A Palace of Ideas
Bio
Writings on languages, literature, and life musings. You can find all of my projects here: https://apalaceofideas.notion.site/A-Palace-of-Ideas-Notion-Templates
Stories (43/0)
Why I Want to Be a Polyglot
Ever since I can remember, I have been passionate about language learning. As a child, I was embarrassed by my interest in it, but as an adult, I am grateful for the opportunity to learn new languages and gain new perspectives from speaking to people in their native tongue. I have often been asked why I like learning languages or why I want to be a polyglot, and recently I have been reflecting on this question. Here are four reasons that I have for becoming a polyglot.
By A Palace of Ideasabout 5 hours ago in Humans
Cabs and Bags
I recently returned from a one-month trip to West Bengal, India. After three weeks back home, I’m ready to reflect on the experience. I don’t want to go down the path of “I’m a white person and a month-long trip in India changed my life” because I find those stories eye-roll worthy. Instead, I’m going to share some reflections on a few key experiences I had while I was there.
By A Palace of Ideasabout 5 hours ago in Journal
January 2023 Reading Wrap-Up
January is usually one of my stronger reading months. I think this is due to the holidays at the start of the year and the pleasant weather. January in Australia is a summer month and there is an abundance of outdoor activities that come with that. People usually take a book to read during these activities, and with the sun shining and the waves crashing, I tend to get a lot of reading done in January while lying on a beach or in a park.
By A Palace of Ideas3 days ago in Education
Half Milwordy
In 2022, I made a commitment to myself to write more, and I followed through with that promise. I began publishing posts to various online blogging websites and also started my first novel at the beginning of the year. To challenge myself, I decided to participate in NaNoWriMo and aimed to write a novel in a month. Despite the immense pressure and challenge, I was able to write 28,000 words towards my novel and got into a rigorous, productive writing habit. Unfortunately, I got sick halfway through the month, which hindered my progress, but had I not been ill, I am sure I would have achieved the goal.
By A Palace of Ideas15 days ago in Motivation
2023 Language Plan
In 2022, I set quarterly language goals. I found that setting goals in my target languages that had smaller time-frames provided me with greater focus and direction when it came to studying. I want to be able to track my progress and see how well I’m doing throughout 2023 and thus, I will be setting language goals for each quarter. My goal this year is to focus on consistency and making sure that I’m studying every day, as well as ensuring that I’m not afraid to use more traditional methods such as making vocab lists and memorizing grammar. Additionally, I want to track the time that I spend studying languages to better understand what works and what doesn’t.
By A Palace of Ideas15 days ago in Wander
My 2023 Reading Goals
In 2022, I tracked my reading for the first time. My chief goal for 2022 was a number book goal. However, I found that to be unhelpful for increasing my reading enjoyment. I have decided to track my reading again in 2023, but in a different way. To make sure I’m able to make time for reading, I have decided to set some reading goals for myself for 2023. I wanted to make sure that my goals were achievable, so I looked at my 2022 statistics from The StoryGraph to get an idea of what would be realistic. I also wanted to ensure that I was balancing different genres, as well as reading books from around the world. With that in mind, I created the following four goals for myself.
By A Palace of Ideas15 days ago in Education
2023 Planning Routine
In 2023, I want to reinvent my planning routine. My life has changed significantly in recent years and my previous planning systems are not working to help me reach my full potential. After careful consideration and spending all of December testing different methods, I have chosen to use three main planning systems: Bullet Journalling, Notion, and Excel.
By A Palace of Ideasabout a month ago in Motivation
Why you shouldn’t set a number book goal
At the beginning of 2022, I decided to track my reading for the first time in my life. I thought that the easiest way to do that was to set a goal of the number of books that I wanted to read. I set the goal of reading 100 books because I thought that reading two books a week was very doable. Setting numbers for goals is easy to track, which is why I chose a book number goal for 2022. However, I now know that this was not the best way for me to track my reading for the year.
By A Palace of Ideas2 months ago in Lifehack
Why I Diversify My Writing
In the past year, I've read a lot of advice about how to make a living writing online. One particular piece of advice that I have read time and time again is to "niche down", ie. choose a very specific topic, become an expert in that topic, and only write about that topic. While niching down can be good advice for some people, I wanted to provide some reasons as to why I won't be doing it any time soon.
By A Palace of Ideas3 months ago in Motivation
Notion Vs. Bullet Journaling
It's coming to the end of another year. That means that it's time for all Type-A planners to think about next year's planning system. Personally, I'm feeling conflicted about my system for next year. In my adult life, two key planning systems have been successful at different times: bullet journaling and Notion.
By A Palace of Ideas3 months ago in Motivation
NaNoWriMo Update
For those who don’t know, November is National Novel Writing Month, shortened to NaNoWriMo. The aim is to write 50,000 words for a single project. A.K.A. the aim is to write an entire draft of a novel. Many people, myself included, dream of writing an entire novel and NaNoWriMo provides them with the motivation, structure, and support to do so. 2022 is the first year that I am partaking in NaNoWriMo and I am writing my first novel. I had an idea for a project, a lot of motivation, and, most importantly, enough time on my hands to spend writing each day.
By A Palace of Ideas3 months ago in Motivation
