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New Super Challenge Discussion thread2014

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hjordis
Senior Member
United States
snapshotsoftheworld.
Joined 4946 days ago

209 posts - 264 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: French, German, Spanish, Japanese

 
 Message 385 of 766
08 June 2014 at 10:34am | IP Logged 
Crazy. One of my friends who has horrendously bad luck once had 3 VERY major bad things
happen within one or two weeks, but I think you have her beat in the "many things going
on at once" category.

Don't worry too much about us. I'm sure we all want you to take care of your more
important things first and not drop dead of exhaustion. :)
1 person has voted this message useful



kanewai
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
justpaste.it/kanewai
Joined 4649 days ago

1386 posts - 3054 votes 
Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese
Studies: Italian, Spanish

 
 Message 386 of 766
08 June 2014 at 10:55am | IP Logged 
I can relate, small kine. When I'm crazy busy at work I become more productive at
everything - languages, social life, working out, gardening, cooking, and even
work itself.   It's like I enter a superman phase, and can juggle more than I thought
possible.

I was unemployed, twice, about a decade ago. Both times I fantasized about all the
things I would do with all my free time. Finish my thesis, become fluent in 5
languages, work out so much I'd have the body of a god.

None of that happened.

Up to a point I actually do better when I have a bit of stress and chaos in my life ...

... just not Norwegian levels of stress and chaos.

(and I'm single with no kids; I'm always amazed at all the parents in here who still
manage to study regularly!)

Edited by kanewai on 08 June 2014 at 10:58am

1 person has voted this message useful



Solfrid Cristin
Heptaglot
Winner TAC 2011 & 2012
Senior Member
Norway
Joined 5094 days ago

4143 posts - 8864 votes 
Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian
Studies: Russian

 
 Message 387 of 766
08 June 2014 at 11:23am | IP Logged 
@Hjordis: I am afraid not worrying about you guys is hard, but I am eternally grateful to Serpent, and Kerrie
and Jeffers and Kanewai and Surrealix and everyone else who comes in and answers when I can't. The point
of my whining was just to let you know that if I am not as active here as I would like to be, it is not because I
do not care about you guys, but because sometimes it gets a bit too much, even for me :-)

You all mean the world to me, and when things are at their craziest, this forum is what keeps me sane.

@kanewai: I know what you mean. A few years ago things got so bad that I had to ask for two months off. My
plans were to spend more time with my mother, who was terminal, with the kids who I felt I was neglecting,
refurbish the basement, throw away 50 % of my belongings, clean out every cupboard, put order in the house
from top to bottom, and organize my sock drawer. And after two months I had spent time with my mother and
kids - and organized my sock drawer ...
6 persons have voted this message useful



rdearman
Senior Member
United Kingdom
rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4996 days ago

881 posts - 1812 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin

 
 Message 388 of 766
08 June 2014 at 10:58pm | IP Logged 
Solfrid Cristin wrote:
Ok. So guys, are you up for a little June mini challenge?

The challenge is the following:

--------------------------------------
Do as much reading/watching in your main target language (or chose one if they are in no particular priority)
as you can in one weekend.
--------------------------------------

- You can do this weekend from right now, until midnight Sunday, or any other week end in June from Friday
17.00 until 9 o'clock Sunday.
- When you read, see how long it takes you to read one page.
- When you watch, try to estimate how much you understand (10%, 30%)

We will do this again regularly, so try to be as accurate as you can.

- Register your results in the Update thread on Sunday or Monday.

If you do not know whether you might get more done in a weekend later in the month, you can always
register another weekend later, the weekend where you get the most done is the one which counts.

Go,go,go!



OK, I picked French for this weekend and I managed to log a lot of film time, and 2 books! So it was a great weekend for my SC. I could have done more if it wasn't for cleaning house, washing cars, mowing lawns, and all the other stuff my wife kept distracting me with. I watched about 1/2 an episode of another French Film, but have to complete it tomorrow, so I'll not count it for the weekend mini challenge.

I tried to keep track as best as possible, using my handy stopwatch (on my phone) to calculate reading speed. I basically just guessed percentage of comprehension.

WEEKEND CHALLENGE | French

| Effort      |    ;Title | Tweeted | Known |
|-------------+-------------------+---------+-------|
| 120 minutes |   V&L    | Yes     |   60% |
| 60 minutes |   V&L    | Yes     |   60% |
| 5.6 min pp | Le Fleau        |   Yes    |  & nbsp; |
| 5.2 min pp | Le Petit Nickolas |   Yes    |  & nbsp; |

So there is my weekend results! Thanks for the encouragement Solfrid.


Edited by rdearman on 08 June 2014 at 11:01pm

1 person has voted this message useful



Jeffers
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4669 days ago

2151 posts - 3960 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German

 
 Message 389 of 766
09 June 2014 at 9:10am | IP Logged 
Thank you for sharing all that with us, Cristina. I figured it had something to do with all the stress you said you were under a few weeks ago; then when you went silent here and on the 6wc I was worried. I am sorry for all of the difficulties and troubles you have had all piled one on top of the other. Glad to see you back. Only you would be so crazy as to set a mini-challenge on your return!

