Self Study Update III

What a stressful week this has been! My root canal tooth has been acting up and I succumbed to my first illness of the school year. Sadly it didn't take too long for that to happen this time. I have high hopes for a completely healthy year someday. I guess I need more  vitamins and hand sanitizer! Because of all this I have made less progress this week than I had hoped for:

French:
I started the next chapter in my book when I realized that it begins with the irregular verbs that I know well (avoir, etre, aller) but I am still hoping to really improve my -ir verbs with the spelling changes.  I need to clear some space on my hard drive so I can download the verb drills I found last week.

Poetry:
What can I say, it's still in my pocket! ;)

Piano:
I've been playing this a lot lately, albeit much more slowly than in this video.



Nora and I went to a book signing a few weeks ago with a bunch of teen authors which was really fun. Someone asked the panel for writing advice and one bit has stuck with me. Margaret Stohl said that she works on the bic principle (butt in chair) and that a big part of writing is just forcing yourself to start and do it even if it is just for 15 minutes.

I'm trying to apply that to a lot of my endeavors as I feel myself getting stressed & tired from work every day. It is hard not to just collapse onto the sofa some days and rendezvous with my good friend JB Fletcher

I am telling myself I can play the piano for just 15 minutes or conjugate French verbs for 15 minutes or read a little bit of Who Killed Homer and I find once I start it's easier to go longer than the original 15 minutes.It's the getting started that is the biggest challenge for me.

Somehow giving myself permission to quit after 15 minutes is making a difference in my attitude. And I really do quit after 15 minutes sometimes. But I'm also trying to keep in mind some advice from Eat Pray Love: "you must be very polite with yourself when you are learning something new."