want to leave her now

you know I believe and how.

Your parents were so in love. When your father first heard this song, he had made it their special theme to portray their love. They had both become big fans of The Beatles and always had this song pop up at least once in every holiday or event playlist or could be caught quoting it occasionally when the timing was right. Your heart sank in your chest at the memory.

You hadn't realized that the song had ended or that Ten was at your side watching you intently. You looked up at him and he offered a small smile.

"My parents used to listen to this song all the time."

"Really? Are you guys close?"

Your mouth felt sour hearing the inevitable question. “My dad died from pneumonia when I was younger. My mom tries to be present for me, but I know she misses him.” Tears puddled at your waterline as you forced yourself not to cry. “Sometimes I think she only keeps trying because she thinks I’m studying premed when I really hide pointe shoes in my closet. I don’t have the heart to tell her what I’m really majoring in.. because I’m terrified of us losing each other completely and frankly, she would never forgive me of my dishonesty if she would stay.”

"It's not wrong.. following your passion" Ten announced after a whole note of silence, "I'm sorry for making you bring up such a past, but I’m happy I can at least sympathize with you..” He looked away from you to recall his memories clearly.

“My parents didn't agree with me wanting to study dance either. And they certainly did not agree with me leaving my hometown in Thailand and dropping out of college to come here for the best art opportunities. Mine and the rest of the guys outside; all of us are a little more distant from our family than usual just because we are passionate." Ten confessed.

"I'm sorry." You weakly rasped.

"I'm not." Ten smiled at you.

"My friends and I are doing what we love without anyone holding us back and one day it's going to all pay off.. I know it will.. If it wouldn't I would have never dropped out."

You could understand where he was coming from. He is really passionate and faithful to his dreams, it is a little inspiring.

"And you seem to be doing good on your own, too. You're studying dance, which I'm sure you're amazing at, and working at the café to help your mom, letting people make a mess of you that you always undoubtedly pick yourself up from." You laughed, the sad tears rolling down your cheeks and turning to bittersweet tears of joy.

"Thank you, Ten."

"Anytime, Y/N." He handed you a napkin for your eyes.

A cough was heard outside the closed door, along with faint whispers.

"Lucas, shut the HELL up!"

Ten got up and opened the door, making four boys come tumbling inside the room.

All rushing to get up, Lucas stayed laying on the floor, "Uh, hi guys." he offered a charming smile. "We were just coming to tell you that dinner is ready?" Yangyang shrugged obviously.

Ten snickered.

"Nice try, guys-"

"Dinner is ready!" Kun yelled from the kitchen.

"What did I tell you?" Yangyang stuck out his tongue, cockily. Ten rolled his eyes and looked over at you,

"Would you like to stay for dinner?"

"Uhm-"

"She is staying, I already made her a plate!" Kun yelled once again from the kitchen. The other boys ran out of the doorway to the kitchen.

"I guess it's settled then..." Ten sighed and reached his hand out to you, which you took. You were led into the dining room where the other boys sat. Ten placed you in a chair next to his and Kun’s.

Kun had made zhajiangmian, a Chinese traditional celebration/comfort food aka Chinese spaghetti. It tasted so much better than the bread pastries and milk teas you had been living off of in the past year.

Everyone was very talkative during dinner, you even found out that Ten choreographs his own dances for himself and the others to perform and learned that Kun has a degree in music from a prestigious university in Beijing. The boys you had dinner with were really fun to be around and gave you lots of energy after the intricate start to the new semester.

You didn't realize how lonely your little apartment was until now, even when sharing it with your mother most nights. They made you feel so comfortable and content after lacking companionship since your high school days. Also the food was really good, thanks to Kun.

Everybody finished their food but still continued the little chat at the dinner table "And this one time, Ten ate butter thinking it was ice cream! Who does that!?" Yangyang finished off his story punching the table with laughter.

You glanced at the time on your phone. It was almost 10 o'clock and you had to get to sleep early for your new 8 AM class.

Ten turned to you when he felt short tugs at his hoodie. "Cinderella has to get home?"

The room got quiet with Ten’s words, but quickly exploded in a swarm of whines and begs for you to stay. You gave them an apologetic smile.

Ten stood up, pulling me with him, "I'll walk you home." He was already at the door, kicking on his shoes. Everyone bid you good-bye as you waved to all of them before you and Ten were out the door.

"It's this way." You motioned in the direction of your apartments. Ten nodded and followed your path. It was silent the whole way, but it was a nice silence. It was peaceful with just you two. Arriving soon, you stopped in front of the entrance and turned around to look at Ten.

"Thank you for having me over, I really enjoyed it. Your friends are really nice."

"Of course. I’m really glad you came. I like spending time with you and I think my friends do as well."

Smiles were exchanged and hearts skipped, both of your breathing patterns were evident in each other’s dialogue. "Do you have any last lyrics before we end the night?"

Your building never shines like the others in its distance. The only light around you is the one that blooms in space and allows the stars to twinkle down to where you stand. Ten took your chin is his hand and created perfect eye contact:

"Look at the stars. Look how they shine for you. And all the things that you do.”

He tossed your chin up before walking off into the night.

To Be Continued…

Something by The Beatles

Yellow by Coldplay

𝘲𝘪𝘢𝘯𝘰𝘪𝘳

#wayv x reader #nct x reader #ten x reader #wayv imagines #wayv fluff #wayv angst #nct imagines #nct fluff #nct angst #ten imagines #ten fluff #ten angst #qianoir

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pomrania · 6 years

Text

Mandarin journal, week 1

(week 0) (week 2)

((For context: this semester I’m taking a course in subsequent language acquisition, and I’m also taking an introductory course on the Mandarin language. I’m recording my experience in the latter, for the benefit of the former.))

