Listening. クリスマス。 Doing Better.

So, last night I talked with my Dad again... but guess what?

I.

Listened.

EEEEK!

Well I guess I don't care about the listening much as part as that I

Did.

Not.

Cry.

I did not feel overly-pressured. I --

could.

handle.

it.

Without arguing.

Well, not too much. X)

Basically, my Dad was telling me that this week, I HAVE to focus on looking for jobs. This week. Well? It doesn't freak me out too much. I want to do it.

Usually, not arguing is hard for me because it's fearfully difficult for me to deal with pressure, so I make excuses, but also, he talks for a long, detailed, time, (saying things I disagree with) making me want to interrupt all the more. So I listened to his orders, which he is very careful to explain in DETAIL like he has many times before, and I told myself over and over that it's okay and he's right and that I sincerely agree BUT also that I have my own plans. That I'm not plan-less and opinion-less and that I am mature and grown-up and that I will succeed.... And kinda contrary to his opinion, that my dreams are worth something big.

After that ordeal, which wasn't much of an ordeal in comparison to other similar situations :) ...
I realized I had been wearing on my head my Claire's (accessories) silver princess crown, the whole time I was talking with Dad.

LOL. Haha. Oh well.

We ended the conversation on my own statement! Actually I do that a lot anyway :) (I'm kind of a stubborn snobby daughter) And I said, "I just don't want to be treated badly because of my past actions anymore." Or something like that. Maybe not a very nice thing to say, and certainly it's asking for a lot (too much?) but I need to think better of myself now.

So what am I doing about this? Well, my plans are to get my life organized and be at peace with everything that goes on in it. I don't want to be monumentally worried all the time just because I'm not controlling my own actions. That means I want to get IT together. That means I want to get a job. It's on the list. Metaphorically.

The best way to put it is that I'm working on scheduling myself. I am customizing my planner and making a sort of weekly schedule with activities like piano, Japanese, job-searching, volunteering (piano playing), house-cleaning and singing (for example). I will make short term (daily) and longer term goals, backed by reasons. I also am using Textfugu's cool method of making a list of excuses for why I should quit, which I can use to remind myself that those excuses are retarded. Eh. I mean misguided.  Also, I'm making goals for each day; basically, I assign myself tasks, which I complete by doing them regularly as habits or "traditions".

I have yet to get myself organized, but that's the idea I'm going for.

I've also started translating stuff all over the place. I've restarted Shugo Chara / しゅごチャラ！ without subtitles :) !

And, today I watched the first episode of Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne / 神風怪盗ジャンヌ (Divine Wind Phantom Thief Jeanne is the long translation).

And for both those animes, I usually stop and write out the song lyrics in kana and kanji, working toward pronunciation, then understanding it or translating it to English. I learn a lot of new words this way, and I remember them best because I'm not bored and I can connect it to lifelike stories which I love.

One more thing I'm doing is listening to my audio CDs of the book Boundaries by Henry Cloud and John Townsend. (amazon) (zondervan) It's useful (...so far...) and has lots to do with my issues with being myself naturally, standing up for opinions, and especially deciding where my boundaries are so I don't have to worry about my responsibilities so much.

I'm thinking of where I stand. There are SOME things I DO NOT need to change about myself (for other people). Also, there are influences of others that I can IGNORE; by which, I mean there are things I can stop worrying about.

Haha... well, it's kind of like I don't care about others' feelings as much. That sounds awful, but it was putting a lot of strain on MY emotions... plus my life isn't going well at all, career/education-wise, so if I don't change something about myself there's not much point in my existence (I only mean that theoretically and also a bit dramatically).

Anyway, it's 11:00 and I've got to get out of my room to clean house. We've got the housekeeper (I like to say "maid" X) coming today and ironically, we clean up before she gets here at 12:30. Haha.

No, maybe that's not ironic, silly me, how else can she clean the counters and floors under the enormous amount of clutter and Christmas decoration Rubbermaid containers and cardboard boxes?

Hee hee SO! here is how to spell Christmas in Japanese!

クリスマス 

Which you say like this: "Ku-ree-soo-mass" (pronounce the syllables lightly, and clipped.) If you like romaji better, it looks like this: "kurisumasu"

Well, anyway, that's probably right. Source: myself. Not anybody Japanese. I'm an authority, can't you tell? No, I'm not. That's sarcasm.

And here are some snowflakes for Christmas. ✢ ✣ ✤ ✥ ✱ ✲ ✳ ✴ ✵ ✶✻ ✼ ❄ ❅ ❆ ❉ ❊ ❋
✽ ✾ ✿ ❀ ❁ ❃ ❋

Moooooorrree Schedule!!!!!

K. I was trying to make my new schedule too complicated. It's good to schedule down to the hour, the half hour, even close to the minute, if you need to be really efficient. But if you don't stay focused on that planner, or whatever it is you use to record that schedule in, you forget what you wrote.

My schedule that I create needs to be simple on the outside, with four main sections of the day. I can create a schedule at first, but eventually I need to memorize it. Planners will be for appointments, and it'll go with my wallet or whatever, but I have to learn how to keep a schedule in my head instead. In the end, my producitivity will be much more powerful if I memorize my schedule instead. I have never been able to hold a schedule for a day straight by writing it in a planner, so I dunno what I was thinking!! Haha.

When I say "memorize" I just mean that I need to know what MAIN sort of... subjects... I'll be doing that day. For instance, "I'm working, studying, and going to two classes" or "I'm cleaning the downstairs and practicing piano" or "I'm taking my brother to the fair". From there, I can break the larger tasks down into smaller pieces, with my own brain.

