Pros:  A challenge for me has to be long enough to gain momentum, but short enough to keep sight of realistic goals.  It’s easier to see 90 days out as opposed to 180 days.  This leads into the downside of this challenge.

Cons:  Since, 90 days is a relatively short period of time compared to a 180-day or a 120-day challenge I took these last 3 months for granted.  I thought I could wing it and I got off track a lot.  I realized past the half-way point that I needed to set several attainable, measurable short-term goals while keeping the big picture in mind.  I clearly overestimated how much I can get done in 90 days.

What I’m most proud of:  I learned about 500 hanzi or Chinese characters

Seeing how there are only 55 lessons, I should be done with this book before the end of February if I keep going at this rate.

When I first heard about this book, I wondered how could a book that teaches you to learn 1500 characters could be useful if it doesn’t teach you how to pronounce them.  I can now see, that that’s not the point.  Introducing pronunciation would just slow down the process.  The book itself is a memory training manual using Chinese characters as its subject.

I’ve reviewed the characters I already learned, and was able to recall 99% of them.  Not bad.  I’m upping the ante by learning 50 characters a day instead of 30 characters.

I mentioned that I’m also doing memory training. The concepts in the memory training program and in Remembering the Hanzi are very similar because they encourage the use of vivid imagery to engage the mind.  Our minds tend to think in pictures.  I can really appreciate Heisig‘s techniques.  Onward!

I was thinking about going through the book Remembering Simplified Hanzi: Book 1, How Not to Forget the Meaning and Writing of Chinese Characters by Heisig. I see glowing recommendations for learning kanji, but I see reviews for the hanzi book are pretty much straight down the middle.

I want to check the book out for myself.  The end of my Chinese challenge is February 14, so I’m curious as to how many characters I will get through between now and then.

“Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity.”  In other words, “The simplest explanation is usually the best.”

We can glean wisdom from the most unlikely of sources. I remember watching an animated movie back in the day called Watership Down.  It’s based on the novel by Richard Adams.  Watership Down, in a nutshell, is about a band of talking rabbits that are trying to find a safe place to live and perpetuate their species.  Once they find their “paradise,” they realize that there are no females in the group.  Their quest to find mates pits them against the rabbits of Efrafa.  Efrafa is the name of a den (warren) of a military-like band of rabbits.  That movie is NOT for children but I digress. I watched the movie as a kid and read the book as an adult. For years, I haven’t really thought anything of it. A day or so ago, I had the urge to watch the movie again. I did a google search and found that there was a TV series based on the book. My excitement turned to disappointment when I saw the show. It came off to me as painfully juvenile. Now THIS is aimed at children. The characters I once knew and loved were altered…but was it for the worse?

I watched the first 7 episodes, as painful as they were, and was actually surprised at the depth of the characters. Not only that, but there were some very deep themes that the original animated movie never got into but is discussed by the characters in this series.

There is a conversation between two Efrafa rabbit officers who are watching over their charges. One officer comments that two normally trouble-making rabbits are suddenly going out of their way not to cause trouble. The second officer just thinks that the two have accepted their lot in life. The conversation then turns to what it means to have one’s spirit broken. The observation was true enough and so profound. I found it heart wrenching because that is true of many of us on the planet. It reminds me of a quote by American author Henry David Thoreau “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.”

My recent comments have focused more on personal development and not enough on my Chinese journey.  I will remedy that starting with the next post, but I wanted to share this little bit with you.

Watch the video. The conversation takes place at 2:30.

So, what do Occam’s Razor and Watership Down have in common?  Nothing really.  The connection I made is to stop making things more complicated than they are in my life and to guard my spirit from being crushed like it was in when I was in graduate school.  Now that that’s out of my system, on to Chinese study!

One thing I try not to do is get big headed about what I’ve accomplished in life. Lately, I’ve been thinking that the other extreme is to not live up to one’s full potential by underestimating one’s self.  It’s an interesting balance.  I’ve been thinking about this for a couple of days, but someone actually confirmed it to me today. I mentioned something I had to do for my job, and she said, “Wow!  What an interesting life you live!”

We hear of couples taking each other for granted, but I think that we can take our own selves for granted.  Many of us will go through life never soaring to the heights of which we’re capable.

I want to dream big!  Posting everyday for a month and tackling Chinese for 90 days are great, but I want more! Let’s see what the month of February has in store.  Yep, yep!

White ends the lesson with an action step.  He only touches on the significance of this step and the listener is left to wonder what does this step have to do with improving one’s memory.  He reassures the listener that it’s okay not to know what’s going on.  If I did, I wouldn’t need the rest of the course.

I haven’t abandoned my Chinese studies, especially with 15 days left in my Chinese challenge.  Everything is progressing.  That’s what matters most to me.