Apparently each new subject requires a blood sacrifice, to function successfully. This one took the form of a nosebleed I had while freaking out during the introductory part of the class. (Not as bad as it seems. I've gotten chronic nosebleeds since I was a little kid, and they can be triggered by crying. Which I was, but in a bolt hole I'd previously located for precisely that purpose, a place to hide when everything gets overwhelming. Besides, there was nothing important happening at that point, just the standard "no plagiarism" stuff you get at the beginning of every course.)

First, bookkeeping. It was put to a vote, and the class decided to have stuff from 5-8, with one break, as opposed to 5-9, with three breaks. This means I'm less likely to be sleepy-tired, but more likely to be boredom-tired. I don't know how that'll go for me, but there's nothing I can do to change it so I'll deal.

On the subject of books, I need to buy the textbooks. I don't do that before the first lecture, because sometimes they aren't needed, but they will be for this course. I'll be buying them tomorrow, because I'm not going to the uni today.

Now, the prof. She's a China native, who started learning English at like 13 or 15. She has a noticeable accent, but I can still understand everything she says (in English). That bit is important: if you can't easily understand someone, it's hard to learn from them. She got her degree in Business, and also studied in Paris for some time. She's had the experience of learning new languages and new cultures (France and Canada).

Due to her own experiences, she explicitly made it her goal to teach us about Chinese culture as well. This is not particularly of interest to me, seeing as how I hate to travel and have no intention of leaving Canada in the future, but it may be useful when dealing with immigrants or visitors from China.

One thing I especially liked about her, is that she said we would never speak perfect Mandarin -- everyone in the class is at least university-aged, and thus past whenever the critical period for language acquisition might be -- but that's okay. She doesn't speak perfect English, but she can function enough in anglophone Canadian society.

(It's now been most of the day since I started writing this, because I was busy and then I was tired and then I forgot.)

Apparently we ARE going to be doing Chinese characters -- I think they're called hanzi? -- in this course, I'd thought that was only the next course. But like, I've a bit of a background in Japanese, so that's not really threatening to me.

When she was introducing the various sounds, she played a recording from the text a few times, and had us repeat that sound after the recorded bit; then after that, she'd go through the written sounds herself, and have us say that sound all together. I did not find that as helpful as it could have been, although I understand why she did it that way. When everyone else is saying something, I can't hear what sound I myself am making, and if it's accurate; it takes less time than having everyone do it individually, and doesn't put people on the spot, but still.

Speaking of sounds, I can't distinguish like half of the non-English fricatives, I can only reproduce them by accident, and the vowel which pinyin represents by E, that sounds more like L than a vowel when pronounced by itself. I'll need to look up the IPA and phonetic properties for a bunch of these sounds, so I have a way of mentally tagging them; because once I can tag something, I can remember more of it.

We were given some “classroom expressions” to learn. Again, this took the form of her playing the recording from the text, where a guy says the English and then the Mandarin, and having us repeat the Mandarin after the recording. This was... of varying success. Short phrases, like two or maybe three syllables, I could repeat quite well. Anything longer than that, I struggled with, because that’s a REAL test of your super-short-term memory: remembering not just a string of meaningless-to-you syllables, but ones where you don’t even have the SOUNDS in your own language. And like, it just went on in a list. I think it would have been more helpful to repeat something a bit before going on to the next item; like, instead of A-B-C-D, have it be A-A-B-B-C-C-D-D. That’d give me more opportunity to “feel” the phrase, before moving on to something else that’d overwhelm me.

After we did that a few times, and I was getting frustrated because dammit my memory is not optimized for holding that much meaningless-to-me stuff in it at a time, she put up a slide with both the Chinese characters and the pinyin, and also the English equivalent. That was INCREDIBLY helpful to me. I’m attuned to the written word, and when I can look at something, I don’t have to memorize it. Although I think it was better doing the audio-only for a bit before that, because it forced me to pay attention to what it ACTUALLY sounded like, instead of what I think that letter combination SHOULD sound like.

I don’t know how well I actually pronounced them. She said I did good, but she said that to everyone who volunteered to say the phrases from the slides. And I know from previous language courses, that if you’re 95% good with pronunciation, you’ll get the same amount of correction as someone who’s only 35% good. (Example from German, which I did well in: the prof would correct me if I put the stress on the wrong syllable, but she spent the same amount of time correcting this one guy who couldn’t reliably tell the difference between “ie” and “ei” after three years taking the language.) Again, I know why a prof would do this, but it’s still frustrating to not have reliable feedback. There’s “good job” as in “it’s good that you’re willing to speak in class and make mistakes, that’s a mindset that will let you improve” and then there’s “good job” as in “you were mostly correct in what you did”; both are important, both are useful, both would occur in this same context, and I have no idea which is which.

One thing I do know, is that I spoke those phrases with confidence and without hesitation. Listen: I’ve read so much sci-fi and fantasy, MOST of my books include “novel words” that I wouldn’t have come across before, like almost every character name. If words are short enough that I can easily parse their syllable structure, and they have sufficient vowels in them, I blather off a whole page full of words I have no idea what if anything they might mean. I... don’t know if this is actually a useful skill when it comes to learning a language.

