Wish Me Luck!!!

I need everyone to wish me luck for Saturday because tomorrow I go to take my German Language B1 exam!  Normally I'm very good with tests and very rarely experience anxiety, but for this particular test, I'm extremely nervous.

The B1 exam will test me for reading, hearing, writing, and speaking.  Should I pass this test, I will officially be at the "conversational" level of the German language.  This is far from fluent, but it does mean that I am able to have basic conversations with people and am supposed to be able to understand people.  I have to admit that I can still barely follow native speakers in conversation, or TV or movies, so I know I have a long ways to go before I can call myself fluent in German!

Learning a language is difficult, I don't care what any of the experts say, or what system you use to learn it, especially for someone like myself, who has never learned another language and I seem to have no special affinity for learning one.  With language, it's difficult because it's not a linear process, like say math or science.  With those two, for example, your progress is directly determined by what you learned the day before; its like your learning process is building blocks and you simply get higher by stacking the boxes together.  With language, this process is not fluid and linear.  I've noticed that each person learns it in their own way, in their own speed and with different specialties.  Some are great with the vocabulary, others with the grammer, and some have perfect accents.  Me... I am only average at best in any of those three areas.  And another thing about learning the language is that what you build on seems so random.  You hear something here, read something there, and then there is comprehension, but there never seemed to be a 1-2-3 approach (learn 1, then you can learn 2, then 3... instead its like learn 1, then 5, then it's back to 2, 3, and then 10!!!).

I have no confidence in my skills in German so I'm just completely nervous about tomorrow.  Normally, I'm an excellent test taker.  I mean, I passed High School by doing almost no homework but acing all my tests!  But I have to admit that I don't know if I'm really ready for tomorrow.  I'm worried that I will not be able to understand the hearing portion, I will sound like a retard for the speaking portion, I will not be able to read a thing, and I will write like a small child (and again like a retard!).  I know that I'm probababy exagerrating, but I have to admit that this is how I feel.  The teacher tells us that making mistakes is not the issue, but testing our general understand and usage is what they really want to see... but I still can't help feeling like I don't understand shit and I'm going to blow it... 6 months of night classes down the drain and wasted!

So, I'm hoping for everyone's best wishes and prayers so that I can pass this test and finally be done with school, can tell the Government "here is your stupid test, give me my permanent Visa and leave me alone!", and can finally feel confident that I know German way better than I gave myself credit for!

Meetings... No thank you!

I have been in the corporate world for some time now and one thing that has never seemed to get better, or more relevant with time, are meetings. Without question, meetings bore me more than just about anything in the world. Bland, worthless information, bad speakers, corporate speak and buzzwords, and lately, in a language I can't understand, meetings consistently put me to sleep almost right away!

Meetings feel to me like people just trying to be more important than they are. "You need to meet and gather around me and listen to what I say, cause I know it all... Or at least I need to pretend I do."

Reading the bullet points verbatim from your crappy PowerPoint presentation also sucks super hard.

Basically, unless there will be food and beers served before, during, or after the meeting, you're wasting my time and I'll be asleep soon!!!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

How do you deal with Setbacks?

I know that when a setback hits me, I go through two phases.  The first phase, which is the immediate aftermath, I am angry, upset, sad, and totally inconsolable.  However the second phase I am upbeat, positive, and ready to beat the damn setback to death!

How many of you are the same way?  Do you have bad or good reactions to your setbacks?  Are you the get mad and scream kinda of person, the "ehhhhh it happens" kind of person, or the super positive, super happy, I'll win no matter what type of person (you types kind of annoy me... at least in phase one, haha!)

Most of my setbacks come from either money or personal fitness.  Either I spend too much and am broke (and it's 99.9% always my own fault!) or I don't meet my fitness goals (I can't believe that on my current diet I gained a pound, totally ruined my morning!).  I'm always so angry about it because I know, in hindsight (which we know is 20/20), I can always see what I did wrong.  So I guess that's why, once I start to think about what I did wrong, I'm able to turn my mood around and be ready to deal with it and get over the hump.

What's been your latest setback?  Does it still have you down or have you risen up and beat it?  Love you hear how you deal with it! 

Can I do it?

I've started a new plan of attack for the next several months, up to the end of the year, as to how I'm going to change my health and fitness and finally get the body I've always wanted.

I've always wanted to have a body where I wouldn't be ashamed to take off my shirt.  Yet, the desire for it was not always equal to the discipline it takes to do something about it.  Sure, a little diet here and there, a couple of trips the gym now and again, these happened... but never to any satisfactory conclusions.

Health and fitness have become an important part of my life now, but even with these being more of a priority, I still haven't made many strides in the right direction.  I definitely eat better, I work out way more than I ever did, but the results haven't been much different than in the past.

I have been doing more research and investigating and I think I've come together with a solid strategy of diet and exercise that is finally going to make the changes I need.  I hope to have finally answered the question of what AND how to eat, and with the right kind of exercises to go along with it.

I can't say that it's going to be successful right now because I just started.  But inside my head, it's already happened.  I see it and visualize it everyday.  This is a huge battle won in itself.  But I'll only know if things are changing for me in a few months time.  Then I guess it'll be time for another blog to let people know if I was truly successful or not!