As for the weekend challenge: well One Direction was fun, and my daughter loved it. I got maybe 100 pages read this weekend. Next weekend I'll do the challenge properly!
1 person has voted this message useful



surrealix
Diglot
Groupie
New Zealand
languagechallenge.su
Joined 4364 days ago

66 posts - 152 votes 
Speaks: English*, Swedish
Studies: French

 
 Message 390 of 766
09 June 2014 at 12:39pm | IP Logged 
At the risk of causing another giant debate, I've updated the bot and pushed out some changes to
the interface. Eeek!

Here goes:

Serpent wrote:
would it be possible to have some sort of sign denoting that you've
posted an update during the current week?


This is now implemented :). If you've done any sort of study since the week ticked over, you'll
see a small check mark on the badge on your user page. This means you're safe for the week. If
you don't have a check mark, it means you are in danger of losing the streak if you don't do
anything before the week ends.

The second change was to switch the displayed badges from the longest streak of study to
the current streak. This means if you stop studying the badge will disappear, which seems
like the intuitive reaction. I still keep a record of your longest ever streak, so this might be
visible on your user page in the future.

The biggest change however are the Activity Badges. In the participants list and on the
user page you might see a second badge appearing. This is almost the opposite of the sprint badge
- instead of showing long term study, it shows recent achievement. I'm hoping that it also avoids
the issues of the earlier daily sprint badge idea. This is how it works:

I add up all the study you've done in the last fortnight, and you get a badge if you've read the
equivalent of at least one whole book, and watched at least one whole film. I'm using a
fortnight, because it's long enough that you don't need to be stressed about reporting daily, or
even weekly. The lowest amount (1 book and 1 film per 2 weeks) is also the minimum you'll need to
maintain if you want to finish the challenge, so it's an easily achievable goal. You'll get
silver and gold badges for 2 and 5 respectively.

The badge only registers if it's one book *and* one film. We've had discussions about balancing
watching & reading in the past, and certainly I prefer reading over watching, and I know others
are the opposite. Hopefully this badge will give you a bit of an extra push to work on your
weaker skill as well as your favourite ;).

On the technical side, the "two weeks" counts from the current day, not from the last Sunday.

As usual, I'm open to questions, debate, and suggestions :). One question I'm interested in is
what you think of the thresholds? (1, 2 and 5 units; over 2 weeks). Should they be higher? Lower?
Shorter? Longer? Did I choose right?


Solfrid Cristin wrote:
I will not make a habit of this, but since people have wondered why I
have been so absent lately, I decided to give you the background. [...]


Holy moly.

I'm glad you feel things are getting better, and that you coped despite how amazingly stressful
that all sounds!

Edited by surrealix on 09 June 2014 at 12:39pm

7 persons have voted this message useful



rdearman
Senior Member
United Kingdom
rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4996 days ago

881 posts - 1812 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin

 
 Message 391 of 766
09 June 2014 at 1:33pm | IP Logged 
surrealix wrote:

This is now implemented :). If you've done any sort of study since the week ticked over, you'll see a small check mark on the badge on your user page. This means you're safe for the week. If you don't have a check mark, it means you are in danger of losing the streak if you don't do anything before the week ends.


When does a week start and end? I lost track, is it Sunday?

surrealix wrote:

The biggest change however are the Activity Badges. In the participants list and on the user page you might see a second badge appearing. This is almost the opposite of the sprint badge - instead of showing long term study, it shows recent achievement. I'm hoping that it also avoids the issues of the earlier daily sprint badge idea. This is how it works:

I add up all the study you've done in the last fortnight, and you get a badge if you've read the equivalent of at least one whole book, and watched at least one whole film. I'm using a fortnight, because it's long enough that you don't need to be stressed about reporting daily, or even weekly. The lowest amount (1 book and 1 film per 2 weeks) is also the minimum you'll need to maintain if you want to finish the challenge, so it's an easily achievable goal. You'll get silver and gold badges for 2 and 5 respectively.

The badge only registers if it's one book *and* one film. We've had discussions about balancing watching & reading in the past, and certainly I prefer reading over watching, and I know others are the opposite. Hopefully this badge will give you a bit of an extra push to work on your weaker skill as well as your favourite ;).

On the technical side, the "two weeks" counts from the current day, not from the last Sunday.

As usual, I'm open to questions, debate, and suggestions :). One question I'm interested in is what you think of the thresholds? (1, 2 and 5 units; over 2 weeks). Should they be higher? Lower? Shorter? Longer? Did I choose right?


I prefer watching over reading, but I figure this is great. 1/2/5 works for me.

One issue I've seen on my own scores is on the main page where I'm listed with everyone else I have 7 books in French, but when I click on my name to drill down it says 8 books (which is more correct) so is the calculation done differently or is there a rounding error?

Great work on the BOT BTW! I love it.


Edited by rdearman on 09 June 2014 at 1:36pm

1 person has voted this message useful



sctroyenne
Diglot
Senior Member
United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5151 days ago

739 posts - 1312 votes 
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Spanish, Irish

 
 Message 392 of 766
09 June 2014 at 7:56pm | IP Logged 
Welcome back @Solfrid Cristin! I can relate to the work drama - it threw off my April
Challenge, but it's hard for me to imagine how people with lots of other responsibilities
manage to pull it off (I had a single mother growing up and I would never want to have to
do that). Let others take care of the dinner parties for the time being ;)

I didn't sign up for the weekend challenge as I usually take it easy during the weekend.
Though I did manage to get a respectable amount of stuff logged.




1 person has voted this message useful



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