My Yaruki （やる気）

From Chester Zoo

From Chester Zoo

Well thought I would show a few photo's from a trip I made the other week and have a little talk about being content at were you are in life. I know most of us at one time or another have hit a wall of self improvement the point were life seems to be flying by and before you know it another year has passed and you still sat watching your favorite TV program wishing that you had gone ahead with that trip to China or put off learning that musical instrument that you always wanted to learn, and for what? the old I didn't have time or it can wait a week/month/year whatever the excuse may be.

From Chester Zoo

From Chester Zoo

Cum on do you really think that you have no time its pretty amazing the amount we can get done in a day if we put our mind to do we really need to watch a half baked show on TV that you have no real interest or the classic "I'm tired after work so dammit if I'm going to be doing anything" just a couple of examples of the many excuses most of us make at one time or another.

From Chester Zoo

I've been a victim of this many times after a long day at work I'll get home and say to myself "whoa tiring day I've earned a brake everything is going to have to wait" If you enjoy something is it really that much of a chore to do the things that you like whether its learning a new language, playing an instrument or planning that month trip to China just remind yourself what your aiming for and be sure to enjoy it.

From Chester Zoo

Now onto my point, what we don't realize is we start to become content with were we are, our daily routines even if we are not enjoying ourselves it can become very difficult for us to get up and do the stuff we have always wanted to, why? because its easier its easier to mope around doing the same routine day in day out being content can be one of the worst things for our productivity, I'm not saying being content is bad on the contrary if your very happy with were you are and have done everything you want to then your happily content which is great just don't get stuck in the trap, make sure you evaluate your contentedness every so often and decide if there is anything you should be doing now not tomorrow but now.

From Chester Zoo

You really don't want to look back in 20 years time and think wow there was so much I wanted to do but never did, time fly's' whether your happy with your contentedness or unhappy with it just going along with the flow

From Chester Zoo

From Chester Zoo

Not posted in a while as I've been busy with work and catching up with some xbox games I know not the best use of my time :) and some Anime a better use of my Japanese environment time, although I've knocked my Japanese up a gear over the last week been doing much more iknow 100's of items, entering new sentences in anki including many example sentences for JLPT4-3 grammar and phrases.

Been listening to Utada Hikaru album Heart Station highly recommended by the way, any similar music anybody recommends?

Have plans for many more articles in the near future including how I've been getting on with my goals I set not too long ago and how to keep motivated.

Not done one of these In a while so thought it was about time after hopefully a few worries that I had now out of the way I can get back to going full force on my Japanese and over the last few days have increased my pace 10 fold.

Finally completed all the sentences I mass imported from iknow core 6000 step 1 and have added a few more, also started working through iknow again as I still find that I retain information better when learned through iknow system.

To add to this I got a nice motivation boost by accident the other day I decided to have a look at my copy of Japanese from ZERO volume 1 which I used before I discovered the AJATT/sentence method of learning to my surprise I could understand almost everything in the book except a few words that I need to learn i.e. the horrid days of the month. I know its not a hugely difficult book but a few months ago when I last had a look many of the chapters had things I needed to learn and much more words to boot so to me it feels like a great achievement to see how far I've come.

It's looking back on old things that show you how far you have actually come otherwise you may never notice.

Anki Stats,

Deck created: 5.2 months ago
Total number of cards: 1484
Total number of facts: 1484

Card counts
Mature cards: 1050 (70.8%)
Young cards: 419 (28.2%)
Unseen cards: 15 (1.0%)

Correct answers
Mature cards: 93.8% 993 of 1059
Young cards: 87.0% 11205 of 12875
First-seen cards: 89.7% 1411 of 1573

The 1469 seen cards in this deck contain:
771 total unique kanji.
Jouyou: 744 of 1945 (38.3%).
Jinmeiyou: 5 of 287 (1.7%).
22 non-jouyou kanji.
Jouyou levels:
Grade 1: 71 of 80 (88.8%).
Grade 2: 143 of 160 (89.4%).
Grade 3: 147 of 200 (73.5%).
Grade 4: 114 of 200 (57.0%).
Grade 5: 78 of 185 (42.2%).
Grade 6: 65 of 181 (35.9%).
JuniorHS: 126 of 939 (13.4%).

Not much increase in the Jouyou but I'm guessing thats because of the re-use of Kanji in the core 6000 series.