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aelephant comments on Open Thread for January 8 - 16 2014 - Less Wrong
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My friend will have one month of unemployment in the SF Bay Area and is looking for projects, experiences, and ideas to make zirself awesome. My friend works in the biological sciences, but plans to apply to medical school. Traits include being multilingual (english, mandarin, french), very limited spanish, cooking, sub-power user competent technology use. Not widely read, not x-rational, difficulties with akrasia, drive, self-confidence, public speaking, making friends. No significant knowledge of coding, math beyond calculus II, philosophy, sociology, politics, economics. Normal fitness levels, but does not regularly exercise.
Where should ze look for advice on how to spend a month without work? What kind of activities would be good to pursue? Goals include acceptance to medical school, forming an alternative career, or other non-specified ideas about becoming a better person.
Wow, how do you master Mandarin AND French with difficulties with akrasia & drive?
Ze speaks Mandarin and English natively. Ze was born in China and moved to USA at a young age. French was learned in high school, then more in college. French is also a relatively easy language to get the basics of if you speak English, and ze spent a year living in France which no doubt helped a great deal.
Akrasia doesn't necessarily mean you're incapable of studying everything. It could just mean that you e.g. spend all your time studying languages when you should be working.
Also, three languages isn't that much if you have the right background: I speak Finnish because I live in Finland, Swedish because I had Swedish-speaking relatives and went to a Swedish-speaking elementary school, and English because that was the language most of the most interesting entertainment was in. I don't remember really needing to actively study any of them: I just picked them up via childhood immersion, not unlike many other people from the same background. (Well, I did keep asking my parents about the English terms in video games and such early on, but that never felt like studying.)