Currently, I don’t feel worried about this course. It’ll be tough going to memorize words and phrases, that bit is always annoying for me, but I can do this. My biggest worry is that I’ll forget to work on this stuff on days when I don’t have the class, so I’ll have not learned stuff by the time the next class comes around; but that isn’t specific to Mandarin, or even to languages courses, rather it’s a problem I commonly have for anything.

#no fandom #not a reblog #personal #linguistics

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abuse-survivor-safe-space · 6 years

Text

I'm sorry Y'all (update 9/3/18)

I've been neglecting this account and I'm sorry if it's affecting anyone. I don't delete asks so I will try to get through all of them.

Something happened in my life and now I'm up to the brink with stress. I started my third year at college with a full schedule, I'm trying to get a job, move out of my toxic household, and I'm also playing collegiate volleyball so I'm busy and have no time for even free time, let alone taking my time to thoughtfully answer your asks. And the way tumblr is, I don't think I can answer them on my phone because I can't add tabs, but I'll try again today to see if the new updates allows that now, or if I can post an answered ask, and then edit it to add tags (which is what I have to do on the computer)

I've at least gotten a job that I kinda like (read: I'm not dreading to work there like I have with other jobs in the past and most of my coworkers are likeable and nice to my noobie shy butt), so that's eased the stress load by a lot and I have more time now that I'm not frantically applying and setting up interviews.

So I'll be answering a few asks between classes and during my free time, instead of trying to answer them all at one time. I haven't looked in the inbox, so if there's applications I'll address that first so that I can get some help with answering the asks. I'll be starting from the bottom/oldest asks and going up. I'll be doing some today after doing a couple things I need to do. This is the end of my announcement, but I'll be explaining my situation a couple lines down if you're interested. I just need to get a couple things off my mind and to show I really am overwhelmed and care about this account.

So I'm in my third year at college, though I'm academically more of a sophomore. My first semester at college I didn't know I was going to graduate that June so I applied late compared to other and all the core classes were gone. I took a psychology class, Chinese 1A, and 4 PE classes (dropped down to 3 because I really didn't like my Haitian dance class, and it was hard on my parents to have to take me to the sister campus 25 miles away on a Saturday morning because I didn't have my license or a car yet (had to wait until October when I turned 17 1/2 to avoid the mandatory $600ish driving school requirement). Then something happened during that semester to trigger my PTSD and I had to skip the spring semester. I'm in my third year with 39/60 credits completed and plan on transferring for the fall 2019 semester. I am having some doubts and questioning my career path at the moment, so I have to do some heavy research on careers, majors, and 4 year schools to transfer to very soon, since a program called TAG (transfer admission guarentee) has started and lasts until September 30th and then actual applications start Nov 1-30 so I have to start figuring out where I'll try to apply very soon. So that's stress #1 (number does not reflect severity or order of stress)

Next is that I found out my brother's girlfriend will be moving in right before I went to Mexico in late July, and at the time my mom said she'll be moving into my room and the girlfriend will be moving into my mom's room. So I spent all weekend thinking and worrying, and by the time I got back I decided I needed to move out asap. I talked to my grandparents about it the next day and then called my aunt, and they are the only ones who know and are supporting me. My aunt is more active in her support, helping me figure out all the details and what I need to do, and using my college money from my grandparents to pay for rent because I can't stand being at my house long enough to save money with a part time job. So as I'm looking places up on housing apps, I noticed that even though my college money guarantees I will be able to pay every single bill, I still need a job, cosigner, and credit score, 3 of those things I didn't have at the time. School was also starting and a lot of my weekends went to moving my brother's girlfriend in, and i had started having volleyball practice mon-thurs. I was having problems and started new meds. I was able to start adderall though, and it has helped immensely and I don't know if I could've done any of this without it. When school starts I'm now a full time student athlete, trying to get a job, move out, and figure out things related to my college account with my aunt who lives 3 hours away.

My third week of school is starting tomorrow, and I have a job with flexibility for my volleyball game schedule that is different each week, and it's better now that I know most of my volleyball schedule. So the stress from volleyball and getting a job is gone. I also discovered that I do have a credit score thanks to a Kohl's credit card I took out a year ago that I was not aware was connected to my personal credit. (Not very good with all this finance stuff). Right now it's poor, but it went up from nonexistent, so the more I use my card and continue making payments in time, it will continue to go up. I will be applying for a credit card to also help increase my score, probably tonight, but I have to get my aunt to cosign (I hate inconveniencing her). But now I have a job, a credit score, and a cosigner.

Right now my main focus other than school is sifting through potential places to live and getting rid of the ones that don't meet my requirements (which are basically just I can't live with men and the room needs to be unfurnished because I don't have anywhere to fit my 4 pieces of furniture) and then, with the help of my aunt, figuring out which places would be good based on rent, location, commute (depends on if I have a car or not, which I probably wont), amenities and appliances included, lease type, etc. Then I'll contact the landlords/owners and arrange viewings and then get approved to move in. So my goal is to move out before October, though I'll be working hard to do it way sooner if possible.

I also had a little bit of a medical problem, but it's basically resolved. This week will be a lot easier and less busy.

Right now I'm focusing on housing, college research, getting a credit card and updating my fafsa, the last two of which are a one and done thing so I'll most likely complete those two tonight. So I will have a little bit of free time to answer your asks starting tomorrow and I'll try my hardest to do as much as I can in between my school, volleyball, and work. I'll be checking tonight if the mobile app will work, because if it does it will be 10× easier to answer asks on the go, the 10 min between classes, in the car when I'm not driving, during work breaks, etc.

