Re: Promiseland
One Of Those Days, easily distracted and no focus, but I have gotten a few things done. In the ADHD 'I intended to do something else but I mean, I'll take it' sort of way
Importantly, I've confirmed that my webcam and headset will work for class, which is starting next week. Still haven't heard anything directly from the professor which has me kind of nervous, and the canvas is still kind of fucked up, but I've got the zoom room number so, I mean, I guess that's all I really need? I did notice that a new, evening class has appeared and I'm very tempted to switch to it, but there's a risk that it get cancelled if not enough students sign up for it and the class starts very soon. It's also not, like, a great time slot for me, just slightly better than the noon to 2 slot I'm currently in.
Anyway, camera works. Just need to arrange the guest room to be able to do everything in there, and to figure out a way to read from the textbook at the same time. Possibly hook the laptop up to a second monitor, put the zoom meeting on there and the textbook on the laptop's native monitor? That would probably work
I really feel like at the very least the professor should be sending out a message reminding people that Monday is a holiday, so there won't be class (or, at least, I'm pretty sure there won't be class, but like, that slight doubt is why I want confirmation). No, actually, at the very least the professor should be sending out a message that the course has gone live in canvas, because the only reason I know about it is that I have anxiety and obsessively check it every couple days. Every class I've taken so far, the professor has sent out a message before classes start being like 'Welcome to the class, remember to check the portal for announcements, remember to get the book' and so on. 'Hey the syllabus is available with all of the expectations for this class and everything you need to know before class starts' would be appreciated
I did look up the professor on ratemyprofessors and the reviews weren't great, specifically pointing out that the professor is less good with technology than you'd want from an online class, to the extent that I considered waitlisting into the other professor's class, but her reviews were also not super great and she's the only professor that runs the next Japanese course, so I figured I'd stick with this professor for 401 and then see how I like the other professor for 402. I'm not regretting that decision yet, but I am starting to have thoughts about it.
Oz is getting progressively more difficult about taking her pills and I'm not sure what I'm going to be able to do about it. Hopefully as she gets better (touch wood) her appetite in general will also get better. I'm going to start giving her her pill before she's eaten, though, so she's at maximum appetite for it.
Cael is being a butthead today, I assume because of the break in the feliway exposure, but also as has been noted he just has days like that.
Duolingo is once again continuing its path of enshittification, and I'm once again considering dropping it. I just started using it again on January 1st because doing a full year that aligned with the actual year seemed satisfying to me, but it's just. Getting so bad. Getting rid of community posts means that when the app does something suspicious -- it's teaching me それら right now, which is more-or-less 'those', as in 'those books' (それら本), the suspicion here being that I am almost positive that それら is very uncommonly used, with plurals mostly being understood through context. Every source I can find outside duolingo confirms that for me, though I have been confidently wrong about this sort of thing before. But without community posts I can't just click into the comments section of the question and see people discussing it!
And of course the push for "AI" everything -- do I even need to go into that?
So it's getting less effective as a learning tool, and it's getting less fun, so why should I continue to use it? I should just give up on it, probably. I'll keep an eye on the alternatives, maybe give lingodeer yet another try. I'm specifically keeping an eye on lingonaut, but I feel like it's promising more than it's going to be able to deliver, and also doesn't exist yet. But I'll try it out when it does
Losing out on this one resource for japanese is not a huge deal. But losing it for irish is. Unfortunately it was lost for irish a good while back, so sticking around now isn't going to do anything there.