Written on August 13, 2009 at 11:17 pm by Jennie

Concentration, where did you go?

Filed under Random {8 comments}

I’m having trouble concentrating these days. I don’t know if it’s because I’m no longer in college or because I moved to France and don’t work much, but I have grown so lazy. I promised myself that I would get back to reading and studying as much as I did before when I was an undergrad. I’ve got almost all my books here with me in France, and now I have a new desktop computer to work on. And since I have a ton of free time, there’s really no excuse now.

I suppose my biggest problem lately has been wasting time on ridiculous websites that just suck you in, and before you know it, hours have gone by and you’ve done absolutely nothing. So I installed the Leechblock add-on for Firefox to prevent me from looking at all those time wasters. I copied over the hundreds of gigabytes of language files that were on my external hard drive, and I will get them all organized so I can actually make use of them AND make a schedule to stick to for studying.

At least I have read three of the nerdy books that I got while in the US – Second Language Learning and Language Teaching by Cook, Second Language Vocabulary Acquisition: A Rationale for Pedagogy by Coady & Huckin, and Vocabulary in Language Teaching by Schmitt – and finished watching season one of Les bleus : premiers pas dans la police which is a great series for learning slang, though it’s actually better to watch it on TV (M6 or W9) since the DVDs don’t have subtitles and those channels do.

Next I’ll start Colloquial French Grammar by Ball. It looks really useful since it describes how people actually speak instead of how people should write, as 99% of language books tend to do. I suppose I’m going to start on it tonight since I’m still falling asleep around 5 AM…

0saves

Save

If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to the RSS feed.

http://natalijaskomare.blogspot.com/ Natalija

I have the same problem: lots of free time, but I just can’t concentrate on studies. I’m in Italy since 2007, but I still have a lot to do to improve my Italian.
.-= Natalija´s last blog ..Long time no post! =-.
http://natalijaskomare.blogspot.com/ Natalija

I have the same problem: lots of free time, but I just can’t concentrate on studies. I’m in Italy since 2007, but I still have a lot to do to improve my Italian.
.-= Natalija´s last blog ..Long time no post! =-.
Cy Todd

Dear Jeannie, You don’t know me, but I’ve been following your blog for a while. I’m a Michigander also, living in the south of France (near Nice) and LOVING it! I had to laugh today when you listed your nerdy books. I too have been buckling down to do some studying with my best book ever: French for Dummies! I hope you are getting a good laugh out of that!! Yes I know, I should look more deeply at your site. Sadly, I just don’t have the motivation right now. I work mostly with English speakers here and most everyone speaks much more English than I do French. So, peut etre, someday, quelque jour, I’ll get beyond French for Dummies! Until then, keep writing, your blog is fun reading! Cy
http://tarzanfrench.blogspot,com Cy Todd

Dear Jeannie, You don’t know me, but I’ve been following your blog for a while. I’m a Michigander also, living in the south of France (near Nice) and LOVING it! I had to laugh today when you listed your nerdy books. I too have been buckling down to do some studying with my best book ever: French for Dummies! I hope you are getting a good laugh out of that!! Yes I know, I should look more deeply at your site. Sadly, I just don’t have the motivation right now. I work mostly with English speakers here and most everyone speaks much more English than I do French. So, peut etre, someday, quelque jour, I’ll get beyond French for Dummies! Until then, keep writing, your blog is fun reading! Cy
Carmen Alvarez

I totally understand about wasting too much time on the internet!!! Don’t ever install the StumbleUpon plugin But on the other hand, that’s how I came across your blog haha
Carmen Alvarez

I totally understand about wasting too much time on the internet!!! Don’t ever install the StumbleUpon plugin But on the other hand, that’s how I came across your blog haha
http://boeingbleudemer.blogspot.com/ Cynthia

Thank you so much for the tip! I’ve installed it with the maximum security settings and it works great ! It even prevents me from surfing the net too late at night … I love it so much that I’m going to write about it:)
.-= Cynthia´s last blog ..Découverte musique bien de chez nous =-.
http://boeingbleudemer.blogspot.com/ Cynthia

Thank you so much for the tip! I’ve installed it with the maximum security settings and it works great ! It even prevents me from surfing the net too late at night … I love it so much that I’m going to write about it:)
.-= Cynthia´s last blog ..Découverte musique bien de chez nous =-.