Sorry again for ghosting and being inactive!! I'll also be reblogging more things from recovery accounts and other helpful things from other blogs. I still have a goal to make a hotline master post, but that'll have to be way later. Thank you for being patient and sticking with this account. You are all amazing, strong survivors, and I love each and every one of you 💚

-Jellyfish

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printempolife · 3 years

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Writing this both for myself but also for everyone struggling with online school or just life in general right now.

I'm so tired. I wake up each day exhausted and overwhelmed by what needs to get done and how I have no motivation to get it done. I stare at my computer screen for 10 plus hours a day only to wake up the next day and do that all over again. I'm so worn down from readings that even if I do find free time I don't want to read any of my TBR books. Online school is so draining and tiring and lonely. The adjustment to university alone has been quite challenging and dealing with loneliness on top of it just makes me so tired and pissed off at my tuition costs. No one has their camera on in class because we're zoom fatigued, no one talks in break out rooms because you don't know if someone else wants to talk and there's no connection, I'm just talking to strangers. People are losing jobs and financially struggling and may be in abusive home environments but you want us to just drop 300 dollars on materials we're only using for half the semester? I don't think my parents realize how much I've been struggling despite me always being home. I try to remind myself that I'm not stupid, and that grades don't define me, but when school is literally the only thing you're focusing on and you spend countless hours on each class only to get back a mediocre grade, it really makes you feel worthless and wonder why you're not good enough. If you're not going to lower tuition costs at least let me drop classes at any point with a full refund. The professor is still getting paid either way whether or not I'm not in that class. I can't even drop a class now because I refuse to not get a full refund and then have to pay another 700 dollars to take it in the summer. I don't know a single person who has been enjoying the online semester, or who hasn't constantly been feeling burnt out. I can't remember the last time I looked forward to class or had a weekend to myself to chill and go on a long walk or watch a movie without stressing constantly. I know I'm not alone in feeling this way but when it's just you in your room (which I don't even have my own so there's no privacy when I wanna call friends at night and I have to constantly move out into the living room where my mom is so loud all the dang time), you really feel alone and like no one understands or there's no one to turn to. The semester isn't even halfway through yet and I'm just so frustrated and tired and even though I love my program, there is definitely not enough support for students. I waste 5 hrs sitting through the most discouraging and useless class on Monday only to spend the rest of the week stressed out over our weekly assignments and shoving aside my other classes, leading me to do badly in all my classes in general. One class, especially in an online form, should not be taking up 30 hrs of my week. I get drawing is important for urban planning but we're not freaking architects. Most of us have never drawn or taken art before and you expect high quality drawings when we can't even see what you're doing in any of your tutorial videos. Every question I've asked to a TA the only responses I've gotten have been "I'm not sure" "Hmm I don't know" "it really depends " or "its up to you, just know I'm not the one marking". There are 2 instructors and 3 TAs and only maybe 1 or 2 of the 5 know what's going on. My ecology prof, bless her soul, couldn't even figure out how to play a video in class today. What type of training are professors getting? My Chinese prof takes points away if you use grammar from a higher level. Why take points off if I use it right?? Everything is just so frustrating and unclear, especially considering I'm paying almost 10k a year and I'm not really getting anything out of it. Some boomers are prob gonna be like "you're paying for your degree" or that I'm extremely privileged to be learning from home. Some days are fine, but I honestly have the right to be upset and say that everything is a complete shitshow because it is.

#personal #mine #ranting about school :(

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charllieeldridge · 4 years

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Teach English To Korean Students Online (7 Companies That Pay)

One of my favorite things about teaching English online is the opportunity to meet students from all around the world. Some platforms have a global student base but others focus on teaching students from a specific country.

In this post, we’ll look at 5 companies where you can teach English online to Korean students.

I’ve been an online English teacher since 2017 and I love the location independence, schedule flexibility, and of course, spending time with my amazing learners!

It’s pretty cool to think that you can virtually travel to the other side of the world without leaving home, and I’ve loved getting to learn about my student’s cultures.

While I’ve primarily worked for Chinese online ESL companies, there are also plenty of exciting online English teaching jobs for Korean students!

Here are 5 companies where you can teach English online to Korean students from the comfort of home.

1. Nil English

Nil English is a smaller online platform offering lessons to adults and children from Korea. Because Nil English serves clients of all ages, there is a wide range of hours available.

Students on Nil English will see you for several weeks at a time so you have some consistency in your schedule. Classes are held on Zoom, Skype, or over a phone call, depending on what the student prefers.

While specific lesson plans aren’t provided, you will receive curriculum and guidelines from Nil English as to what your student is learning about.

Teacher Requirements

To teach with Nil English, you must be a native English speaker from the USA. A Bachelor’s Degree or Associates Degree is required, a TEFL certification is preferred, but not required.

When you apply, make sure to include any teaching experiences or relevant qualifications on your resume to give yourself the best chance of getting accepted.

Payment Information

Teachers on Nil English make around $7 – $10 per hour at first. Teachers are paid $1.50 per 10-minute class and there are opportunities for raises every few months if you stick with the platform.

Hours

Classes can be anywhere from 10 mins to an hour, with classes starting early in the morning and ending at midnight Korea time.

How To Sign Up

To sign up for Nil English, all you need to do is send an email to [email protected] and attach your resume. You’ll get an email to set up the interview on Skype they will ask about your background and experience.

