Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

I decided I've given the cryotherapy and salicylic acid treatments more than enough time, and asked the doctor for a referral to a dermatologist instead. She sent me half a dozen names yesterday, and said she would cancel my appointment (which had been for next Monday).

The cat sitter will be coming over tomorrow afternoon, to meet the cats, see where we keep the cat food etc., and get a key.

The three of us had lunch outside today, at the tables outside Kupel's bagels. The weather was on the warm side for me, and would have been too hot if Adrian hadn't found me a seat in the shade. Tomorrow and Friday are supposed to be hotter, so I will probably go to the grocery store tomorrow morning.

After lunch, Cattitude and I walked back to Comm Ave and picked up my gabapentin prescription, as well as sunscreen, deodorant, dental floss, and snacks. I hadn't realized until I picked up the prescription that the neurologist wrote me a 30-day prescription (with five refills) instead of a 90-day prescription. At this dosage, even 30 days' of pills fills a large pill bottle, but getting 90 days' supply at a time may be a little less expensive, and means fewer trips to the drugstore. I should send him a message about this, but it's not urgent.

I've gone back to doing some French on Duolingo, and should probably be emphasizing the listening practice. I now find myself thinking of some words in German, as well as Spanish, before or even instead of the French I'm looking for. (I haven't entirely put the German aside, so this isn't surprising.)

I am putting Duolingo French aside for now, and (re)starting German. I'd forgotten how much shorter the early units of Duolingo are (in terms of both the length and the number of lessons, not just "this lesson is easier").

Also, I found myself using French instead of German forms earlier, specifically "est" instead of "ist." This on top of my fingers sometimes producing Spanish or sort-of-Spanish instead of French ("porque" instead of "pourquoi").

Sometimes it's seemed that I have one mental slot for "language other than English." Several years ago, I noticed that I was thinking of Spanish rather than French words when I'd just gotten to Montreal, and then needed a few days to switch back when I returned to New York. I didn't need Spanish in New York, but it's on signs and billboards and posters about subway service changes, and I will read words that are in front of me, useful or interesting or not.

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.

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.