I have always been surprised by the diversity of Skritterers. In the course of running the company, Nick, Scott, and I have had the opportunity to meet with some intensely creative, motivated individuals. And so it was no surprise when I got a response to the challenge stories request with this picture attached:
More important than the picture though, was this short story that was appended:
“25 hours of Chinese in 25 days. Seems easy. The problem is, its more like 35 hours. Then you add a girlfriend and a midterm and things start to get out of control.
I started the competition the first of May. On the 5th I had to write my mid-year Mandarin exam. Going in, I had a backlog of about 1000 items and so for the first whole week I was just cramming the one list that prepared me to write my exam. As a result, for the rest of the 25 days, I had a 3000+ item backlog to keep me entertained. The challenge gave me just the boost to really get into my studies.
But there were obstacles: huge parts of South Africa are still without wireless internet access. I traveled north right in the middle of the competition, and couldn’t study. Together with my upcoming exams, this made the completion of the second half almost impossible.
But after a while, I actually started to look forward to my study sessions. My eagerness to learn the language kept me motivated, more so than the writing tablet.
In the end I cleared my backlog and learned so many new characters. I plan to keep up the hour a day routine as long as possible. Thanks for the great product Skritter! You are making all the difference.”