Languages - Day 14

More Duolingo today . . . I worked on types of clothing and colors. Fun stuff, although I felt like I’d had enough after about 30 minutes, which is what I think they intend you to do. You get “coins” for practicing and my meter usually fills up after that long, although I might be burning through lessons faster than intended because I know quite a bit of the material already. So far I’d say it’s a really good program though, I like it.

Languages - Day 13

Another good day of Duolingo. I made it through food, animals, and possessives. I translated a few other sentences too. Eventually I get fed up with it (or actually with me, when I go too quickly and make a mistake), but it’s very fun most of the time J

Languages - Day 12

Happy Birthday to me! J It was a good day. My in-laws came to visit and made me dinner and dessert so I had to time to relax when I got home and work on my Duolingo J I’m having fun with it, and it’s nice to feel like I’m helping by translating the internet too. I’m sure there are many people who could do it much quicker, but it’s fun for me, so I’ll keep doing it. Time for some cake and ice cream time now I think . . . what a crazy year it’s been J 

Languages - Day 11

Here is the link that explains all the history of Duolingo . . . it was posted a year or so ago, so it's a little outdated, but it gives you a good background, and I think it's really interesting: Duolingo video. I decided to do Duolingo again today, and I’m glad that I did. I actually focused on it without the TV on or any other distractions, and I really enjoyed it. I ended up working on it for over an hour and I made it through the Basic levels 1 and 2. Of course this is all stuff I learned in Spanish 1, but it is really good review, and I feel like I really got into the language. I was speaking things, learning new words, and translating back and forth between Spanish and English. I think this might be a good way to learn a language, and I’m helping translate the internet too J 
Here is the link that explains all the history of Duolingo . . . it was posted a year or so ago, so it's a little outdated, but it gives you a good background, and I think it's really interesting: Duolingo video.  

Languages - Day 10

Ugh so tired again. I did manage to finish my book though. Luckily I have two more just like it so I have more to read later if I want to. Bedtime now. 

Languages - Day 9

I need to remember not to do this so late at night. I may have fallen asleep while reading tonight. I’ve just been so tired lately. One of the stories was rather creepy, but the other was a cute story about a brave little girl. I wonder what else I’ll be reading about in the coming days.

Languages - Day 8

I read a few more stories from my side-by-side book today. I should have done Duolingo, but I was too lazy. I do like reading these short stories though, because I don’t know any of them, so they are always a surprise. I read about the BBC having a good, free language course too, so I might have to look into that sometime soon.

Languages - Day 7

Okay, today was my first day of Duolingo. I had the TV on at the same time, so it had difficulty picking up my voice, but other than that, it worked pretty well. I started with Spanish which is kind of cheating since I know all of the easy stuff already, but it helped me figure out how the program worked. I still have a lot to learn in it, but it seems pretty cool. We’ll see how it goes I guess.

Languages - Day 6

A short 30 minute of reading tonight. I read in the car on the way to a friend’s house for a dinner party. I read the story about the Virgin of Guadalupe . . . I had heard of it, but never read the whole story before, so that was interesting. I think if I have time I’ll try Duolingo tomorrow. 

Languages - Day 5

I read in the car today on the way down to Chicago to a Jaguar driving event (quite fun). I think I’m getting a bit better at reading in Spanish, but I should probably start the Duolingo soon so I actually try to write or speak some of it (I think that’s part of Duolingo . . . I don’t really know). One of the fairy tale stories I read today was really sad. It was a Mexican version of Sleeping Beauty, but the princess and her beloved were exiled because she was native and he was a Spaniard and they were confined in a cave and couldn’t escape and they died. Their bones were found years later locked in an embrace . . . how sad is that? Hopefully the rest of the stories are a little more light-hearted. 

Languages - Day 4

So tired . . . long week at evidence technician school. It was a lot of fun and very helpful, but now I’m tired. I just read for about 40 minutes today: a little of my magazine and one bilingual story. I am very tired though, so time for bed. 

