Chinese
I (wǒ 我) am not so sure about learning Chinese anymore. There are multiple components of my personality responding all at once and giving conflicting advice. Even though I know making lists is useless, I am still going to try and compile a list of impulses for and against continuing with the class.
Continue:
- Knowing Chinese makes you look cool. So show-off ivan will be happy to impress people with his advanced exotic knowledge.
- There are lots of pretty girls in the class and it would be good to know them. So ivan-the-penis is definitely excited about getting to know them over the course of the semester/year.
- The only noble aspect of me that wants to continue with the class is ivan the challenge taker which thinks learning Chinese will be a serious challenge and wants to go for it.
Quit:
- Waking up early in the morning is going to be tough for lazy ivan. There will have to be studying, practice and effort. He don’t like the sound of that.
- Also keep in mind that responsibility of taking this class, assignments, quizzes are all going against free ivan who wants to be free of all such things.
- What about all the other more useful things I could be doing with my morning? Sure it is most likely that I would NEVER wake up before 11AM and work, but what if I wanted to do lots of stuff then I would be interrupted every morning 10:30 to 11:30 by this class. The dreaming of achieving ivan is not happy about such a commitment.
- Add to this judging ivan who is questioning the teaching ability of the professor and the worthiness of knowing Chinese in the first place. Won’t the Chinese learn English? What is the point!?
As you can see the inner battle is not settled. The regularity of having to wake up at the same time every day, show-up at 10:30 every morning is pretty good. After class I can do some administrative crap for 1h and then have lunch. Which leaves me the afternoon of every day for productive research in quantum information…. hmm…. when has the afternoon EVER been productive for me? Then there is the option of working before the class…. not very realistic. Waking up at 8am for 2h of work? Not realistic and how much work can you do in 2h.
I don’t believe in free will, so I guess i just have to wait and see which personality traits win over the battle.