Jack's Diary

Oh, well, in that case, Japanese is clearly the best language to learn. For me, German is low on the priority list anyway. Speaking of which, I just found a site that looks good - it's called "Fluent U". It's based on the immersion concept - that is, you watch bits of videos and so forth, but their fully translated and you can click on the words to see the definitions. It keeps tracks of points and how much you've done for the day and good stuff like that. Unfortunately, the subscription is $220 or $110 / year if you just get the videos, not the quizzes and flashcards.

It seems like a good fit for me, though, because listening is my weakest point. Plus it gives me a structure to work with. $220 a year isn't cheap, but I could always quit it after a year. It's better than doing these Japanese Language Proficiency tests, which aren't cheap just to take the test. And who doesn't like watching videos?

I took a 7-day free trial, so I will fool around with it.
 
Hi Jack sounds like you have lots of plans . I'm working on breaking some habits too in addition to creating some new ones . My son told me last week he is not so sure now if he wants a career in IT even though he is studying it. He says he does still love his course and enjoys the work he does but is wondering is it the right path for rest of his life . He is young so I guess it could be a useful stepping stone and I'm sure many diversities are available.
 
Learning a new language is never a waste of time - but how much money you´re willing to spend on it is a question everyone has to answer for themselves.
 
Learning a new language I agree is worthwhile in itself. I wouldn't be prepared to spend much money on it though. I, too studied French at school & it has been fairly useless, except for when we visited France 6 years ago. Latin was more useful. I think Italian would be my first choice as I love the sound of it.
jackbenimble said:
listening is my weakest point.
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I think this is mine too & I am going to work on that. It is interesting that many of us in the forum seem to be really working on making positive changes this year.
 
cate said:
I think this is mine too & I am going to work on that. It is interesting that many of us in the forum seem to be really working on making positive changes this year.
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It really is Cate . Think if we improve ourselves the rest will follow
 
Petal001 said:
Hi Jack sounds like you have lots of plans . I'm working on breaking some habits too in addition to creating some new ones . My son told me last week he is not so sure now if he wants a career in IT even though he is studying it. He says he does still love his course and enjoys the work he does but is wondering is it the right path for rest of his life . He is young so I guess it could be a useful stepping stone and I'm sure many diversities are available.
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Hi Petal,

If he loves the course work, then I would strongly encourage him go ahead and get the degree in IT - it will be incredibly invaluable even if he chooses another career. In anything related to business, whatever you know about IT is a huge plus. I wonder why he wants to change if he loves it - it's a great career financially - if he watches his pennies he can retire early and do whatever he wants. See Dr. Money Mustache.
 
cate said:
Learning a new language I agree is worthwhile in itself. I wouldn't be prepared to spend much money on it though. I, too studied French at school & it has been fairly useless, except for when we visited France 6 years ago. Latin was more useful. I think Italian would be my first choice as I love the sound of it.

I think this is mine too & I am going to work on that. It is interesting that many of us in the forum seem to be really working on making positive changes this year.
Click to expand...

Hi Cate,

Yes, I never use French, yet I really love the language. It's a pity. That's one reason why I've put off really learning Japanese. But, my wife is Japanese, and her family and friends are Japanese, so there is more opportunity for that. But the $220 sounds steep, especially if I end up buying this PC for recording purposes.

On that it turns out the video streaming software really just displays whatever's on your screen. So, I can't multi-task with it. Unless I use the PC I just got for work to record, but that would b $315 bucks. I wonder if you can record on an Android tablet? I doubt it, not enough space, probably.

But it is really nice to skip the commercials, speed through the timeouts. A real timesaver, plus you're not locked into the display. I might end up keeping the PC just for that reason.

On other fronts, my daughter, who does technical writing, just got a job offer and has another interview (different company) tomorrow. Her former boss knows the guys there and put in the good word for her, and they actually ended up offering her more than she asked for. I don't blame them - she has the whole package. Actually, she'll be making more as a tech write than I do as a developer. Sigh, but how can you not be proud of her?

In terms of my job, I have a meeting with my boss and another boss today to figure out how to handle a new request for an image from [big company]. I think it's really just going to them telling me which project to allocate my time to. It is fairly intense work, but I've done it twice now. I wonder who they're going to get to do it when I'm gone? Oh well, I'm stuck with this for now.

