Colds suck

Let's just say, it doesn't make for the most engaging study session when your nose is dripping like a water faucet as you lean over to jot down your kanji. Truth be told, I've not been at my prime for the past few days, barely managing to review 100 kanji a day (about 25 per day of "new", unreviewed kanji) - certainly not bad, but still beneath the 150ish I've been aiming for. Point being, this cold really didn't come at a great time, as I hate falling behind - see this previous post for more information.

In order to "cut corners" and keep up a decent pace through my (hopefully brief) illness, I've decided to skip the writing part for today and simply work out all the radicals and elements in my head as I go along. Handwriting and "muscle memory" are things I feel strongly about reinforcing, thus my insistence to write kanji as frequently as possible, but I do feel as though I've learned to write the vast majority of difficult strokes and elements already, so I'm not all that concerned. I'm actually curious to see how this session works out - if all goes well, perhaps I may ease up on the writing a bit after all, ill or not.

I should also mention that I've been employing "time boxing" more frequently lately, especially when I've been really tempted to stop the boring reps and fire up some more entertaining Fallout 3 (yes, yes - a game that is not yet in Japanese). 30 minute sessions via a software stopwatch really helps kick up momentum and keep my attention on my studies, rather than drifting to my RSS reader, or Japanese cat videos, or so forth.

Now to begin that 30 minute session.