Monthly Update - September 2020

           This would be the first month I try my new set up for my bullet journal. But first, let us look in on last month. The power sheet calendar had a few of my finished goals and ones that I didn't know I would finish in red.

Also, my tracker sheets in the power sheets and my journal were semi-complete too. I did a lot of work this month especially at the end of the month.

          The next thing I did was look at the goals I had in my power sheets combined with my power sheets calendar last month so that I could do the Month in Review page in my journal.

It was interesting how I was really enjoying answering the questions I put for myself as opposed to the ones in the power sheets, which are standard and for everyone. The purple pen I used for the title actually bled through to the back so I glued this page to the one below it to cover the bleeding.

          Next, I worked on the cover page for September. I decided to finally try using watercolor in my journal which is supposed to be watercolor friendly...It was and it wasn't. The paper did crinkle but once it dried and I put a book on top of it and it flattened out a lot then I glued it to the next page and it was fine. So next time I will probably use this method.

  

Next, I added some stickers and just wrote in September 2020. I like simple things I guess.

          The next page after the cover page was the calendar. It was easy to put together thanks to my doing all the planning and counting previously last month. I like how it turned out.

I added my dates and all my bills and I was set. If I need to add anything else after that I can just add it in.

          Monthly goals came next and I decided to just divide them into three sections which correspond to my three main goals. and add in my mini-goals.

          This page gave birth to my tracker page which was divided into pretty much the same thing plus a few extra tasks that I do daily and want to track. I also put in my weekly and monthly trackers on the same page. And of course some stickers to pretty up the empty spaces.

          Finally, I added my "Blog Ideas and Books Read" page. This page is a staple of my monthly setup and the easiest to deal with...unless I didn't have ideas for my blog...then it is hard.

Book Review: Korean From Zero! 1

Full Title: Korean From Zero! 1: Proven Methods to Learn Korean with an Integrated Workbook.

Authors: George Trombley, Reed Bullen, Sunhee Bong

Published: first published March 20th 2014, This book was published on May 1st, 2014

Publisher: Korean From Zero

ISBN: 9780989654524

Pages: 360 including bilingual glossaries and the answer key.

Extra Information: You can download MP3 files for the book online.

Synopsis: Korean From Zero! is a fun, innovative, and integrated approach to learning Korean created by professional interpreter George Trombley, Korean linguist Reed Bullen, Professor Myunghee Ham, and Sunhee Bong. Using up-to-date and easy-to-grasp grammar, Korean From Zero! is the perfect course for current students of Korean as well as absolute beginners.

Features of the book:

* Integrated Workbook with Answer Key
* MP3 Audio * Online Support
* Over 600 New Words and Expressions
* Learn to Read and Write Hangul
* Extensive Grammar
* 90 Adjectives and Verbs Detailed
* Bilingual Glossaries with Hangul and English ...and much more!

Review: I seriously don't know how to review this book. I've seen a lot of good reviews of this book and I wanted to share my own experience with this book since it was different.

Let me start by saying that I wanted to study this book as a way to review the basics of the Korean language since I was getting into the intermediate territory but still feel a little shakey with the basics. I was studying it alongside Talk to Me in Korean Level 3 (reviewing it) and 비타민 한국어 1. 

So let me tell you what I liked first. I liked the 한글 section because it had some good explanations of how letters can be pronounced when combined together and I think this comes from the fact that most of the people who wrote this book are actually foreigners and had to learn these things like we do. In some of the chapters, there are formulas that you can follow when dealing with certain concepts or verbs or verb conjugations. I liked that they grouped vocabulary words into themes like body, office, sports...etc, and then used them in the chapter. I liked that at the beginning of each chapter you knew what you needed to review and know before going on to this new chapter and the grammar concepts that are coming up.

What I didn't like was that the "Integrated Workbook" was just a few pages of exercises at the end of each chapter. I noticed when I did the exercises that there were mistakes in the answer key or that they didn't acknowledge there was a different possible answer. I didn't like the way they explained the conjugation of verbs. I found it confusing and I had already learned how to conjugate before! Now think how a newbie would feel about that if they were like me. My brain just did not compute the way they explained conjugation. In fact, in all the classes I took and the books I read about conjugation I've never seen an explanation like the one in that book.

The book has levels 2 and 3; I have both books and I'm not sure whether I will go on to study them or not. I have a few days before the beginning of September to think about it. I don't know if I am just going to write off these books or "read" them to get some formulas and maybe some vocabulary and just not seriously study them. 

Because I have read reviews where people loved this book my advice for you would be go to the website associated with the book and download the pdf versions of these books for free, check them out and if you still want to own the physical copies go ahead and buy the books from amazon.

Their Website: Korean From Zero

General Language Studies Update

          I wanted to update you guys on my language studies. This week I did something different. I decided not to take classes at all and focus on studying what I already took in my classes for Korean and Chinese. I also wanted to work a little more on my Udemy classes and my books. 

          To help me do that I first used my journal but realized that I can’t focus and look ahead so I found something that works along side my journal. This tool helps me plan ahead and see what I have to do one week ahead and I can add the tasks to my journal daily. 

As you can see I have this page that has week days and I set it up every Sunday with my mini tasks for my study goals. I was using the calendars previously but the calendars didn’t give me enough space to write what I want. 