One good thing was I figured out how to extract my old kanji stories. I should have tried harder in the first place. But now that I have them on an excel spreadsheet, it won't take long to copy/paste them to the web site, another week or two. At that point, I'll be off and running into the review mode (instead of the data-entry mode).

I really like the fluentU course - they keep drilling you on the vocabulary you get from the video. Plus they have a daily goal to shoot for. But $220 right after spending $320 on a PC which I don't really need, but kind of do, plus $50 or $75 on recording software - all while being out of work in 5 weeks - I might have to drop the fluent U, for now.
 
On the food, I passed up on the fresh donuts in the office kitchen today, just like a passed up on the mint in the jar last Saturday when I got my hair cut. Pretty good, right? But last night I had 3 bananas. Two would have been ok, but the third, it was just before I went to bed. No food at night, but especially just before going to bed.

Btw, I finally got back to the gym on Sunday, felt pretty good yesterday. Maybe I'll try again tonight. That would be a really good habit to get into.
 
You have good reason to be proud of your daughter, Jack :)
Well done on passing on the doughnuts & the mint. I can't imagine eating 3 bananas. They are SO filling. Were you really hungry or did it feel like you were "stuffing your face?" I hate it when I do that.
Well done on getting back to the gym :)
 
cate said:
You have good reason to be proud of your daughter, Jack :)
Well done on passing on the doughnuts & the mint. I can't imagine eating 3 bananas. They are SO filling. Were you really hungry or did it feel like you were "stuffing your face?" I hate it when I do that.
Well done on getting back to the gym :)
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Hi Cate - you know what, three bananas is like nothing to me. I can blow through 6 or 7 very easily, without even thinking about it. Especially when they're frozen. Yummmm. But they have a cost in calories, so I'm trying to avoid mindlessly eating them, or apples or anything.
 
Jack thanks for the advice re son . He will definitely finish husband degree , he is in line for a first . He Is already getting offers and just a year to go . He does enjoy it very much just I think not sure long term if it’s what he wants .
Congrats to your daughter . That’s awesome
 
No more bragging on junk food. I just went out and got two bags of Combos at 130x6 calories each - 780 x2 = 1560 calories of junk. Well, I'm going to crack from time to time. The trick is to not let it become a habit. At least they were free at Walgreens with the points.

My cheap-o company has barred me from taking 401k deductions because I supposedly earned too much last year. What load of bull. I'm glad my contract will be ending soon. Those bums don't even offer a health plan that legal in Mass.

I'm not spending $220 on Fluent-U. Canceled the subscription. Way too much money.

However, I'm going to keep the PC I bought for $320. That way I can record games on that while working on the Mac. At least it's a one-time cost as opposed to Cable TV/DVR. Basically, I would have to pay about $100 / month for cable plus sports, so it pays for itself in like 4 months, once you add in the cost of the recording software and the HDMI connector.

I have to drop a hobby. It's too much to have hobbies of computer plus Japanese plus guitar. But I can't bring myself to do that.

I forget if I mentioned this, but an order came through for some images to be created, which would be done by me. We gave them an estimate of 6 weeks, which is further than my current contract extension. So, it's possible it could go a bit further. But, it's actually probably only a few days work, so, maybe not.

I went out drinking with B last night to celebrate his new job. He's such a pleasant guy to hang out with. It was fun.

Ok, so tomorrow, my sister's retirement party, Saturday I take my wife out for her birthday, and Sunday the Super Bowl. I sure hope the Pats win, that would be awesome. But the other team is really good, they got to the SB for a reason. The pats aren't that talented this year, they win mostly in scheme and outsmarting the other team, and of course, the greatness that is Tom Brady.
 
Just saw an interesting article - it's not that we have more trouble focusing as we age, it's that we have more trouble eliminating distractions:

Here’s the Gist:
  • Researchers say our ability to pay attention is equal parts focusing and ignoring.
  • Irrelevant information bogs down our ability to suppress distraction, especially as we age.
  • To increase our ability to focus, researchers suggest both boosting our ability to concentrate as well as reducing distraction. Here’s how:
  • To reduce distraction…
  • Use one screen, one browser window, and one computer program at a time.
  • Keep your physical and virtual desktop tidy.
  • To increase our ability to concentrate…
  • Exercise, meditation, and spending time in nature may help boost cognitive control.
  • Some cognitive exercises and immersive action video games also seem to improve our ability to focus.
Your Ability to Focus Has Probably Peaked: Here’s How to Stay Sharp
 
I have a 4th hobby which is really the worst - watching sports all the time. Well, maybe this $400 investment in my "virtual DVR" will have an impact. I can still return the computer until Saturday.
 
