Today actually marks a 100-day streak on Duolingo, where I'm working on learning Italian. I studied French in high school and traveled to Montreal, Quebec, and France (mainly Paris, Nice, and Avignon). But I only took the required two years and then let it slide. My best friend in college took German all through college and picked up Italian our senior year, then went to live in Italy, so I had that as motivation to visit Italy, and in the process of several visits over several years I learned the travel basics of the language. Now my wife and I and our three kids are preparing for a trip this spring to France and Italy, so I decided to use that as motivation to try to refresh the little Italian I knew and learn some more. And it's also been a chance to try out a language-learning app. I'll admit that sometimes the vocabulary I'm learning doesn't seem like the most practical, but it does feel like it's all building and that I should be reasonably competent in a few months if I keep practicing.
I've also maintained the Wordle habit that was so fashionable, though I don't inflict my results on my Facebook feed. In fact, I've got a sequence of related games I play pretty much every day: Wordle, then Quordle (solving 4 simultaneously), then Octordle (8). The last couple days I've tried out some Octordle variants: one where you have to solve them in sequence and one where they give you the first three starting guesses (which are intentionally terrible) and you have to salvage the game. Anyway, I enjoy the mental challenge.
I'd like work out--not necessarily every day, because you do need some rest days in there. But this winter has been brutal. Back in the summer, I got a year-long membership at the local rec center and I went in 4-5 days each week. But that was in the summer when I generally wasn't responsible for anyone or anything in the morning until work started. Once school started, I couldn't go in the morning anymore because the gym doesn't open until 6:00, which is when I start marshaling the troops around here. I can sometimes go either right after my wife and kids leave for school or over the lunch hour. But sometimes I'm too busy with work, and it seems like in November and December there's just a constant stream of obstacles--one of the kids gets sick and stays home with me, or I get a frantic text that someone has forgotten something vital (usually the viola) and need me to bring it. Or I myself am sick or fighting off the lingering effects of being sick.
I'd also like to establish a daily meditation practice. The closest I've come is that for the last couple weeks I've been doing some guided breathing sessions with a YouTube video and that's kind of like meditation, not to mention probably also valuable in its own right. I don't know.
On top of all that, I'd like to establish a creative practice of some kind. Writing and/or composing music. They are both things I've done in the past, but I'm very much out of the habit.
What about you? What habits do you have or aspire to?
I am still doing the Wordle daily, and the Quordle. Never tried the Octordle ... based on my Quordle performance I doubt I'd do very well with that. :D I usually do at least two pictures on the Happy Color app every day. Everything else is sporadic. I can't ski every day, for sure.
ReplyDelete(doing Holidailies on www.hatontop.com)