Lauren Learns Luganda

I can tell that we're right about in the middle of the semester (though that doesn't seem possible ! Everything moves too fast...) because I can tell I'm finally hitting my stride and finding a routine of sorts for my Luganda and other studies. These last three weeks have been pretty successful. I reached my Omuzannyo goal each week, and have been doing a good mix of lesson-type work, conversations with my language mentor, flashcard practice, reading, and listening practice. This last week looked a lot like the previous two in terms of my daily work: Tuesday : 30 minutes of lesson work, 1 hour with my language mentor Wednesday : 1 hour of lesson work, 1 hour with my language mentor, Thursday : Read 1 newspaper article, 10 minutes watching the Jesus film, Whatsapped with a friend, and did a lot of flashcard practice (250 words on Long-Term Learning) Friday : 2 hours of listening to the radio, Quizlet, and read 1 newspaper article Saturday : Quizlet Sunday : Intende...

I had another good week this week. It was one of those weeks where success begets success and motivation begets motivation. I've found that the best thing to do when I'm in these moments is to both make the most of them and enjoy them. Other forces inevitably will come in and slow me down, so it's good to just lean in to the good weeks when I have them. Part of what went well was simply a productive week where I was able to get in some time every day, including several periods of more intensive study: Tuesday : Listened to music, Whatsapped with a couple of friends, Quizlet Wednesday: Spoke for an hour with my language mentor, did a half hour of lesson work Thursday : Watched 10 minutes of the Jesus film, watched 2 news videos, listened to the radio, a long time working on vocabulary with Quizlet Friday : Met with my language mentor, did an hour and a half of lesson work, Quizlet Saturday : Quizlet Sunday : Quizlet Monday: Half hour of lesson work, Quizlet I also...

This week was a bit of an odd one, since I left Madison and my "routine" from Thursday-Monday to visit my mom in Florida and celebrate a birthday milestone. Making the weekend even more special, my grandma is currently there and my sister flew in from Detroit as a surprise. While I was excited about all the sun, sand, and Everglades I knew the weekend would have in store, I was pretty nervous about keeping up with my work, given that this semester is tough enough as it is. Luckily, I found some chunks of time to get in some study. I reserved my flights for extended periods of reading, which meant that any time over the weekend I had free I could use for Luganda (which I did). Additionally, I discovered a new trick - rather than think of studying as a reason to steal away, think about it as an opportunity for sharing. (This will obviously work better in some contexts than in others...) Yesterday morning when I told my mom I was going to go into another room to listen to the...

I've written in the past about the challenge of finding a balance in my Luganda study. Though I still often struggle with balancing my Luganda efforts with the demands of the rest of my life, recently I've been thinking about another kind of balance in my Luganda work: finding space for both small, daily activities that infuse Luganda practice within my everyday life, as well as setting aside time for more focused, intensive study. One of the drawbacks of Omuzannyo - as much as it's working for me! - is that it's possible to do earn lots of points with just the small activities. In its current setup, there is no reward for including more intensive time into my week. This is something that I've a) tried to be cognizant of, and tried to be deliberate about addressing on a weekly basis; and b) thought about ways to tweak Omuzannyo to incentivize that kind of work. (Of course, focused study is worth more total points, but sometimes that's not enough incentive dur...