About Self Improvement

Friday, February 2, 2018

Day 26: an Area in My Life that I'd Like to Improve

How do you describe 'an area in someone's life'?

Anyway, I have plenty of them.

I want to improve my artistic skills, especially in making awesome sketches. Lately I'm so in love with this artist, @drewgrahamarts. I've always been a huge fan of Disney animation style. I love to see how they create all those Disney characters. I love how comical yet real they seem: their facial expressions, their proportions, their movements. I'm a Disney worshipper, and always try to draw like the Disney illustrators. And this Drew Graham is really amazing at making portraits of famous figures/characters in a very beautiful Disney style. And lately he makes a lot of illustrations from my recently favourite movie 'The Greatest Showman'! Omg he's really awesome. He inspired me! He made me really wanna improve my skills!

And of course, I want to improve my skills in communicating in foreign languages! I want to be a polyglot like Benny Lewis, or Mark Manson, or even Ziad Fazah! I'm currently learning Japanese and Greek. But I know I haven't done it properly. I'm also still practicing with my Portugese, French, Dutch, and German. I can say I speak Italian and Spanish pretty fluently, but I don't really listen well. So, I can hold a writing conversation in Italian or Spanish, but not oral conversation. In doing oral conversation, people have to speak slowly so I can understand what they say. It's better with Italian though. I can hold an oral daily conversation in Italian. Yep! Really need a lot of improvement in this area.

What else? Of course writing! Writing is the one thing I always enjoy doing. I've always wanted to be a writer. I love telling stories. I love dramas as long as I'm not involved in them. Lol!

But the most important thing, I really need to improve my financial condition! I really need to travel abroad as much as I want to. There are so many places in the world I need to see.

I still have a lot to say about areas I want to improve. But I also need time to do so, and I've been spending almost an hour writing this. So, see you in the next post!

Starting Everything All Over Again

Friday, September 8, 2017

For the last couples of months I've been struggling to learn some languages. I've been spending my entire spare time to learn.

So, I've mentioned a few times in this blog and other social media, that I wanna be able to speak as many languages as I can. I wanna speak fluently at least five languages other than english and my mother tongue, indonesian.

I've been learning italian and spanish for years with lots of methods and media. I didn't do it persistently and not all the methods are really effective. But I used to be able to hold a basic and daily conversation in italian and spanish. And then I started to learn portuguese, french, and dutch last year, and this year I am learning german and greek.

I know. I am greedy. But do I even speak any of those languages now? I don't! OMG! Not even italian or spanish. I mean, yeah I can understand text messages and reply in italian. And I can say some italian sentences that I frequently use. But I've lost lots of my italian and spanish vocabularies! I even forget some english vocabs too sometimes!

I use this apps, this very helpful and actually can be effective apps, Duolingo. I used to use Live Mocha. It's also good, but Duolingo is easier, more practical, fun, and systematic.

But I've been using it the wrong way. I was too greedy and just couldn't wait to learn new languages. So, everytime I almost reached the end of the lessons, it became more like a game for me. I focused on finishing the rest of the lessons as fast as I can. My only goal became getting the trophy so I can start the next language.

So, yeah, if you asked, I've got all of the trophies for italian, spanish, portuguese, french, dutch, german, and greek. I've finished learning all of them.

But I forgot to find out about the basic keys of learning languages: conversation, repetition, and practice persistently.

When italian was the only language I learn, I did it almost properly. There are these sets of sentences that I repeated every single day. After a whole lots of repetitions, these sets of sentences helped me get the concept, the patterns, the basic system of italian. Also some words really stick in my memory.

Then I looked for italian friends to practice with text messages, chat, or video call. The easiest way to find a friend is from online dating. Most of the guys are there for sex or relationship, but surprisingly, I found some people who are really willing to help me learn.

Yes. Online dating. Because online dating apps are easier and simpler to use than any other apps. And it's so easy to create a profile there. And people there are so open to strangers, unlike on any other social media.

So, I was kinda... well I'm not gonna say fluent. But everytime I met some italians, I only speak italian. No english!

I thought I was on this state:
- Speak indonesian and english fluently
- Speak italian and spanish almost fluently
- Still need more practice on my portuguese and french
- Have finished learning dutch, german, and greek, but can only say view words in those languages

My plan on the beginning of this year was to learn both german, greek, and japanese. WTF? Right?

I've made my plan. I've made a program, as in school program, to learn each language. Every time I realized one program wouldn't work, I'd make a new one.

After learning Greek and realized that I needed more time to learn German and Greek, I've decided to postpone japanese to next year.

So I thought, by the end of the year, I've been fluent in 9 languages, including english and indonesian. But hello!! Wake up, me! I can't even speak italian fluently!

To have my italian at least on the same level with my english, I still have a long way to go! So, basically, forget about spanish, portuguese, french, dutch, german, greek, and japanese! I just realized I had to start from zero again.

Well, almost zero.

Anyway, I just found these amazing links today and I just wanna share them because they've inspired me a lot.

First, I found this "22 Tips for Learning a Foreign Language" by Mark Manson.
https://markmanson.net/foreign-language

Then this one is about forgetting-the-previous-language problem, from Scott H Young:
https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2013/11/22/language-switching/

And I noticed that both of them mentioned Benny Lewis. So I looked at this Benny Lewis, and man he is awesome!

