Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

Duolingo

2020-03-23T13:36:18Z

Over at covidcoffeecorner, today's discussion question is about what games people are playing right now, in person or otherwise, and one of the examples liv used was gamified self-improvement stuff like Duolingo, and I wrote:

I'm mostly, and deliberately, ignoring the gamified parts of Duolingo, at least for now. "Maintain your streak" is gamified talk for "do at least a little every day," and I want to keep that up, because it's easier to maintain that sort of habit than "I will do French at least four days a week" or the like.

I was looking at the "league promotion" bit when I first started, because I had a bunch of free time, and found the early lessons extremely easy. Right now, I'm doing intro French as much for listening practice as vocabulary. It's still at the point where I know most of the words before Duolingo "teaches" them to me, many via Spanish cognates or borrowed English (it has me practicing that the French for "weekend" is "week-end") or picked up from menus and signs in Montreal. But I can't go too fast right now, because typing can strain my left hand.

I suspect the gamification would work better for me if I was doing this with people, friends or in a class, or if all those "lingots" I earn for things like meeting my daily goal were usable for anything I remotely wanted.

covidcoffeecorner is for anyone who wants to chat/have some more social interaction during the pandemic. Drop by if that sounds interesting.

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Duolingo

2020-01-15T23:36:06Z

I am studying French using Duolingo, as of yesterday. I'm starting at the very beginning, because part of what I need is to listen to them pronouncing the language.

Right now, the gamification feels a bit silly. But I started last night with the smallest possible daily goal, and did a lot more than that today (for values of "a lot" that took maybe 20 minutes), and the software is designed to congratulate the user for things like having a one-day streak of doing something every day.

I decided I wanted to do this at the end of last year, but deliberately waited until after I finished the freelance indexing project.

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Two workouts, some socializing, and clean teeth

2010-12-18T22:25:23Z

I had my more-or-less usual session with Emilie on Thursday, this time after spending some time at the office holiday party. That was slightly weird: around Thanksgiving they sent around email saying that instead of an off-site party, they were going to donate to some good causes (and they did seem like good causes) and just give us a lunch. Then about a week ago there was a message with the subject "Re: Holiday party (revised)" saying that no, there was going to be a holiday party in the afternoon on 12/16, lunch in the office and then a "cocktail reception," reply by 12/10 if you planned to attend the off-site party. I decided to go, in part for the hope of a raffle prize (I didn't win).

In the end, I had some good conversation with a bunch of people while eating ziti and lasagna and salad; and then talked about books with one coworker, and then gyms and exercise with a couple of others, until the drawing. Then I left (bars are always loud, and they were playing music, making conversation even less plausible, and wandered up to the gym via the library.

( gym details, and some introspection about the process )

This morning (Saturday) I had an appointment with my dentist. The dentist I think of as "my dentist," who I've been seeing at least since 1995, is only seeing patients on Saturdays now. I don't like his partner (the partner is competent, but not as patient with me as Dr. Mahindra), so I went downtown this morning. So, I have clean teeth, and apparently there's a tiny bit of cavity that he wants to keep an eye on (seen on X-rays). The dentist is near my branch of the gym, so I worked out afterward.

( more details, mostly numerical )

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Another workout with Emilie

2010-08-13T02:27:27Z

I got to the gym with time to do some cardio beforehand, but all the bikes I like (the recumbent style) were either in use or out of order; I managed about five minutes perched on a triangular seat, then went and did some weight stuff.

In the session with Emilie, we did some of the more-or-less familiar things, and some new ones. I got her to check what I was doing with the lunges, and yes, I had them basically right. Emilie was pleased that I've shown Adrian some of what she's taught me. I have bought some more sessions, so I'll be doing this into October (at the current schedule of almost every Thursday evening).

( details )

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