I think I’m going to put German on hold right now and focus on Spanish. Why? The chance of getting called to a Spanish-speaking mission is much, much higher than the chance of getting called to a German-speaking one. German interests me more right now (because it’s not a Romance language, so it’s different), but it can wait. I’ll study it when I get back. Ditto for Russian.

Lisp and assembly language are both tempting me at the moment. Lisp (as well as Scheme) is a very cool extension language, from what I’ve seen. Emacs uses it, of course, as does Snd, and I’m sure plenty of other programs use it as well. Extension languages excite me. (Is this normal?) I’m also thinking of dabbling with databases (SQL, mainly). Too much to do and not enough time to do it. The perennial plaint.

I haven’t done much real writing lately, other than my journals and this website. I feel like writing an essay in defense of children’s literature. And I’ve been thinking a lot about time lately, and those thoughts seem to want to be molded into an essay. Whenever I think about writing anything like that — essays and the like — I can hear C.S. Lewis’ essays in my head, his style and voice. It’s almost like he’s my mentor, in a way. If I can ever become even half as good of a writer as he was, I will be perfectly satisfied.

I’m doing a much better job of keeping this journal updated than before. That’s good.

I read a talk by Orson Scott Card, Towards a Mormon Aesthetic. I liked it a lot. And now the writing impulse is upon me. But I’m tired and that destroys motivation. Fatigue is my enemy. I’ll probably take a nap so that the rest of the day won’t be wasted.

I ended up taking a two-hour nap. It worked. I wrote the first draft of an essay on materialism. It really is first draft material, so I’ll certainly have to revise it (tomorrow and later on). I’m not sure yet whether I’ve sapped all my writing energy for the day or not.

Hmm, much as I love doing all this writing, I think I need to prioritize my time. See, there are a few things I must get done before I leave on my mission, and other things that I ought to be doing before spending time on things that aren’t exactly necessary. (I’m not saying I’m going to stop writing or anything; of course not. But I just need to make sure I get everything else done first.)