It was a happy Thursday...

Image from here

Today was a good day.

I woke up at 5:30AM, got up fifteen minutes later and then changed into running clothes. Around 6, I headed out and made my way to the park connector. It was still dark when I reached the park connector and when I started my run.

Since I had a bunch of things to do today, I decided I'll just do a short 3K run. Having run a few times at the park connector, I'm slowly getting an idea of how far I should go to hit a 3K. Hehe! I started early today so I missed having a view of the sun rays bringing colour to the sky. Still, it was a good start for the day.

Afterwards, it was work as usual. From today until next Friday, it will be quite busy for me as I am covering for a colleague who was called to serve the nation for close to two weeks. I'm hoping that his counterparts will not give me a headache. Hehe!

Around noontime, I had a meeting which had good results. I thought it wasn't going well but I was pleased to hear good feedback afterwards.

In the evening, I had my Japanese class. In a previous post, I think I wrote how I do well in the first half of the class and how I get a headache by the second half of the class. Well, I'm happy to share that tonight I did well even in the second half of the class.

What was different?

It involved self-motivation and realigning my mindset. The past few weeks, I've been struggling with the second half of the class, yes. But on top of that, I kept thinking that this class is so difficult or that this teacher does not adopt to the learning level of the students. The result is I shut out whatever the teacher was saying.

Tonight, I really prepped myself for the class. I studied the lessons days ahead of the class. I did my practice. But the most important thing I did differently tonight was to really open my mind and tell myself, "Never mind if the teacher speaks the natural pace, I will try my very best to listen and understand what was being said."

It worked. I was able to understand almost 85% of what the teacher was saying. The remaining 15% I had to raise my hand and ask the teacher to repeat or clarify. What was also different about tonight was I enjoyed the class. I may have dreaded the start of the second half. But after doing a self-check, I found myself feeling better and really enjoying.

So yeah, no headache when I left school today and on my way home. Yay!

Today was a good day....