If you’re approved, they will send over your paperwork and you’ll complete your profile. Then, they will assign you students to help you get started.

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2. Tutoring Go

Tutoring (which is also referred to as TutoringGo in some places), is an audio conversation platform for teaching English to Korean adults and children.

Classes are one-on-one and the platform is available 24/7, making this great for teachers who just want to hop on and teach when it suits their schedule.

Students can choose if they want a freestyle conversation a lesson from provided discussion topics and curriculum. Either way, there is minimal outside prep work for teachers.

Teacher Requirements

Tutoring offers two different programs for teachers: Global and Native.

The Global tutoring program is open to teachers from the Philipines and the Native tutoring program is open to teachers from the USA, Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland.

For both the Global and the Native teaching position, you must hold a Bachelor’s Degree, have some experience teaching (online or in-classroom), and have a TEFL certificate.

This is one of the only companies I’m aware of that you can teach English online to Korean students as a citizen of the Philippines.

For technology, teachers will need to teach from a wired connection with 10mbps or above. WiFi is not permitted for teaching.

Payment Information

Teachers are paid $10 per class and will receive a bonus if they teach during peak hours. Peak time is from 6:00 am Korean time to 10:00 am Korean time. Teachers are paid through PayPal two times per month.

Hours

Tutoring Go is open 24 hours and classes are 20 minutes long. There are no minimum or maximum teaching hours and you can work whenever you want.

The highest demand for classes is during “peak time” which is from 6:00 am – 10:00 am Korean Time.

How To Sign Up

To sign up, click here. If there are any openings available, you’ll be able to begin the hiring process.

To get hired by Tutoring, you’ll start by submitting your documents and written application. You’ll also submit an audio and video recording for evaluation.

If you pass, you’ll be invited to a phone interview and mock class. Finally, you’ll receive initial teacher training and ongoing support in your classroom.

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT TUTORING GO HERE

3. EnglishHunt

EnglishHunt has been offering online language lessons to students in Korea since the early 2000s. Overall, EnglishHunt has good reviews around the web. With an easy-going vibe, EnglishHunt is known for being a great way to teach Korean adults online.

Current teachers like the responsive staff and easygoing atmosphere but as with all platforms geared toward Asia, the hours are early. Lesson plans and materials are provided.

Teacher Requirements

EnglishHunt is hiring American citizens and you’ll need an American bank account to receive payment.

To teach with EnglishHunt, you must have a Bachelor’s Degree in any subject or four years of teaching experience. Teachers should also have a TEFL certification.

Unlike many popular platforms, the EnglishHunt teacher software only works with the windows operating system. According to their website, you will not be able to teach from an Apple or Mac computer, or from a tablet or Chromebook.

Teachers should also have an ethernet connection and a headset with a microphone.

Payment Information

EnglishHunt pays $14 USD per hour. Teachers are paid via direct deposit into their American bank account.

Hours

The highest demand for classes on EnglishHunt is from 1:00 am EST to 3:00 am EST. This corresponds with the afternoons in Korea.

The website doesn’t specify a certain number of hours teachers must open, but it seems like they might only hire seasonally to correspond with their semesters.

They open a semester of classes starting in August and a semester of classes starting in March.

How To Sign Up

To join, simply click here. This will take you to the application and you can get started.

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT ENGLISH HUNT HERE

4. CafeTalk

CafeTalk is an online learning platform with a large student base in Korea, Japan, and China. They have students all around the world too, but you’ll likely be working with students from Korea at some point since that’s a large percentage of students.

CafeTalk is unlike the other platforms on this list because you can teach more than just languages. On CafeTalk, you can actually teach any subject you’re knowledgable about, such as yoga, math, and cooking classes in addition to language lessons.

Teacher Requirements

Because CafeTalk lessons can cover a variety of subjects, there isn’t one set of requirements that must be met by all teachers. You should be an expert in the area you wish to teach and fluent in the language you wish to teach.

Also, teachers must hold classes using Skype on a tablet, laptop, or desktop. Classes cannot be taught from phones.

Payment Information

Tutors on CafeTalk can set their own pay rates. When you’re first starting out, CafeTalk keeps 40% of the fee for each class. As you teach more on the platform, that percentage will drop down as low as 20%.

Hours

Because CafeTalk has students around the world, the platform is open 24/7. There are no minimum or maximum teaching hours and you can choose how long and when your classes are.

How To Sign Up

To sign up, click here to apply for an account. You’ll fill out your profile and complete a simple interview. Once you’ve been approved by the CafeTalk team, you’re ready to teach!

FIND MORE ABOUT CAFE TALK HERE

5. ZikTalk

If you want to become a causal online English tutor for Korean students, ZikTalk is the way to go! Part language platform, part social media hang out, ZikZalk is a community language exchange app that allows tutors to have conversations with language learners around the world.

With ZikTalk, teachers are paid by the minute to chat with Korean students through their phones. Lessons can be through video calls or audio-only phone calls.

Teacher Requirements

ZikTalk is a pretty casual platform so there aren’t a lot of teacher requirements.

To be a Community Tutor, there are no degrees or requirements other than the ability to speak the language you want to teach.

To become a Professional Tutor, you must have one year of teaching experience and certification of some kind. The exact certifications aren’t specified but usually, this means either a degree or a TEFL certification.

You will also need to have a reliable internet connection and the ability to download the ZikTalk app.

