Time To Change Plans Before Overwhelming Guilt

Alright guys, I'm sorry. Not terribly sorry because things change and the world turns. Plans get unmade or promises get broken. I'm not saying, however, that I'm not going to learn Japanese Kanji! I will learn it. It just may take me longer than 3 months. I just won't have the time to study as much as I wanted to. I'm going to cut it down to 15 Kanji per day. That means I'll be doing it in 5 months or less so it will take a bit longer. The reasoning behind this is that I'll be working 10 hour days and I'm not going to have nearly enough time to get this as well as all of the other things I have to do in my days done. I'm working this many hours because I know that the sooner I make $35,000, the sooner I can go on my trip around the world. It's going to be difficult, and sometimes I'm going to want to rip my hair out. Oh wait I can't do that... Oh well. Anyway, I just wanted to let you guys know to expect these posts at random times throughout the days. I don't know for sure exactly when I'll be able to post them, so it'll be a hit and miss. I will get them for you every single day, though! I may be able to learn more than the proscribed 15 each day and if that happens, awesome! If it doesn't happen though, I don't want to get discouraged, which is why I've broken down the total per day. I'm not wanting to get down on myself because I didn't do as many as I wanted to and this makes it easier to do. You may be wondering why I cut it down so few but honestly it just takes up so much time to learn things these days. Bear with me and I know I can do it with you all pushing me! Thank you for everything!

I'm sorry about yesterday.

Yesterday, I had so many things going on with jobs, animals, family and friends I just couldn't honestly find enough time to learn more than what I did. I didn't go completely unproductive though! I learned 12 Kanji which, for the short amount of time I had, wasn't bad! I wrote these down this morning when I woke up and then checked back on my work to be sure I did them right. Thank goodness I did! As of right now I know a grand total of 64 Kanji! That's in 3 days you guys, and I never thought i'd ever get the chance to honestly learn even one! It's getting more interesting as I learn more and more that I will actually use!

This post is going to be a shorter one because I have to go in to my new job to get a drug screening done in a few minutes. I'm going to post another later on though because I'm going to learn another 28 or more today no matter what! Thank you guys for the support! It really helps to know someone out there is rooting for me when I'm undertaking this large of an assignment on myself!

More Kanji Learned Today!

I know 26 more Kanji now! I'm up to a total of 54 with some of those solely primitives. I also know 5 more primitives that a couple I did but didn't honestly need to know what they meant. Two of which I already knew from yesterday and I'm super happy that I was actually able to keep learning. I was also surprised at the level of detail of some Kanji and am slightly scared of what I'm going to encounter in the future. It's not easy, thinking about all 2042 or so that I'm going to learn. I'm just trying to take it day by day. From the book standpoint, I'm already ahead! In 3 months/90 days I can learn them at 23 Kanji/day and be perfectly fine learning that every day without falling behind. I've learned 28 yesterday and 26 today though so I've gotten ahead of the curve already! I know I need to keep studying today and I'm going to but right now is a time to relax and be happy. I don't want to get ahead of myself and burn out too quickly on these as there are so many more to go.

If anyone wants to follow along with me and learn at the same pace as I am, maybe we could challenge each other? Perhaps we could make a bet and see who can finish the fastest? I don't personally want to learn too quickly though, because as I said before, I don't want to get burned out. That would completely ruin my ambition and wouldn't help at all. I've got a new picture for today's Kanji as well and, though they aren't specifically all difficult, there are a couple that are more intricate than others. (*cough* Dr. *cough*)

Tune in tomorrow again for (fingers crossed) 28 more!

The Start of an Epic Adventure!

