Main emphasis: Studying Mandarin. During the summer I've been getting a little book study nearly every day, and the regularity has increased progress greatly.
Main study is New Practical Chinese Reader 4... almost at the end of that volume, and I have NPCR5 propped up on a shelf as motivation. I study with a bunch of dictionaries nearby: Laurence Matthews' "Chinese Character Fast Finder" [Tuttle] to quickly locate pronunciation and general meaning... "Learner's Chinese/English Dictionary" [Nanyang Siang Pau, Shanghai] for additional meanings and compounds... Oxford's "Concise C/E E/C Dictionary" for deeper background... Wang Guo'an's "Handbook for 1000 Basic Chinese Characters" to get a sense of character/compound priority and stroke-order... Rich Harbaugh's "Chinese Characters: A Genealogy and Dictionary" to see how characters inter-relate and get some mnemonics... "Chinese Multi-Reading Characters Without Tears [Beijing University Press?] for certain tricky characters.
Beyond that, I've been using Anki Flashcards for drills before sleeping... regularly watch Chinese-language news and dramas... listen to NPCR4 audio each day while walking the commute... pick up isolated articles, blogs and tweets during the day. Many modalities, each with regularity.
Result: I can't quite get the gist from many conversations (dramas are easier; newscasts are stylized; tweets are colloquial), but I can see that I know many of the characters in many situations, and just need to be faster at recognizing, more flexible in putting them together. Distinct progress along the path to the goal.
Still listening to Cantonese each week, but haven't made any progress in understanding.
Fortunate occurrence at work: Now producing weekly summaries of news reports and blogposts on China, particularly with gaming, video, and mobile use. Lets me learn more. Greatly appreciated.
For cane use I'm more "walking in three", using the cane for occasional support rather than every-step support. Very, very helpful for defining personal space on the sidewalk... I'm always aware of others and strive to make their passage easier, but those who try to walk through me would have to walk through wood first, so it makes things a bit calmer. I'm not doing much with juggling rope, though... still an interest, just not much practice or improvement.
Still researching a trip to Yunnan in late autumn. The more I learn, the more I like.
That's it... steady work, noticeable improvement... still a long way to go.
