From Flashcards to Presentations

[disappointed_lesbian]

I've finally found a new study flow for mandarin and it does not involve flashcards, which I'm happy about. Shortly after I re-started studying with anki, I again began to feel the oppression of a stack of due flashcards, and, more pertinent to my learning, the disconnection between flashcards. Flashcards were ok when I was studying short textbook dialogs, but I need a study method that maintains more continuity when I'm studying longer forms of content.

So I decided to start making presentations. Each slide has much more chinese than what I normally put on a single flashcard, a bigger chunk of the content. Each slide thereby gives me more of the podcast/video context, and more context holds my interest better.

I was never comfortable with the amount of time it took me to get through a single podcast episode, introducing ten new flashcards/vocabulary items at a time. I'd sort of lose the thread of whatever media I was studying, and that made me lose interest. Instead, I can go through an entire presentation/episode at once if I like. I won't be able to absorb all the new vocab the first time through, but that doesn't bother me. I'd rather go through a whole presentation/episode multiple times than drill individual flashcards repeatedly.

The only problem is that formatting the slides takes a lot of wrist work. My wrist is a little sore right now; that's why I'm on a break. Shortly before my break, I got the idea to duplicate a previous slide rather than creating a new one from scratch. The duplicate maintains the formatting, so all I have to do is paste different text into the text boxes. That should save me some labor from now on.

Unlike flashcards, presentations don't come with scheduling. That doesn't really bother me either. I can simply study my presentations from time-to-time, as needed. I'm not terribly worried about forgetting the vocab/studying according to a schedule because I'm exposed to so much chinese now that I continually come across recently learned vocab in articles/media other than the source from which I first learned it. Furthermore, the fact that I enjoy this study method more suggests that I'll be more motivated to study (rather than dreading studying, as I did with anki), which I expect to result in more study time or at least more engaged/effective study time. I'd actually rather continue with my current presentation rather than take this break. I'm looking forward to finishing this podcast (much faster than I ever got through a podcast via anki), finishing my first presentation. These presentations are something I can consume while on the treadmill, another advantage.

Today is quite warm despite the sky being overcast. I was supposed to take a walk to the general/hardware store, but I don't want to deal with the heat. Since I cannot afford a new pair of shoes for at least another month, I'm going to tape up the holes in my most comfortable pair of shoes and continue using them for a while. So I need tape.

I took a good swig of liquid iron last night and ended up sleeping much better than I normally do even though I woke up a bit chilly in the middle of the night. I just had to readjust my feet to ensconce them in my blanket and I dozed off again. I felt pretty good when I woke up. So the liquid iron doesn't hurt my stomach like it used to. I still felt a bit of abdominal discomfort after I drank it, but that wasn't too bad. The stuff is staining my teeth, though.

post-mood:chipper