Quarantine School

Over on the QS Discord sever (hi! come join us!), we did a weekly catch up on Monday to see how our members were doing with their new schedules. 

It was such a fantastic and illuminating voice-chat, and I took some notes that I’d like to share with you! Here are some of the main takeaways from the voice chat:

The main subject that we talked at length about was our schedules. We talked about how it feels to be following a regular schedule. 

One of the big take-aways of this voice chat session was the importance to know who you are as a learner/worker. We talked about how for some tasks, it is better to set a concrete goal (for example, “mega projects,” as one member put it), and for some tasks, it’s good to just put the time in and grind on it (for example, learning kanji!). 

 We talked about how it might be beneficial to mix the two ideas together (setting goals and following a schedule) to create balance. 

 We also talked about how it is beneficial to create from “float time” in our schedules to allow for flexibility (and of course, much needed relaxation).

Some fantastic ideas in here that I’ll also start to implement! Mainly - goal setting! 

Alright alright alright! 

Back with an update, y’all! Even though I’m at home all the time and not “technically” working, I feel as busy as ever! 

I suppose it comes with organizing QS and doing my scheduled periods, but I felt after the first week of QS, I was wiped out. I was pretty mentally and even physically exhausted. 

In my original schedule, I had slotted 6/7 days for QS which I have quickly rescheduled to 5/7 days for QS. Rest is important, and I’m trying to not let my productivity-brain trick me into otherwise! 

So, here’s my schedule for this week - with 2 days of rest! 

Hello all you cool cats and kittens! (Yes, like you, I’m watching Tiger King.) 

Day 4 and 5 of QS went by in the blink! These were the two days that I was the most anxious about because I gave myself double periods of blogging and writing. While I quite enjoy writing, I have some approach anxiety about my blog as I’ve neglected it for a while. I felt a bit anxious to get back into it, but sometimes, you just gotta start. No matter what the outcome is, starting is a key step, so I’m glad I managed to sit down and get some writing done. 

In QS news, 

A friend kindly pointed out that I had spelled QUARANTINE wrong in the first version of the logo!! Dang y’all, I was just too excited to share it with you. I’ve updated the logo to have correct spelling... so here it is. 

Secondly, I’ve updated the Resources section of the QS excel file with some the links that members of the QS school have posted in the Discord! Feel free to check it out. 

Lastly, we’ve got 4 members (including me!) on the QS discord. It’s quite lively, and we’re all super nice - so, come on and join us! Please message me if you’d like the Discord link. We’re still in the soft stages of testing it out and not quite ready to do a full public release!

Yesterday was my day off, and I made sure to rest up~

But today, oh boy! A big day!

First, I managed to do all my scheduled periods! Woop! I’ll be moving PE back today as well, as my lovely friend, Mike @maikuyoga, is going to be leading a yoga class on Zoom in the evening. 

Let’s get to the big news - there’s two things!

First, I made a logo for QS! I feel very design challenged, so I’m proud of what I made hehe. 

What do you think?? 

Second, I’ve set up a Discord server for the QS community! Let’s chat and connect on there! If you don’t know what Discord is, it’s a pretty cool platform that let’s you organize different text and voice “channels” that kinda function like different rooms. It’s my first time using Discord, so we’ll see how it goes! Message me if you are interested, and I’ll shoot you the link :D 

April 6th, 2020

It was also hard to get out of bed and on time to start my schedule today. I usually get to reading time around 9:30am rather than 9:20am, but that's not a huge problem for me.

Today felt really good and productive. I was able to do all periods of QS today! For my Japanese writing time, I wrote a mini essay (more like an email response) to my old Japanese tutor who wanted to chat about what are the essentials things needed during a disaster.

During 3rd, I started up Draw a Box again from the dreaded box portion. I'll be taking a lot of time with drawing boxes from now on. For Art Free Time, I started making a little zine about anxiety and the little comforts we can find in them during coronatime.

We did a low cardio bodyweight video from Fitness Blender for PE.

A nice and productive day! Feels good man.

April 5th, 2020

That was the first day of me starting Quarantine School!

It was a soft introduction to productivity.

I neglected to post on tumblr about this event as I got a bit busy. But, that’s how it’s going to be when you are self learning. Just gotta go with the flow~

This is what I thought of my first day of QS (copy pasted from my personal Excel file):

A soft introduction to Quarantine School life. I struggled to get Reading Time started on time, and got to it around 9:30 and was able to read about two pages of the Kojiki. 1st and 2nd period went fine and as planned. The reality of studying from home is to also be flexible, and 3rd and 4th period were dedicated to helping facilitate the online Women's English-Japanese conversation group that I help run. The most intimidating thing on my list is probably getting my blog and social media up to snuff - so I've kept it off the docket for today in lieu of the Zoom meeting. PE will also be pushed back so the boy and I can do it together later.

If you are ready to start your Quarantine School life - I’ve uploaded an Excel file on Google sheets with a copy of:

1) My Schedule

2) Schedule Template (please feel free to use it!)

3) Resources - this is an ongoing project. Please add whatever resources that you think would be helpful for people! 

This is my #quarantineschool schedule for the first week of April!

This is an experiment and I’ve kinda set up my schedule a bit arbitrarily and based on my tendencies, so we’ll see how I like this schedule in the week going forwards! 

I slotted in time to read every morning and I made sure to make it something fun, so I look forward to it. I’ve been reading Kojiki Monogatari which is about the origins of Japanese mythology - let’s chat if you’ve read it before!

Some of my “periods” are double periods because I know it takes time for me to make and create. 

I’ve only taken one day off - I wonder if this will lead me to burn out?! Let’s see how it goes next week!

I believe that the first step to creating your “school schedule” is to identify what you what you want to achieve. 

For me, these are some my 2020 goals that I have for myself. But truly, these are some goals that I’ve wanted to accomplish for... forever... 

1) Pass JLPT N2

2) Create a cache of posts for my travel blog.

3) Draw more. Draw better.

4) Read more. (Japanese books, especially)

5) Become more financially literate re: investing/personal finance. 

6) Make more things. (I wanna make a zine!) 

So, you’re stuck at home. 

Maybe you’ve been laid off, furloughed, or straight up fired cuz of the ‘roni. (It’s gonna catch on y’all. Trust. You just gotta start calling the coronavirus/COVID-19 the ‘roni!) 

That’s my situation now. As of April 1st, I’ve been furloughed from my job in the travel industry. The ‘roni has wrecked immense havoc on the travel industry, and I worked for a grand total of eight days before I was furloughed. Just call it bad timing!

Before switching industries, I was a teacher for six years. As a teacher, I was always the keener-type and tried to learn as much as I could on the side about how to be a better teacher. Call it as it is: I’m a keener. I’m overly enthusiastic, zealously eager, and just plain’ ol passionate. I quit teaching to follow my passion to work in the travel industry, and now that that ain’t working out I need a new outlet. 

Some of you might take this time in quarantine to relax, slow down, and log hours in Animal Crossing (I ain’t judging! That shit is too cute). 

But for aggressively Type A personalities, like me, I wanna be productive.

For someone who is obsessed with school, I wanna fucking learn.