Today I did at least 20 minutes of focused 225-word-per-minute Q and A and very bravely looked at it afterwards, though I didn't have the patience to mock-grade it. Then I did the "FPP55" approach. I'd heard about it before, but had been deterred because it seems like there's way too many things to practice to choose from. But I picked at random some briefs/phrases that annoy me to forget and put them in a list and recorded myself saying silly sentences for five minutes and got to work at practicing them. Oh, and in the morning at work, I did finger drills.

Yesterday I felt like I had a terrible cold--and I still do, but it doesn't feel as bad--so I spent three hours in a hot bath. I did 20-some minutes of drills from a book in the afternoon before I got home. When I was in undergrad, I forced myself to calm down every Thursday by making a habit out of taking long baths. I think I should bring that practice back. And it does make colds more manageable.

Tonight I spent a while on the phone with my mentee, who is very lovely. I hope that I can be helpful. She asked me to text her a few times a week or more just to be like, "Hey, you, you should practice!" I'm not a very forceful person but I think that I can find ways to motivate her nicely. Really, the most important part is being encouraged and motivated, and it's difficult to generate that for yourself.

Making up sentences was kind of difficult. Here's what I came up with. In five days, we'll see how well I do at remembering these on the record. I have to tweak some because they get in the way of briefs/phrases that I remember just fine. (Like my family for "[pronoun]'re/'m going to be" is really easy, but "[noun] [verb] going to be [verb]/[adjective]" is hard.) The punctuation is not right on a lot of them, by the way. It turns out that I like listening to my voice so much that hearing it is a motivating factor. Weird, huh?

It's going to be an eggplant that looks like a unicorn. I worried what the unicycle's conclusion was going to be. If the cat is a ghost, what do you think the dog is? I want to know, what do you think about pumpkin spice? You think the car is red, but it's a red place you're going to. Once you know where you're going to, you're going to be fine. The last time I talked to the oracle, she threw me off a cliff. They haven't been talked to yet, but I think it will go fine. You're still waiting to send that email to them, huh? I gave 9 kittens to them 9 days ago. All the chaos that's going to be at the parade excites me. And I think that's going to be a tornado. What do you think held her back from becoming a trapeze artist? What do you think they did with their bindles full of vaccines? After going to Louisiana, I know that I need to become a public defender. Before going to her house, please make sure the scorpions are out of your shoes. I talked to the lawyers about game wardens and they were very sweet. Whoever they talked to convinced them to join the circus. The trees and the bees were very mean to them. The kittens had an orange glow to them. The orange kittens are going to be a comedy troupe. This story line is going to be boring but spicy. What do you think about the feminization of pumpkin candles? It's fun to ask questions like, "What do you think about the small woman who controls the tides?" The mouse is going to Sweden with your horse. You're going to have to slow down. Minnesota is going to think that the rest of you are crazy. She refused to be talked to as if she wer ea child. No matter who they talked to, they got the same answer. He waved his hand to them from the little window in the maroon house. It is cold to them but very warm to me. We're going to be eating lo mein for the rest of our lives. The stars are going to be pear-scented once we get up close. What do you think it feels like to be a little bear cub? I want to climb up to the moon on a ladder, but what do you think? We're going to the red light district to evangelize some people. The brownies are going to the ducks, who deserve them. Bubbles talked to animals and that's why I went vegetarian. There was this little vampire that I talked to all the time. No one had talked to me like that before. I gave the tickets to them and they were bright yellow. After we sold our house to them, she dyed her hair red. I know pigtails are going to be in style, probably with scrunchies. Tomorrow is going to be great. What do you think about Anoka County besides that it's full of really mean children? So what do you think we should do with our genie lamp? All that's going to happen is a bit of magic tricks. You said you would marry me, but I didn't actually think you were going to. We talked to 9 girls and they all said that Coach purses were cringe. How come you never talked to me about your passion for juices? To them, you're a crone, but to me, you're also a crone. If we go on this trip, we'll never stand up to them. I'm going to make a fool of myself because I can't make a sound and breathe in at the same time. It's going to be a really sultry December. That's too bad, kiddo, because that's how it's going to be. I talked to you in my dreams. We seem like a good match to them, and they're right because we do light stuff on fire.