Here's his article about mixing-language:
https://www.fluentin3months.com/not-mix-up/

See what my problem is? I am lack of references. As an artist, I don't know many artists. As a writer wannabe, I don't read enough book. As a polyglot wannabe, I didn't even know any famous polyglot!

Dear Mark Manson, Scott H. Young, and you, the one and only Benny Lewis, thank you so much for your articles!

This time of the year

Wednesday, December 31, 2014

So here we are, again, in the end of another year.

2014 was pretty much something for me. There are a lot of big things happened, in the world, in my country, in my life, all around me; so much plot twist and drama and stuff.

For me, 2014 is about:
1. World Cup Brazil of course!
2. The Election!

I've made enough posts about the World Cup, so I wanna write a little about the election. I didn't write much, if not none, about the president election. It was a very sensitive topic and there are already too many people commenting about the election. They mostly are biased of course. Some people even fight just because of supporting different candidates.

Why was it so special?
After the reformation, there have been 3 elections where the president is directly chosen by the people. On 2004 and 2009 most people were rooting for SBY. They loved him. Some other people were rooting for the other candidates, and some were fanatics too. But nobody was fighting over their favorite candidates! Well, maybe some people, but not so many.

But the election this year was... crazy! Crazy, man! For the first time, people were really rooting for one of the candidates, and they do believe in their favorite. And unlike the elections before, this year we only had two candidates, and both have soooo many, soooo fanatic supporters, or maybe I could say... fans.
Those candidates were like rock stars. And people keep on fighting. Even after one candidate was chosen as the new president, the other candidate's fans are still fighting to change the election result, and still trying so hard to find any weakness from the new government. That is sick man!

But somehow, I'm kinda proud of it. I'm proud of us, Indonesians. This year, I saw Indonesian people are more concern about politics. Of course there are still pragmatist and pessimistic people. But at least more people care about the future of this country.

So, let's see. I wish the new government could do better in 2015.

But what about me myself? What happened to me in 2014?

What were my goals in the beginning of this year? Here's what I posted back then.

http://astaripahlevisdiary.blogspot.com/2013/12/happy-new-year-this-year-goals-and-late.html

First, am I 48 kg? Nope. I'm a bit heavier than that. But I'm still 163cm, and I'm fit, I guess... so I got that going for me, which is nice. On 2014 I tried some sport. Nothing new. I played futsal again but stopped again. I tried some exercise at home, tried some diet and stuff, but always end up bored and get back to laziness and gluttony. Oh my...
Yeah, I'll fix it next year.

How many languages do I speak now? Ugh.. Yeah besides Indonesia and English, of course. My Italian is so much improved, you know. I could say... 3 levels better. On the other side, I forgot sooo... much about my Spanish. I could say, now it is worse. Portuguese, French, German? Still no improvement.

So maybe I took the wrong method of learning. I was too ambitious, trying to learn five languages at the same time. And also, I really need friends to practice. We can't learn languages without practice. So far, I can't say I speak those languages. Even Spanish. Two weeks ago my friends and I went to a Spanish restaurant in south Jakarta, which the owner is Spanish, and I got a chance to talk to him, but I needed time to understand what the chef said.

Did I visit Japan or Greece? Nope. But I'll visit Greece on May 2015. Yeah I forgot to mention Greece on my goals.

Did I produce any masterpiece? Nope. Publish my first novel? Nope. Earn 500% more money? Nope.
Am I at least better than last year? Have I done better this year?

Well, I can say I've done better. I improved my Italian, started to learn Greek and Japanese, ready to travel to Greece next year, not produce any masterpiece, but I made pretty much satisfying sketches, it is something, you know. I haven't publish my first novel, but I already finished writing one. Uhm, well, almost. I didn't earn 500% more money, but I did earn more money, I produce more than last year, so it is also something, isn't it?

And about that spending time with special ones. I think, on 2014, I spent so much time with the people I love: my family, my new friends and old friends, and my special one. I spent time with my mom, dad, sister, and brother as much as I could. We really had fun this year. We didn't do anything special, just being together and enjoy our time. I also spent pretty much time with my cousins. Usually after office hour we hang out at a cafe near my house.

I spent more time with my closest friends, my best friends, my new interesting friends, even old friends that I've never seen or talk to for years.

For the special one part... that is another thing.

In the beginning of the year, I planned to spend enough time with the one who was my special one. But we broke up instead, very early of the year. So I thought, "Ah well, I'm not good at this relationship shit, I'm done with this. No relationship ever again!"

I thought at least it would need a long time for me to finally have another relationship. But... I met someone. And I think I really like my new relationship. Our relationship might not be ideal, but I really enjoy it. We have the same way of thinking, mostly. No drama, no complicated thingy, no jealousy, no fight. Well, there were no jealousy either with my last ex. And I'm not sure if no fight is a good sign, but I just enjoy a relationship like I'm having now. And we spent enough time for our standard. So again, we got that going for us, which is nice.

So I might be failing to reach my goals, but overall, yeah, I could say 2014 was better than 2013. And I wish 2015 would be so much better. Since I haven't really reach my goals, my goals for 2015 are still pretty much the same.