Languages - Day 3

I read one of my dual language stories this morning before class and another after dinner. I really like that book. The stories are like short fairy tales and the language is fairly simple. I don’t know if I’m retaining any of it, but it’s fun to read in another language. I tried People en Español again and gave up very quickly . . . that language is not so easy. So far I’m enjoying this month though J

Languages - Day 2

I struggled with some People en Español again before returning to my story book. It is much easier to have the translation right on the opposite page than having to look it up online. I can get the general drift of the stories, I just need to focus on remembering the vocabulary words I think, and I’m having difficulty with the verb tense too. We’ll see how this month goes.

Languages - Day 1

People en Español is more difficult that I realized. There are so many specialized words that I don’t know for relationship situations and makeup and things like that. I had to look a lot of words up, but the pictures are very helpful in determining what they are talking about. I also read a chapter (short story) in my Mexican historical short stories book. It is a side-by-side book so I can read the story in Spanish and English (I try to just look at the Spanish and then check the sentence in English to make sure I got it right . . . my translations aren’t perfect, but I can get the general idea). I think that’s not too bad for the first day. Good night J

October Reveal

So I tapped into my creative side a little bit last month, and I wanted to kind of keep that trend going. I discovered this cool website called Duolingo where I can practice/learn a new language while at the same time help to translate the internet into another language . . . cool huh? So, I couldn’t decide what I wanted to learn (continue Spanish, learn German since my husband took a few years of it in high school, start a new language altogether . . . French?). I was not sure if I would have internet access for the first few days since I am away from home on training for my new job, so I picked up some Spanish language magazines and books to try and read. Maybe later on in the month I’ll try Duolingo and maybe do German or Spanish or French . . . I want to keep my options open. That’s the challenge for this month: spend some time (30 – 60 minutes) every day immersing myself in another language and try and make that stagnant “English only” section of my brain a little more pliable . . . this should be fun J

Children's Book - Day 30

Last day of drawing L I didn’t think I’d be sad, but things were finally starting to go somewhere, so now I feel like my momentum will be stopped. Maybe next year I’ll work on a project until I finish it ;) I think I made some good progress this month, and although I didn’t get as far as I thought I would, at the same time I still feel like I did more than I thought I could. I’m happier with the pictures than a lot of other things I’ve drawn. I don’t know how much potential this book has, but I think it has a little bit at least J

Children's Book - Day 29

I drew on the way home today, one more drawing done. I can’t decide if I should split this one up since I had two ideas for the picture or just leave it as one. I still need to decide if I should try for the 32 page goal or not. Only one more day of this, so I know I’m not going to finish so it doesn’t really matter I guess, but I still feel like I should have some final ideas in mind.

Children's Book - Day 28

Back to working while in the car again. I got one more page done . . . nothing much to report, just a little more progress.

Children's Book - Day 27

I drew earlier in the evening again and made more progress, not quite as much as yesterday, but still something I’m rather proud of. Oh course, this happened at the end of the month when I can’t really harness it and use it for the rest of the month . . . that figures. Perhaps I’ll have to try and work more on it next year, but I still have a few days left, we’ll see how far I get J

Children's Book - Day 26

Wow, doing this at 5:30 instead of 9:30 makes a world of difference!!! I wasn’t falling asleep when I was drawing and I actually had some motivation. I don’t know what clicked, but suddenly, I was producing stuff that I actually thought was quality work. I saw some rather gory stuff at work today so I had this inner drive to create something beautiful and I think that came out in my drawings (and my subsequent choir practice and flute playing). I’m very happy with what I did today and I wish I had gotten to this point much sooner. I don’t think I’ll have enough time in the month to finish the book, but at least I have a little bit to show for it now.

Children's Book - Day 25

I don’t know why I’ve been so tried lately. I’ve been getting enough sleep, but being bored at work and then bored while drawing leads me to have very heavy eyelids when I need to be getting stuff done. At any rate, in the times when I managed to keep my eyes open, I tried my hand at cartoonish drawings, and they were very poor. So I went back to my sketch drawings and they looked a little bit better. I think I have a better handle on what my main character should look like now, so that’s progress J