I woke up at 7 this morning to try to learn some Kanji to jump-start my new learning assignment! Guess what? I learned 6 Kanji before I had to go to work and remembered them all day, writing them down multiple times in random order without looking at any cheat sheets. I'm so excited because I never imagined the possibility of myself learning Japanese! It's something I've always wanted to do yet something I never thought I could honestly do. If anyone wants to honestly learn Japanese Kanji, make sure to check out the blog I posted yesterday in my first post! Also, the book that I believe will be the best help to you for learning Kanji, would be Remembering The Kanji! It's so far ten times easier to learn with this than with all 3 of my textbooks throughout high school! I'm super excited and extremely happy with it so far and hopefully everything that I can learn through this book will help me learn multiple languages in the future also!

Update at 6:48! I've learned 28 Kanji today and can write them if you ask me them one by one without any hints! I've got a picture of the ones I learned today that I'll put on here. I'm so excited to start this and can't wait to continue learning more tomorrow! It's amazing what you can do with a little bit of patience and some easy memorization lessons! Keep following tomorrow and I'll have my next 28 Kanji up tomorrow! Thank you so much everyone! I'm wondering if there is any way for me to show you all that I'm genuinely not cheating. Any ideas? If you've got any, put them in the comment section below this post!

Ever Want To Learn A New Language?

Have you ever wanted to learn a new language but had no idea how to do it? Wait, you knew how, but you didn't have anyone to teach you? Or, you just didn't have the time, energy, resources, money, etc.? I know I have before. I took 3 years of Spanish in High School just to have it disappear slowly over time until I have just a smidge of it left in my brain. Why? Because I never used it! I never, ever had any reason to speak or write Spanish. I didn't know any native Spanish speaking people. How am I supposed to continue learning or even knowing what I learned before if I can't talk to anyone else in Spanish? It's difficult and almost impossible. Then, I thought to myself. What if I never stop learning?! Won't I always continue to learn more and more and then, perhaps one day I can be fluent? Or at least never forget what I learned in those years/months of learning? I believe so. That's my goal. To never stop learning when there is more to learn. It's an impossible task to learn everything there is to know in this universe and it's my task I've set myself to learn as much as I can in the time frame I have. I've got only so many years in this life and I want to make the most out of every single one of them.

I came across a blog the other day. Fluent In 3 Months. It's exactly what you would expect. How to learn a language in 3 months! No, you won't learn everything there is to learn about the language in 3 months but you can learn a heck of a lot in that short amount of time. He gives you every single tool except one small book to learn a new language and I got that book. I am going to follow everything he says to do to a T. First Step? Make a blog. I know for a fact that this part of the learning stage is going to help immensely for myself because it's something that will keep me on track. Having so many people watching my progress and commenting on it every single time I learn something new? Heck yes! Confidence boost and definitely a booster for my own personal fire under my butt. I know if I have this blog up and keep up with my learning, I'll be held accountable by the people reading it. What better way than to possibly have anyone in the world reading this?! There isn't one better motivation I can think of that would help more.

So, down to business. I'm going to be learning Japanese. But that's the most difficult language to learn if you're a native English Speaker!? I don't care about all of that. I know it's going to be difficult. I know it will possibly be one of the most difficult things I've ever done to date. Who knows? Maybe it won't be! Maybe it will be a simple task that won't be nearly as difficult as I've always expected it will be. I love learning new things and this is one that I've always wanted to learn. I've just never actually tried hard enough to do it. I'm a fast learner as it is, and have proven that on many occasions at quite a few jobs. I learned how to thread a movie projector in less than a day. By the end of the second day, I could do it within 10 minutes with no problems at all. On the 3rd day? I was down to less than 5 minutes per movie. I think I can learn a new language - any new language - in 3 months.

I have written down my S.M.A.R.T. goal and it looks like this:

I am going to learn 2042 Kanji in 90 days. I will be learning 28 Kanji every single day. That's 73ish days to get it done if I stick with the 28 every single day. I am going to start on February 24, 2014 and finish on May 25, 2014. I will be updating this blog daily, without fail on exactly how many Kanji I learn every single day and you all will be holding me responsible if I fail. I have yet to decide on something that will happen if I fail.

Thanks in advance for any and all support that you give me everyone! Here's too the start of a learning journey that will last a lifetime!