This whole eliminating distractions thing is really the key. I'm always clicking away at sports articles and it fritters away my valuable time. Like, with the Pats in the SB, I kind of want to enjoy all the lead-up. They've had a great run, but you know as soon as Brady retires, it's all over. But there's a cost - e.g. I went to Europe and missed the best Celtics season ever. But would I trade that experience? No, of course not. Being a sports fan is like a drug. You get high and excited when you team does well.

But another, better drug is getting addicted to a process. That's why, as much as I enjoy being a fan, I've got to ramp down heavily on it. Just watch the game - on replay - and skip all the rest.

Right now with my job drawing to a close, I need to upgrade my interviewing skills. Not my guitar skill, no my Japanese, not even my Angular skills - although that's not a bad idea. My interview skills are the most important.

Although, I could take a break. The market has come back from the dip it took late last year, so retirement, or semi-retirement, is back on the table, a little. With the next month, I'll have made it halfway to 62 (time does fly), which is the the first year on my retirement plan on capital one. So I can just cut the earning to 1/2 of the planned.

During the break, I could get finish my Todo/Goals/Habits site, get Java-8 certification, try out Test Driven Development, and most importantly nail down the interview questions.

One nice thing about being on the job for a while is things become easier.

Well, until my habits program is written, here's my current list:

1. Don't eat junk food - especially at night.
2. Posture/not clenching the jaw
3. Everytime you start dwelling on the past, take note of your surroundings. Breathe. Notice 10 specific things around you.
4. Develop and implement strategies to eliminate distractions.

Goals -
Work on one interview question a day (ugh)
Finish the Angular course
Finish the Spring course
Do the ToDo/Habits App
Take some time off after this job is done
Get Java 8 certification
Learn TDD
 
I was just reading an article about how to not get distracted (you know how the internet keeps popping up articles one after the other once you click on one). Lesson #1: An Unusual Approach to Improve Your Ability to Focus | Scott H Young

The key takeaway from this one was, take smart breaks if you lose focus. A smart break is NOT browsing the internet. A smart break is going for a quick walk, doing pushups, etc. At work, a lot of times I will go to the kitchen for a cup of tea or coffee. This gets a few steps in, I might chat with someone, then back to work.

it's more at home where I'm prone to dive into the internet. There's always something to prevent me from doing what I should be doing. I mean, if my daughter calls, you know, we're going to chat for a while. But, other stuff, not really.

Usually, it's me wanting to get updated on the Celtics or the Patriots, or NBA trades, really useless stuff. There so much more to life.
 
So, my sister had her retirement party tonight, or we had it at my mom's house. She's just a year and 1/2 older than me, but she was smart, worked for 35 years for the govt. So, that I guess comes with a pretty good pension, I'm not sure. They don't have to pay into SS, which deep down it pisses me off. I don't trust SS, but yet I'm basing my retirement hopes on it. Why are govt workers exempt? I'm sure it's a better plan.

Anyway, good on her. She is one of the best people I know, a really good person, funny, happy, nice, just a pleasure to be around.

At least I'm lucky enough to have a job that is in demand. Work's been pretty easy recently. The pressure's off, what with my contract probably ending March 1.

At the party tonight, I did have plenty of lasagna and rolls and a bit of salad. But at least I didn't have any cake or ice cream or candy, which was all kicking around.

Celtics won tonight. I'm thinking it's not worth keeping the $300 computer just to watch the Celtics on replay - I dunno. It's annoying as hell. I have to return it by tomorrow if I do.

I'm going over my brother's house to watch the SB, that will be fun.
 
So, today's my wife's birthday. She said don't buy her a card, and she already brought here gift, so I'm taking her out to dinner. I printed out a card from the internet (tricky, until I figured out it was supposed to be in portrait mode) and wrote here a little poem. It's a lot easier than doing a drawing, which I did once.

I'm really procrastinating. I'm supposed to finish the Angular course. Go!
 
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