Children's Book - Day 24

I’m frustrated and tired again today. I began by looking over my drawings and trying to brainstorm what to do next. The drawing I’ve been working on is okay, but it’s just not fitting into my plan. I knew that I couldn’t possibly do a detailed, realistic-looking Jan Brett style book in one month, so I really need to stop trying to do things like that. That’s not what I’m trying to draw, but for some reason my perfectionist brain can’t figure out how to draw simple, cartoonish figures like what I need to be working on. For most of this hour I just felt like I was in a kid’s “time out” and it was just punishment to sit here and look at my drawings and be disappointed by them. I think one of the reasons that yoga was so good for me was because I got away from home and to a special spot dedicated for that where I could just focus on it and do it well. Here, at home, surrounded by a million other things that I need to be working on, I have a very hard time feeling like drawing and writing is what I should be doing. Plus, I have mediocre supplies and no place to really put my stuff to work. So I end up reclining on the futon, and that probably is not helping my tiredness . . . I just want to go to sleep. And being tired does not promote hard work and dedication. I don’t want to be lazy, I really do want a finished product (since I got none of that during scrapbooking month), but I don’t feel like I’m equipped for success here. I did spend a little time studying some more cartoonish drawings and my husband advised that I should make my drawings using simpler shapes and exaggerate the features I’m trying to promote in the particular drawings, so I need to work on that. I think it is really good advice, now I just need to figure out how to find my easy-going side somewhere and try to apply it to drawing . . . wish me luck!

Children's Book - Day 23

I just did a little bit more work on the scene I started yesterday. I added a giraffe, a little bit of a lion, and a stone wall. The giraffe is too small, but at least it’s there. It’s difficult going to this medium now after I’m so used to working with everything on computers and being able to change the size of pictures with just the click of a button . . . if only that were possible in this case.

Children's Book - Day 22

I think I finally started working on something that might be worthy of being in my book. I studied a little bit in a drawing book my husband found and actually added some depth and landscape for one of my scenes. It’s not great, but it’s much better than most of the other stuff I’ve drawn this month.

Children's Book - Day 21

Wow, I don't think that I’ve ever fallen asleep drawing before. It was a really long week and I did not want to draw at all. I drew some more wombats from pictures I found on Google . . . they are okay.

Children's Book - Day 20

I realized that I am much better at copying other pictures than I am at creating my own, so that is what I did today. I just Googled pictures of wombats and cartoon wombats and sketched some of those. They were okay. Some were cute, some were not, I don’t know if it really counts as progress though.

Children's Book - Day 19

This is hopeless. I had so many aspirations for this book at the beginning, and I thought this would be a fun month, but I’m not enjoying it at all. I just feel really inadequate. I read a bit about publishing today, and I don’t think I’d ever be ready for that. And if I was, I doubt anyone would read my book. And if they did, what if they expected a second? Have I told you that I don’t write much? I only feel inspired to write once or twice a year, and in those moments, I write something I really like, but once the moment passes . . . it’s over. After I was done reading (and getting more discouraged), I looked back over all I’ve drawn and written this month, and I’m happy with some of it, and mostly unhappy with the rest. Then I just stared at a blank piece of paper and tried to figure out what I’m going to do. I don’t know how much I believe in my story anymore . . . it seems to me that it lost its focus or subject when I expanded it. So do I just try and draw stuff for the remainder of the month, start on something new, or just sit here at the wall, not sure of what to do? This is not how I was hoping this month would go L

Children's Book - Day 18

I don’t know if I worked on it for an hour today or not. I know I had it sitting on my lap for probably a good two hours, but there was a movie on and I didn’t get as much drawing done as I thought I would. I’m just so caught up on not being able to put out a decent product that I’ve halted all production. I don’t know how to get past this…it’s like writer’s block and artist’s block all at the same time . . . any ideas?

Children's Book - Day 17

Tired, yet again, plus a migraine tonight. I’m so not pleased with my drawing. I need to find a way to make this simpler, and I also need to rework the story a little bit I think. Let’s see if I ever find the ambition.

Children's Book - Day 16

I’m tired again. I need to do this earlier in the day, but we had a very busy day today with our church’s Fall Festival and volunteering there and then a friend came over for dinner. I didn’t start my drawing until 9 pm again, and I’m not looking forward to going to work again tomorrow . . . I need another weekend. So I only drew for 45 minutes tonight, but I’m frustrated, I am not an artist, I am not an illustrator, and I am completely lacking confidence in my book. I hope whatever next month ends up being, it’s something that I’m better at than this. I know the point is to get better, but I’m really struggling with this one.