Negative Stuff

Motivating Yourself to do Pointless Things is Hard

You know, the other day, I realized that most of the work I do for Japanese is mostly useless.

Most of my grade is pointless.

And I just... With that realization, it is really hard to practice the CCs and Drills like I would.... I'd rather just read them from my book like my classmates. I'd be better off spending the time I practice on practicing Japanese rather than specific sentences like rehearsing for a frigging play.

And I have a lot due today for Japanese (and an entire picture to cut), so this really is a horrible day to be struggling with motivation, but... even if the CCs and Drills take me less than 30 minutes (I don't time myself, so I have no idea how much time it actually takes me, but it seemed like a lot more than I should be, and that was before I realized that this was the worst way to study.), I mean... that's 30 minutes I could spend reviewing vocab lists (because I need to do that a lot more than I do), grammar patterns (or rather, applying them because I know these pretty well), or KANJI (something that I am VERY behind on). Doing something PRODUCTIVE, doing something WORTH my time.

... I miss German. I miss the fun little talks with my table mates. Even if they all were nowhere near the level I was, I got my practice in, and I also had the opportunity to listen and figure out what they were saying. I miss the children's books and other projects that I would spend way too much time on. I miss the little worksheets where you'd put some words, draw a picture of them, write some related words, and put the words in sentences. I miss Musik Montag. I miss the saying we'd learn once a week. I miss the variety, the fun.

It wasn't just rote memorization. You had a lot of room for individuality. Your worth in the language wasn't determined by how well you could remember a pair of sentences. Your worth was determined by how much you could communicate and how well. Your brain power wasn't being used on trying so hard to remember a specific sentence in the exact order it came. Your brain power was being utilized to communicate.

... I MISS APPLYING A LANGUAGE. I MISS USING THE LANGUAGE I'M LEARNING.

I've learned a lot in Japanese, but I have done almost NOTHING with it! The Japanese projects, that's almost all I've done with it. There are a few shreds of conversation I've had with a few people (a classmate and teaching my parents Japanese), and there have been bits and pieces I've heard from the subbed anime I watch while I'm eating. That's it. That's what I've done with the language I've learned.

UMSL's Japanese classes do a great job of teaching grammar and interweaving culture learning with language learning, but they just do not allow us to apply those.

... I'm done. I'm sick of doing things that don't matter. That don't help me. I will look at the CCs and Drills with a fine tooth comb, only practicing those that are actually helpful (a.k.a. ritual expression CCs). We'll see how that goes.... I might have to practice for the in-person classes still, but at least on Zoom, it shouldn't be obvious that I'm looking at the book.... Yes, that should work just fine.

So to anyone who actually read this (which I'm sure is no one because who wants to read someone's random rants lol), if you go to UMSL, I have one suggestion: USE THE BOOK IN CLASS. Otherwise, you'll get to your third year, wondering when you're going to stop memorizing CCs and Drills, and realize that you shouldn't have wasted your time on that in the first place. You don't need to memorize the CCs and Drills. None of my classmates do. You should spend that time practicing the language instead.