My New Year's resolution was/is to read twenty pages a day. I had just finished a book and wanted some fiction so looked at my bookshelves and remembered this book. I think I first read it in primary school - so fifteen years ago! It tells the story of a girl who had to flee from Germany, and Hitler, in 1933. I loved re-reading it and some of the thoughts and feelings about living in a new culture resonated deeply.
When I finished the first in the trilogy I continued! So I'm on the last one now. And I just finished reading Fringe Hours by Jessica Turner - I got an advanced release copy and am so excited for it to be released this week! The other book I'm currently reading is The Answer to our Cry, and I'm looking forward to get deeper into it.
My Czech lesson this week involved using an ironing board to rest the keyboard on while I typed and endured back pain.
I've learnt that I learn best by doing exercises, lots of exercises. So I've been trying to do more of them. This exercise is a list of different situations and you're asked if you can "tykat" or "vykat" in them. Tykat means to speak informally with someone, and vykat to speak formally - all verbs have conjugations for you-singular/informal and you-plural/formal. It felt like an achievement to be able to understand the sentences!
Thursday was a really fun day and a good peak into what I do. At 9am I was on a video call with four other women in three countries to talk about and plan the writing the English teaching curriculum for camps this year.
I then left that meeting to drive to Poland with our design team to look at a lot of grey t-shirts and try to pick our t-shirt for camps this year. We order over 4000 of these shirts! I am so grateful for the Polish company we use.
And then at 3.30 I was again on a video call. This time it was to be interviewed about Northern Ireland by an English club in Slovenia! Two of my co-workers run an English club down there and had asked if I'd be willing to be interviewed. It was a lot of fun to talk about my home country of Northern Ireland, its food, culture and history. And there were some hilarious questions - I've (sadly) never gone on a leprechaun hunt and Lucky Charms, while delicious, are illegal in Northern Ireland so I don't eat them as much as anyone thinks.
The weather finally got above freezing again! But the snow is still hanging out.
Keep up the good work on the studies! Learning a new language is worth it and is incredibly challenging! I read this blog last week about language learning and was encouraged...
ReplyDeletehttp://velvetashes.com/a-letter-to-language-learners-the-grove-language/?utm_source=Velvet%20Ashes%20Subscribers&utm_campaign=9958a8f022-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_be1f75b629-9958a8f022-103750365
Do you know about Velvet Ashes? Being young and on top of things, you probably already do! I just learned about it in October. It is an online community of women who serve overseas. Mostly I just read others' blog posts, but it is very encouraging and challenging!
Have a wonderful week!