Life Stuff

At this point, I pretty much have a routine in my life and stuff is working out reasonably well. Sure, my desk is a mess, but that's not exactly a new problem. That's a problem I've had since, oh, forever. Or at least since I've had a desk of my own to be messy or not. It's better than my desk at school in the USA was, actually. There, I couldn't do anything on the desk. Nothing. I couldn't put my computer on it or anything. It was just a piling place for papers. Here, since the internet in my room is wired only and the wire isn't long enough for my laptop to be connected to the internet anywhere except the desk, there's an empty space the size of my laptop on the desk unless the laptop itself is there. So that's something.

If my teachers knew my routine as it actually stands, they'd probably say I wasn't spending as much time studying Chinese as I should. But I'm OK with that, really. I've never spent as much time on studying and homework as I “should” and I'm still managing. It would be good if I changed it, but I'm not going to spend time worrying about it. I've tried in the past and it doesn't work.

So here's what my routine looks like right now:

I get up in the morning. If the internet isn't working, I have a major case of The Sads, because this is when I download my homework assignment and get it done for my first class, Chinese 390, which is from 8:30-10:20 (times not exact because everything is random and one or two minutes and the teachers sometimes run a bit over.) I spend about an hour on preview sheets and about half an hour on homeworks. (We spend 2 days on each lesson, so every other day is a preview sheet and every other day is a homework.) Of course, the official estimate is 2 hours per day of homework for that class. Anyone who knows me knows that's never going to happen. It's just not. Then the class splits into two, and thank goodness for the fact that I'm in the second half. The first half has Chinese 370 and I go do my homework for Chinese 370, then my half of the class has Chinese 370. Right around noon, I'm done with Chinese classes, and that's where the reliable part of my routine ends. The rest depends on days of the week. Three days a week, I have tutoring from 2-3, once a week I report on the materials science book I'm reading in Chinese from 3-4, Tuesday and Wednesday I have major classes, and Friday is the only day that I'm really done when I get out of the Chinese class at noon. If there's to be a day when I'm done at noon, I'm quite happy having it be Friday. Then weekends. Woot. I like weekends.

Right now, I'm preparing for NaNoWriMo, which means a couple things. One, I'm getting into the habit of writing 1500+ words of fiction every day. A lot of that is fanfiction, since I'm catching up on BINGO for a Tamora Pierce fanfiction thing and started a piece following an original autistic character in the Young Wizards universe. I'm also doing a retelling of a folk tale to submit to an anothology and hopefully get a little bit of money off that. I don't expect to make much off fiction writing, but if I'm taking the time to do the writing anyways I might as well try to get some cash off it. I'm autistic, and sure I've got the Art of Problem Solving, but I'm aware what being autistic means for my chances finding more “typical” jobs. I have no illusion that I will ever support myself with fiction writing, but if it can help me get a little bit more in savings or help me pay off college, that would be nice.

Oh, and then NaNoWriMo will actually start in a bit more than a week and I will be putting these 1500+ words of fiction per day towards a novel. Eep. (I'm actually shooting for 2000+ words per day on average, because the more I can get done during the rush of November the more likely I am to have the momentum to actually finish. Besides, 2000 words is about an hour of typing if my brain goes fast enough, which it hopefully well.)

So that's where I am right now. I'm also trying to write 2 blog posts per day for the remainder of October so that I don't need to write every day in November.

Oh, and here's the Chinese words I needed to look up recently for essays.

随着
科技
发展
越来越
垃圾
增多
环境污染问题
根据
充电
电池
扔掉
减少
应该
回收
愿意
修
政府
研究
合作
帮助
采用

规则

资助

引起

企业革命

获益

资本主义

系列丛书