If I act like I don't trust my decision making skills in the moment, I'll never be able to do anything with a planner. And my planner idea wasn't working anyway.

So, I was just using my failure and confusion about my schedule-writing attempts as an excuse to try again and again what wasn't working in the first place. "I'll try again, I'll try again!" Meh.... Scrap that!

Different types of days: work day, sabbath, cleaning day, personal day, family day (combine-able)

Different sections ("time for" sections ... like sleep, study, etc) are: sleep, devotional, study, workout, relax, entertainment, cleaning.

Do I need to add to these??? hrrmmm, I think so.

no section for eating. if I create a section, I'll allow it too much time. you can eat while you do other stuff, so it doesn't legally deserve a section.

coo. more later.

Oh hey. I'm looking for more jobs tomorrow. Yay me. No really. Okay I'm kinda depressed about it. But I'm actually going to do it... or start on it... or something. Really.

And I do have a job already. It's just not very good. :) for the $$ I mean.

Progress Report!

I'm still working on that planner-schedule thing.... It's going okay so far, I never get it perfect, but the important thing is that I keep thinking about it and keep trying to use my time to get things done instead of procrastinating and waiting to start a task....

I have little symbols I use that mean certain tasks, so that I don't have to write out the names of everything when I write down a schedule (for what I want to do during the day, for each hour or half-hour. I haven't yet included anything for less than ten minutes, and the ten minute slots are just for writing down reminders to drink water (H20 is its symbol) during the day.

I just have to keep up motivation-- not to quit-- 'cause I am just sooooo bad at "wanting" to do things that are productive.

I.e. I'm LAZY. But that's okay, I'm figuring it out... I'm figuring it out... sigh--

New Plan!!

I am going to try out something new with my planner. I need to plan my time more exactly, like, down to the minute. It's all going to be about routine. Routine is good for me, because my personality is the opposite. I can't find a way to channel my ADD into something good, so I'm going to guide myself with a planner-- it's kind of... like I'm fighting my ADD, if you want to phrase it negatively. But I can't just jump from one task to the other constantly just so that I don't forget to do the new thing I thought of. If I do that, then I forget the other thing I was doing previously. Laundry, brushing my teeth, cleaning my room, practicing piano, studying, even having arguments with people, it's all the same-- I forget to finish things because I go do something else. I just don't know if that's helpful under normal circumstances, ever!

So here goes. I'm going to list every single thing I might ever need to do-- daily activities, things I want to do to reach my goals, studying, family activities, cleaning, etc-- and prioritize them into a laddered list, for what to start with first, and use it to pull those activities from the list and schedule them into my day, down to the minute. 

My taking care to use each minute will help me take my time more seriously. I've been trying this with my planner since this week's Monday, but it wasn't working because I didn't specify very carefully, and I didn't actually make it on-time to the first activity, so I'd give up immediately. I suppose that problem can't be solved by being specific, so I'm going to have to try harder. No-- I have to do my best. But, being specific will at least (maybe) make me take things more seriously.

I'll use my planner and write in it, 7:10, 7:15, 7:30... that sort of thing. It will probably be mainly fifteen minute and thirty minute increments, but I might need to buy a bigger planner for smaller increments, but even that might not fit in the one I have. And I'll time myself with my phone. If I forget to set the timer, I'll forget to keep going. After a while, I might not need to use it, but for now, I'll pretend otherwise.

I'll carry my "Quotidian" list with me everywhere, in a purse (even in the house) as well as a planner, pen, my phone, and post-its or other notepaper for writing random things. Probably post-its are the best. Study materials and other activity materials will stay in the places I will do those activities. I have a habit of trying to do too many things at once-- see-- so then I get all my stuff lost all over the house, which makes it even harder to finish tasks after coming back to them, since I don't know what I was doing if I don't even know where I was doing it.

I just don't know how to lose weight and get my studying done every day if I don't try this. I will really be happy if this works. Here goes try number 2,436! (That's a joke. :-| Well, I'm guessing it's a smaller number.)

special codes
AFRST=adjust for required start time (for appointments that I'm not sure when they'll occur, like family worship or going somewhere with someone else)

Activities Prioritized: The Crash Project Expanded
FREQUENT ITEMS (short time-period activities)
water
chores essentials
japanese and spanish

TIME BLOCK ITEMS(extended time-period activities - some are repeated from frequent items)
prayer
sleep B4 2330 (2100)
wake B4 0800 (0600)
pretty-care essentials (showering, nail-care, skin-care, brushing hair, dressing)
work (requires 10.5 hours - getting ready, driving, and working)
chores essentials (for appearances, mom and Allison)
weight loss
studies: bible
studies: college homework
studies: piano
studies: theory
studies: spanish
studies: japanese
pretty-care extras (picking outfits, makeup, hair-dos)
exercise
chores hardcore (big projects)

hummm... can't think of anything else at the moment. I'll update this later. For now, I'm going to print it out and follow the other things I've added on to Quotidian. (You know that means daily, right? It's kind of funny though, it makes it sound like I'm "quoting" myself. Which, really, I kinda am doing that anyway....)

URRRRR Something crazy just happened to my page, Quotidian, and it has reverted to the state it was in at least two more more days ago. How did that happen? A whole bunch of really good stuff I liked is gone. I don't get it. I think it must be bad to have two "New Post"s open on blogger, and it gets confused with the publishing. Urrrrggg!!!!!! I can't remember half of it. I get so mad when that happens. :,(