Payment Information

If you are a Community Tutor, you will make $3 per hour. If you are a Professional Tutor, you can set your own pay rate from $3-$30 per hour.

Tutors are paid by the minute. The platform keeps 20% of whatever you earn from the lessons.

Hours

ZikTalk is a free chat platform. This means that when you are online a student can call in and you’ll be paid by the minute for the duration of the call.

Even though you can be online whenever you want, remember that most of your students will be in Korea and will call at times that work with their schedules.

There are no minimum or maximum teaching hours. When you apply, you’ll tell ZikTalk what your preferred teaching schedule is. When you’re approved, your account will automatically become available during the schedule you set (meaning you can receive calls).

You can go in and manually close or open availability any time, so this isn’t set in stone.

How To Sign Up

To sign up, download the ZikTalk App and make an account. Then you can apply to be a tutor directly in their phone app.

You will be taken to a screen where you set your hourly rate. You will be paid by the minute using this hourly rate as the baseline. Keep in mind that ZikTalk keeps 20% so account for that when you set your price.

On the next screen, you’ll set your working hours. For your working hours, you will automatically show up as online and available to receive calls during this window.

You can manually disable this on a day to day basis if needed, but it will default to the on position. You can choose whichever hours and days of the week you want.

Next, you will complete your teacher profile. You will tell ZikTalk your fluency level in a variety of languages. You’ll be able to add interest tags and upload a profile picture. You’ll need to record a teacher introductory video and you can do that directly in the ZikTalk app.

Once your teacher profile is complete, you’ll update documents to verify your identity — like your passport, degree, and any certifications.

You’ll hit submit and then the ZikTak team will review everything you sent in. Once you’re approved, you’ll receive a message directly in the app letting you know you’re ready to start teaching.

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT ZIK TALK HERE

Other Platforms

Of course, you could always sign up with Cambly or PrePly where you can teach students from around the globe, including Koreans. While these 2 platforms aren’t strictly for Korean students only, they are easy to use and are highly recommended.

With Cambly, you earn $0.17 per minute, or $10.20 per hour. Find out more in our guide to becoming a Cambly tutor or click here to be directed to their website.

With PrePly, you set your own rates, but top teachers are earning $500/week! Find out more about Preply in our guide to becoming a teacher with PrePly, or click here to be directed to their website.

Tips For Teaching English Online To Korean Students

As you prepare for your first online English lessons for Korean students, remember the following tips.

Props And Visuals

If you’re working with children, it can be helpful to have props like toys, a dry erase board, and flashcards to supplement the class.

Even though lessons are often provided, a little interactive toy can take a lesson from dry to fun in no time. I have a few beany baby toys and a set of small finger puppets on hand all the time.

If you’re working with adults, having photos and magazines around can help strike up a conversation and enhance a topic of discussion.

Classroom Environment

A professional classroom environment is critical for any online English teacher. Make your classroom stand out by using good lighting and working from a quiet space.

Using a headset with a microphone attachment can help prevent distracting background noises and make it easier for your students to hear you. Having the proper teaching equipment can ensure students want to hire you for another class.

Go With The Flow

As a TEFL teacher, being able to adapt your lesson is a must! Sometimes students move through lessons faster than anticipated and sometimes you hardly get through a topic before the time is up.

To account for potential early finishers, I try to have a dry erase board around where we can quickly play some English games if needed.

Whatever happens, go with the flow and encourage your student to speak as much as possible.

A Note About Korean English Teaching Companies

If you’re used to teaching ESL for Chinese companies, you might notice that some of the Korean online teaching companies work a bit differently.

Many of the platforms I discussed in this post don’t have designated websites for aspiring tutors. You won’t find dozens of YouTube videos from existing teachers walking you through everything, and it can be hard to find specific details about jobs before applying.

To apply, you’ll often just need to send an email with your resume.

When you get in touch with your Korean online teaching company via email, make sure to ask them plenty of questions about your pay rate, hours, and responsibilities before committing.

Requirements and teacher packages can change at any time, so do your due diligence before accepting a position to make sure you know what to expect.

Finally, the positions might be available one day, but will be listed as “full” the next. Make sure to continuously check back to see if the teaching position has opened up.

At the end of the day, most students enroll in online classes to practice communication in another language. Being yourself and having fun in your classes will make it easier to connect with your student and give them the best experience possible.

See More Teaching Articles Here:

Top 10 Online English Teaching Companies

How To Teach English Online Without a Degree

7 Best TEFL Courses Online

Top 5 Cheapest TEFL Certifications (Fully Accredited)

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kittenshift-17 · 7 years

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Hey Kitten! I was wondering if you're majoring in writing? I'm a high school student who's applying to college right now and am also really interested in writing (potentially to the point of considering it as a career), and was wondering if you had any tips ^^

Goodness.... How do I answer this without sounding terribly cynical and crushing your hopes and dreams and ideals about the world?

I’m actually already finished studying, myself. I graduated with a BA majoring in Writing and Publishing 3 years ago. And without blowing holes in all of your plans, I’ve got to be honest as I tell you about how useful I’ve found my degree.... which is to say that it was completely useless and a waste of money.

Maybe it’s my country’s outlook, but having a BA isn’t really the big deal it used to be and everyone I know who got an Art Degree basically wasted their money. I mean, those in productive arts and theatre and such find them handy due to the practical classes, but a writing degree is..... Well, it’s a lot like high school English/Literature classes. You get given texts and articles and asked to dissect them and write essays about them. It’s.... god, it’s boring. The books are about as interesting in college as there were in high school and the teachers aren’t that much more competent on the grasp of what they want in the essay, and tend to have a biased and ridiculous analysis of the stories. Sometimes the author writes the curtains as being blue just because we like blue, not because the character is depressed, ya know?

