The stats:
I have studied Yiddish for 325 days
I have studied Yiddish flashcards for a total of 193 hours
I have reviewed 3,794 individual flashcards
I should have started my Yiddish project on January 1 rather than January 7, as it would have made things a lot easier. As it is, I have to think about what the next year will look like in life, as well as in my hobby of Yiddish. In life, years are neat thing, where you plan for the New Year and beyond, and then spend the next year failing to accomplish your plans. I have done this my whole life, and enjoy it, as it makes New Year's Eve special and momentous.
So I'd like to just hitch my Yiddish plans onto that, but cannot, because the anniversary of the project isn't for another week. I'd just shove it back for a week to simply things, but am not sure I will have wrapped up everything I wanted to accomplish, or fail to accomplish, by then. Well, hell with it. I am going to start my new projects on January 1, and if there is some old projects that bleed through, so be it. I'll reserve January 7 for an anniversary party, but everything else resets on January 1.
I'm still working out what I want to accomplish in the next year. I'm a little nervous to be too ambitious, as I struggle to find the time to do the meager projects I am now working on, but I think this is a product of being newly back in Minneapolis and having a new job. It has been a bit of an adjustment, as I worked 30 hours a week at my previous job and work about 38 hours a week at this one.
Eight hours might not seem like that many, but it means I wake an hour earlier every day to go to work and leave from work an hour later, and it all just seems to chew up time. Additionally, at my last job there was occasional downtime when I could sneak a personal task in here or there. I don't seem to have that sort of time at this job, but that may be because I am still so new to it. I have a long history of being able to streamline jobs.
I am the editor of a Jewish newspaper now, and it doesn't seem like this should get in the way of my Yiddish studies, but instead support it. So part of what I hope to do this year is figure out ways where my job and my Yiddish studies can dovetail.
On the other hand, nerves be damned. There is nothing wrong with being ambitious. I only ever complete a fraction of what I hope to in a year's time, and yet somehow I still managed to write a Yiddish-themed play, writer articles on Yiddish for Tablet and in geveb, learn 4,000 Yiddish words, write 135 blog posts, and get a job at a newspaper in less than a year of Yiddish study. That seems like a pretty good year. I'll do a more thorough wrap-up at the end of the year, which I'm sure will be thrilling for my readers, utterly thrilling.
