Day 600

Today was the 600th day of this language project. In 600 days, I have never spent less than half an hour studying whatever foreign language I was working on, and on the overwhelming majority of days I have studied two hours or more—often significantly more, in fact.

Me on Day 600, with Morning Coffee at Local Café

How the hell did this happen?

In the first moments I thought of this project, I was thinking ten months. It almost immediately became a year, then pretty soon two years, then not long ago three years. And honestly, I spend a lot of time thinking about ways to expand it.

I had no idea I was capable of waking up every morning and continuing to want to do more of this.

But I do. So I keep going. 

Someone said to me the other day, “What you are doing would be torture for me.” One man’s torture is another’s pleasure, I suppose. 

Some ways I would not want to spend my days: karaoke, video games,  watching football on TV. And a whole bunch of other things.

I can say with 100 percent certainty, however, that this project is the opposite of suffering for me. Yeah, I get crabby when I can’t remember a word after twenty tries—but that is a trivial and evanescent sensation.

Learning new vocabulary, and conjugations, and declensions just happens to be my idea of a good time. I cannot help it.