When you say you want to consider writing for a career, I assume you mean that you’d like to be an author, and if so then my advice to you would definitely be to forget about majoring in writing for a university level degree. They don’t teach you how to write in those classes. They teach you how to draft essays, and unless you want to take after George Orwell, you don’t want an essay style of writing if you’ve aspirations to be an author.

If, on the other hand, you mean you want to look at writing as a career option for other fields than fiction or non-fiction writing, then it can definitely be useful. If you wanted to get into writing as someone who drafts up those silly example stories you see in school textbooks (you know the ones, where Sally has five apples and sells Billy three before turning purple) then they come in handy because the classes teach your how to dissect such a story for meaning and the language tool you’re focusing on, and you work backwards (which is why those things rarely makes sense).

The point is, college is expensive. And so you have to weight the options of how much you’ll get out of a degree against how much money goes into paying for it and how much real-world use it will be to you once you’ve graduated.

Me? I have a Bachelor of Media and Communication, majoring in Writing and Publishing.

Do you know what I use it for? Nothing. I don’t use my degree at all. I work as an Administration Manager for a Commercial Laundry and spend my days inputting data and trading polite, yet curt emails with clients regarding their linen hire. The only useful part of my degree is my grasp on the English language that allows me to very professionally tell someone to go fuck themselves without once cursing, or even crossing the line into being rude.

Look, of everyone I know who went to college that got a BA, do you know which ones are doing well? The ones who did a double major, one is business, law, or science, and the other in languages. Seriously, if you can major in languages, do it. Pick a core language and study it like your life depends on it. Two of my friends who studied language (both of them studied Mandarin) now have some super cool jobs. One is a high level special intelligence officer for the military. The other is a financial advisor for a Chinese conglomerate and, I believe, is currently living the high life in China.

Everyone else I know who got an Art degree, either in writing, music, communication, advertising, history, social studies or anything else pretty much had to go back to uni after they graduated, do a Diploma in education, and use their skills to become school teachers. Seriously, all of them. I know talented musicians, talented writers, history-buffs, and more, and they’re all teachers now. Teachers, or doing what I’m doing and wasting their degree by working in a job where the degree has no meaning beyond showing an ability to commit to something for 3 years.

At the risk of sounding condescending, and potentially confusing you all the more when you’re already at a place where all of life’s big decisions seem laid at your door, I’m going to give you a list of the things I wish I’d known when I was in high school.

TIPS:

1. Be single. Seriously, if you’re currently in a relationship, I urge you to end it. I don’t care how in love you think you are, or how painful the idea of breaking up might be, you WILL regret being in a relationship when you’re in college. And I don’t just mean because you’ll be meeting new people and could be bouncing into bed with some sexy stranger(s). There are so many things that I didn’t do in college because I was too busy trying to make things work with my boyfriend (whom I dated for 6 years before we broke up, by the way). I mean, I missed out on a bunch of college events because instead of being on campus, I was driving home to my small-town to see him. I missed out on so many life experiences, ranging from skinny dipping with strangers, to wild parties, to experiencing life WITHOUT worrying about someone else and how they would react to my actions. I cannot tell you how much I regret not just ending things with him and figuring out who the hell I was because I was too busy focusing on who WE were.

2. If you’re going to study something, pick something that will give you practical experience, not just theoretical experience. Pick something that will give you life experiences. Study a language - hell, spend a semester abroad if you can. Study something that has a real-world use. If I could go back to being in high school, do you know what I’d do rather than studying a BA? I’d become a Veterinarian. Or a doctor. Or maybe a scientist of some kind. Hell, I might even forgo college and get an apprenticeship as an electrician or a hairdresser, or maybe even a builder. I reckon I’d have made a kick ass engineer, actually.

3. Push yourself. Don’t rest on your laurels and coast through the course. Go to every class. If you go, and you consistently find it boring, or awful, then you’re probably in the wrong course and should drop it for something else. I mean it. I have a BA. I spent 3 years studying it. Do you know how much actual course-work I engaged with? Roughly 50 hours worth. Total. I never went to class. I holed up in my dorm writing fanfic whenever I wasn’t partying, hungover, or feasting. I literally went to about 5 classes throughout my final year, despite having been enrolled in courses that asked for 10 hours a week minimum face-time in the classroom and living on campus. And I still graduated. It was way too easy and I wish I could go back and pick a different course - one that would make me WANT to go to class every day.

4. Recognize the fact that, no matter how it seems like you’ve got to figure everything out RIGHT NOW, you really don’t. Be decisive, and if you have a career goal in mind, work toward it, but please, PLEASE approach a company that offers that career and ask them if you can observe for the day. They might say no, but they might not. Tell them you’re in high school and you’re thinking about angling toward a career in that field and you’d like to get a look into what that career is like. Ask if you can shadow them for a day, or a week, or even a month. Ask them questions. Don’t just tag along if they let you observe. Ask for their motivations. Ask how it all works. Ask if they’re happy. Find out what the drawbacks of that career are. You’re at the age where you can find out who you are and who you want to be.

