A Change of Plan

As previously documented, I have had some mysterious vision troubles for more than a month now. These have prevented me from pursuing grammar with my usual abandon.

I Need to Dig In!

Because of my mutinous eyeballs, I would like to add some time to my Portuguese unit. I care about learning this language and want to do it justice. So I am tacking another month onto the Portuguese schedule, deferring Chinese until November.

Making my life monumentally easier on the studying front: as of four days ago, my eyes underwent a miraculous recovery. Apparently I was allergic to the chamomile tea I had used to replace my espresso habit. I was trying to be good and the result was bad!

Within 24 hours of stopping the tea, I felt like a new woman. All the vision strain and irritation that have been plaguing me for weeks went away. I’ve been on the computer for three days straight now, catching up on blog entries, and I feel fabulous.

In addition to dumping caffeine, I have also been regularly doing yoga for about a month and a half, so I am now an uncaffeinated yoga person.

This is extremely unfamiliar territory for me.

I am excited to go crazy with the grammar again. I have been frustrated and sorely disappointed. It was like someone sticking your favorite dessert on the table next to you, day after day, and forbidding you to eat any of it.

I have also returned to work on the resources/reviews directory, whose progress has been glacial because looking at the computer screen just plain hurt.

Yes to This

Another development: I have been contemplating the quickly approaching end of this project, and I just do not feel that I will feel done when I get to the end of my Chinese months.

There is so much to consider still!

Therefore, I have decided to add Irish and Yiddish to the end of my study schedule. These two languages were both important to New York City history, and I think it would be fun, as well as instructive, to take a look at them—so, six weeks each.

I have secret hankerings to study Farsi and Thai, but I don’t think that is likely to happen as part of this project. (I’m sorry, Farsi and Thai speakers.)

However, I have to date been ill-equipped to predict my own project limits, so the future remains uncertain.