Otherness

That 🐈‍💨 is a valid interest.

I've been in the mood for some deep/dub techno lately and found this sampler from insectorama. It's pretty good and I might throw some cred at them later so I can stream it at work.

It has to be epic. So here is some epic IDM.

As some may know, I've been spending my 2022 learning Ukrainian and some Russian. I'm learning Ukrainian because I'm pissed about Putin's bullshit and Russian both because I have an OC who speaks Russian and because I've been told Russian and Ukrainian are comparable and I wanted to find out if it was true for myself.

While I have some issues with the way Duolingo has been going, nevertheless, I have stuck with it and have been using it since 2020, when I decided to up my Spanish game so I could better understand my filthy reggaeton music.

Duo gave me this little year in review collage and I realised that hey, I actually accomplished something this year, so I thought I'd just post it because I'm kinda proud.
( cut for image )

I really don't enjoy the new path system for Duolingo. I miss gathering crowns and I miss being able to choose whether I want to learn Skill A or Skill B on the same level of a tree. And I miss trees.

Overall, at this moment in time, I'll say it makes learning less enjoyable and it erased some of my progress from the old tree system. Yes, I can go back and test out of it but I really don't feel I should have to do that when I already tested out before they got this genius brain idea to make progress look different. I can't really tell what I'm accomplishing in this new system, even if other people CAN. I wish there was an option to revert to the old tree system as there had been in the first few days of the supposed "upgrade" where you could surf organically to your Duo Learn page and get the trees and you could use the Path system through their e-mail.

I wouldn't pay one cent for this new system. Luckily, I am not a paying member of Duolingo. And at this rate, I'll never be.

It's been a while, hasn't it?

How about some free Mallsoft?

Yesterday, I hit 130 days of using Duolingo to learn Ukrainian to show my solidarity with Ukraine. This is the second-longest streak I've had in my history of learning languages using Duolingo: I have 175 days learning Spanish to better understand my filthy reggaetón music.

I dropped Duo Spanish sometime last year due to the stresses of working an "essential" public-facing job during the Pandemic and because my then-supervisor was a toxic git. Since then, I have thought about picking up Spanish again as it's very useful here but all I've done is think about it as one of my more favourite reggaetoneros has "retired" and I've also somewhat stepped back from the genre as my tastes have changed a bit in the 3 years since I became enamoured of reggaetón. I also burnt myself out on Duo Spanish by deciding I would make Diamond League as soon as possible, which meant binging stories (before they took out that shortcut) and binging lessons, which just saturated me to the point of surfeit.

It has been easier to keep up with Ukrainian, however, I have not tried doing the lessons during the Holidays, which, to be fair, was yet another reason I stopped Duo Spanish. The added stresses of the holiday season aren't conducive to mental health, let alone hobbies that require work. Still, we'll see what happens this year as I am not competing against a load of random strangers and am only aiming for one lesson a day.

I had meant to learn Russian alongside Ukrainian, however, I dropped it as well, thanks to assorted reasons I shan't be discussing in public. The original thought on it was to compare the two languages and I still mean to but my concentration hasn't been the best since June.

Still, learning new languages has been enjoyable even if many programs on Duo don't exactly prepare you to hold realistic conversations IRL.