Me? When I first enrolled in college I was training to become a Registered Nurse. I spent a buttload of money on books and uniforms and courses to be a Nurse and then I did a practical-training stint and do you know what happened? I found out I fucking HATED it. I couldn’t deal with all the bodily fluids, and showering old people, and being coughed on and struggled against, and bossed around by doctors. And I quit. I called my parents and I told them how studying it was exciting in theory, and that I enjoyed the course-work for my essays, but I couldn’t stand the practical part. And I told them that it was fucking me up and that I’d stick it out if they wanted me to, because they were paying my accommodation for living on campus. But I found out what it was like, and I hated it. And if I’d gone to my local hospital and volunteered BEFORE applying to be a nurse, I’d have known it wasn’t for me. You haven’t got to get it right the first time, you know? You can make a mistake. But they’re expensive. If you can do things BEFORE money gets involved and figure out what you like and don’t like, do it. Always do it. Go to you local hospital and ask if they need an AIN for the week. Go to your local shelter and volunteer. Volunteer in a soup kitchen, or at your local library or youth centre. Ask companies if you can help them out for a few days and be willing to do it WITHOUT being paid. If you expect money, most will turn you down, but if you paint it as them helping you figure out who the hell you’re going to be and saving you from making potentially the worst mistake of your life if you pick the wrong course, most people are decent enough to give you a go.

5. Travel. I mean it. If you can afford to travel, and it won’t cost you a scholarship, take a year off between high school and college, and travel. See the world. Take a bestie, or go alone, but travel. I would be a completely different person if I’d travelled before college, and gone alone, rather than waiting until the summer between my 2nd and 3rd year and going with a boyfriend. Your perspective on life will change, I guarantee it. Hell, take a working holiday and work bar-jobs or cafe-jobs, or anything to pay the bills while you see the world, but for the love of god, get out of your home-town or your city. Meet new people. See new things. Learn how things work in another country by experiencing it first hand. I can’t stress this one enough because my number one biggest regret in life is that when I was in high school, I was offered a place in an exchange program to live and study in a country of my choice for a year, and I turned it down because I was in a relationship that was “going to last forever”. It didn’t last, and I was an idiot, and I insist that anyone who can travel MUST do so. I don’t care if you’ve got to backpack your way across Europe on $10 a day, if you can do it, PLEASE do it.

6. Learn how to take advice and criticism without seeing it as a challenge and without immediately being spiteful and doing the opposite. Listen to people who know better. If I’d listened to my parents, I’d have ditched the boyfriend, travelled, seen the world, and been a whole different person. If I’d listened to my Aunt, I’d have known that nursing was going to be horrible and that I’d hate it and quit. If I’d listened to family friends who ran local businesses in my town, I’d have been able to take them up on offers of things that, at the time, sounded awful, but things I’d have likely really enjoyed.

7. Don’t listen to your friends. They don’t know what’s best for you, no matter how well they know you or how close you are. If they’re your age, then they’re as clueless as you right now and they don’t have any idea how to offer you actual advice that will help change your life for the better. If you want to try something, and your friends disagree, do it anyway. Learn to be independent of them. One day, all too soon, that bestie you’re so close with will be someone you see or speak to once or twice a year and - here’s the kicker - you’ll be okay with that. You might even PREFER that. The point is, you need to grow as a person and you need to figure out exactly who you are. It’s not as easy as it sounds, and it’s not always as rewarding as you might hope, but it’s important that you do it. And I know that being told to figure out who you are tends to bamboozle teens. Hell, it confused the hell outta me because I was all, “I know exactly who I am.”

I didn’t.

Ask yourself the hard questions. Figure out where you stand politically. Figure out what matters to you. Do you care about religion? Current Events? Does the opinion of your peers matter to you? Does it really? At the end of the day, when you go to bed, do you CARE if you offended someone who deserved it? Do you prefer chicken or beef or vegetarian? What would you look like with a nose ring? A shaved head? A tattoo you can regret later? Do you like boys, or girls, or something in between? Both? Neither? Are you a wool sweaters girl, or velvet jumpsuit girl? Sneakers or scuffs? Dyed hair or natural? Tea of Coffee? Boy or girl? Do you want to help the environment or end world hunger or fix the economy? Do you want to hide under a rock and never talk to anyone again? Do you want to make a name for yourself? It’s all relevant and it sounds silly, but if you’re aspiring to be a writer, find a character questionnaire of all the things you’d want or need to know about a character to write about them in a book. Fill it out about you. You might be shocked by what you learn.

8. Don’t give terribly long winded answers like this one.

9. Never settle. You’re more than settling. Don’t settle for a partner, don’t settle for a job, don’t settle for a town, or a city, or a friend, or a life that you’re not happy with. If you aren’t happy, figure out why and make changes. You’re allowed. No one is going to stop you, and if they try, direct them to me so I can lecture them on how to be a better person. *winks*

10. Use your imagination. If you want to be an author, you’re not going to learn how in a classroom. You’ll learn by diving into a book and entering a whole new world. Practice your writing. Write fanfiction and share it to see what people make of it. Listen to the suggestions of those offering constructive criticism. PRACTICE. Read. For the love of god, read everything. Push yourself to learn how to write better, not in the classroom, but in the real world. Write whenever you can. Every day. I mean it. Literally, every day. If you don’t write, you won’t improve. You’ve got to do it. Set a goal. Tell yourself you’ll write 100 words a day, build on it from there. Be like me and write thousands of words a day, when you’re up for it. If you don’t keep your imagination alive and trying to think of new ways to tell the same story, you’ll struggle and you’ll fizzle.

xx-Kitten

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