Korean in Kuwait

2010년 9월 5일

GoldFibre — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 18:59:11 +0000

Dawn prayer, radio listening, simultaneous translation, 10 new hanja, StarCraft matches.

I practiced simultaneous translation over an entire sermon, which was about 50 minutes long. I tend to be streaky, translating fully for five minutes at a time and then sort of losing track of things for another minute or two. I have no doubt that I will get much better very quickly if I just put in the practice time though.

2010년 9월 4일

GoldFibre — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 07:00:11 +0000

10 new hanja, informal writing, StarCraft matches.

I had all kinds of time today but mostly napped and did laundry. I was feeling exhausted for some reason, so hopefully the day of rest will be good for me.

2010년 9월 3일

GoldFibre — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 04:34:08 +0000

Church in the morning and afternoon, 10 new hanja, with friends in the evening.

I’ve also decided to try to hit 85 kg by the end of this week.

2010년 9월 2일

GoldFibre — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 14:09:08 +0000

Dawn prayer, 10 new hanja, radio listening, with friends all evening.

The church politics got sorted out today so I should be back on track to do simultaneous translation soon.

I also hit 84 kg today!

Exercising Week 9

GoldFibre — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 06:43:34 +0000

I exercised hard the first half of this week, but not the second half. I had a goal of getting to 84 kg by the end of the week, because I have been stuck around 83 kg for about a month. I ended up at 83.8 yesterday and 83.7 today, so I came close.

A friend of mine asked me to work out with him at a local gym in the afternoons, so I’m going to go once and check it out.

2010년 9월 1일

GoldFibre — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 06:39:03 +0000

Dawn prayer, 10 new hanja, radio listening, phone with friends.

Been getting some stress lately because of church politics. I’m not sure what’s going to happen with the translation even if I fully prepare. Need to make a backup study plan though.

For fun, here’s a picture of my notebooks for hanja and vocabulary study:

2010년 8월 31일

GoldFibre — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 06:39:24 +0000

Every year I’m surprised to learn that there are 31 days in August. When are they going to switch it back to 30 days like I remember?

Dawn prayer, 10 new hanja, radio listening, met a friend for dinner.

I discovered a Hanja learning game called 한자마루. I played it for a little while, but don’t know enough to say whether it’s right for me or not. I think my hanja-learning method is working out pretty well, but It’s certainly a fun game!

2010년 8월 30일

GoldFibre — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 18:39:24 +0000

Dawn prayer, 10 new hanja, radio listening, informal writing, StarCraft matches, sermon word-mining, 10 more new hanja.

I had a horrible headache all day today, and tried to sleep it off after I got home from work, but it was still there. So I took some strong medicine, which made me pretty loopy, and then tried to take it easy today

2010년 8월 29일

GoldFibre — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 18:33:12 +0000

Grip exercises, radio listening, 10 new hanja, StarCraft matches, simultaneous translation practice, 10 more new hanja.

Getting started on translation is a big hurdle for me, so I’m using 1 minute timeboxes. Today I translated for 20 (consecutive) minutes in this way. I had way more time than that to work on it, but starting small is better than not starting at all!

2010년 8월 28일

GoldFibre — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 17:26:35 +0000

I forgot to mention yesterday, but I did grip exercises in the morning. My forearms were pretty sore today!

I added 10 new hanja, wrote some e-mails, exercised, listened to sermons, and practiced simultaneous translation. I have been using timeboxing a lot lately, and typically, the more resistance I feel towards a task, the shorter my timeboxes have to be for me to be comfortable. For reading a book I use a 30 minute timebox. Word-mining a sermon, 20 minutes, and studying hanja, 5-10 minutes. However, simultaneous translation is a 1 minute timebox. I am that afraid of it. But as long as I keep plugging, I’m going to get better and more comfortable.