KOREAN:

This week I am focusing on these things in Korean:

1. I wanted to look over the subjects I took with my Korean teachers.

2. I wanted to finish specific lessons on Talk to Me in Korean, part of my mini goals for the month.

3. I wanted to finish Korean from Zero 1 this month.

4. I wanted to finish the Vocabulary Building Course, or at least move forward through it. 

5. I want to finish 비타민 한국어 1 

CHINESE:

This week I wanted to focus on these things in Chinese:

1. I wanted to finish at least 2 Udemy courses.

2. Review my iTalki Chinese Lessons and get in more practice.

3. Get familiar with Hanja, with respect to the words learned in the iTalki classes.

Breaking things into chunks really helped me to get things done and see what I’ve been neglecting or what is sucking up my time. 

          My goal now is to take TOPIK I level 2 in Korean at least and HSK 2 at least in Chinese at the end of next year. 

Thoughts on my journal (Part 2)

          I was going to give you a break from my journalling madness this week but...oh well! I continued thinking over the structure of my journal moving forward and I decided that I liked the idea of a goal refresh every three months. However, not all the questions were meaningful to me so here is what I came up with: 

I simplified the questions and streamlined them and kept the Word For the Next Three Months portion.

          Next I looked at the upfront work that you have to do at the beginning of each year. And again lots of things just did not resonate with me and needed to be removed or streamlined so this is what my upfront work is going to look like:

Next I looked at the section where you develop an action plan for your goals and this is what I came up with:

And that is it. My thoughts on the new setup are done. I will try the monthly setup and see what works what needs to be changed and what needs to be dropped and when the time comes I will do the same for the yearly setup. I’m also in the mood to add color and stuff but that could change 😂  

Thoughts on my journal (Part 1)

          I'm sure you all know by now how much I like the Power-Sheets Journal and how it makes me think, but now that I have tried it for 7 months the verdict is in. While I love the current journal and liked working in it but I've also come to see its limitations for me. Some of the questions posed in the summaries of each month and a few of the questions in the 3 month check in don't work for me. I've been filling them in mainly because I hate leaving them empty. I've come to realize that the "Tending Sheet" is basically a big tracker (Daily, Weekly and Monthly), and I've got a perfectly good one in my journal. I also have come to hate the fact that I have two journals. I prefer just using one. Yep, I know in the beginning of the year I wanted many but now I realized that is not the kind of person I am. So starting next month I'm going to try my own system. I'm going to take what I liked from the Power-Sheets and add my own spin on it in my journal. 

I've counted boxes and this helps me know how to size my two page calendar.

This is what my monthly calendar will look like. I've counted boxes and know exactly where the lines should go. Our week starts on a Sunday so that is how I'm going to start my calendar.

This page is where I will break down my main goals into small mini steps and also prioritize my goals.

This is my "Tending Sheet" AKA Tracker page.

This is my month in review page at the end of the month. I love it in the Power Sheets, but I hate the questions on it so I changed that.

I'm keeping the "Ideas for Blog and Books Read" page, and next I'm going to think about how to structure my 3 month check in pages and the work that needs to be done up front each year... The second part to this might not come next week but it will come :-)

Happy Birthday to the Best Family in the World

Today is our family’s 6th birthday. And despite a limited small minded few we are the best fandom(family) in the world. 

꧁Happy Birthday EXO-Ls꧂

And just to show how much our boys love us we got messages from most of them. 

Even though he is serving his time in the military our leadernim still sent us a beautiful message.



I swear we stand dorks, but they are our dorks and we love them. 


I was so happy to hear from Chen. I was so worried that we wouldn’t hear from him today. He still got some hateful messages on his post but the majority were positive. EXOLACE-Cafe are not going to ruin this day for us.

Our healing Unicorn and the China sheep didn’t forget us today. But then we knew he wouldn’t.

I’m so looking forward to his solo debut, our cute bear!

I love that we got two messages from Chanyeol. We love him double too. 

Chanyeol’s message on Instagram

This baby is cuter than cute...what?! He is taller than me? You think I care? He is still the baby!

Xuimin and DO are in the military too but unlike Suho who is doing community service because of his eye sight, they are in actual camps so I was not expecting to hear from them.

Monthly Update August

          Last month I talked about wanting to journal more because I lost track of time and also memories. So July with the exception of a couple of days I kept up my bullet journalling and journaled a little. This month I’m hoping to do more journalling wise.

          My trackers in my journal is the part I kept up with the most and it helped me keep on track. 

This month I added the same exact tracker. 

Yeah, I love that little sticker 🤣 

I decided to go with a simple theme for the title page. 

The line drawings are actually stamps. I was going to color them but I like the whole black and white theme.

          My Powersheet notebook is the one where I really did a lot of work as usual. I Love the tending sheet page and the calendar was a lot of help. I also added the small goals that I finished during the month and it has been motivating!

I’ve also loved the separate calendars for tasks divided by topic so I’ve used that again this month. 

As usual I’ve worked on my month in review. 

I also put together my tending sheet and calendar for this month and made specific goals for this month. 

I really am enjoying my Power Sheet journal. I’m about 95% sure I will be getting one for next year.