I’ve been very sick for nearly three weeks. As a result, I’ve also been very inactive, and my self-improvement goals have been set aside. I haven’t exercised or played my piano since I started feeling ill. I’d been doing almost an hour a day toward each goal: exercising, playing piano, and studying Spanish with other family members on the Duolingo app.

I didn’t have enough energy to play piano or to exercise, but I was close to a 100-day streak on Duolingo, and I wanted to make it to the 100-day mark. No matter how badly I felt, I did one Spanish lesson each day (5-10 minutes), just to keep my streak alive. I didn’t learn much. I felt so awful, it was hard to concentrate, and sometimes I lost three or four hearts on a single 10-12 question lesson. (Each error costs one heart. If you lose five hearts, you’re locked out until the hearts refill over a period of hours.) I’ll have to re-do that entire unit when I feel better so I can learn the new vocabulary words, but I kept my streak alive.

My weekly report from Duolingo noted my decreased activity on the app over the first two weeks of my illness.

Duolingo wasn’t happy about that, and the app took action. I was close to promotion to the next league, but I lost that opportunity and was demoted to a lower league.

The cheerful (?) “Better luck next time” wasn’t exactly heartwarming. Is this what I get for working to keep my streak alive, even when no me siento bien (I don’t feel well)?

It’s fun to know that other family members are also learning Spanish with Duolingo, and I generally enjoy the app, but I would prefer learning with in-person classmates and a classroom teacher. My Duolingo goal is not to have the longest streak, the most extra points, or the highest rank. My goal is to learn a lot of vocabulary and then to take a continuing education Spanish class next fall or winter to work on grammatical constructions and to practice speaking with a group of like-minded students.

I’m not heartbroken about my Duolingo demotion, but after I reach 100 consecutive days of using Duolingo (four to go), I’m not going to worry about another streak. I have a life, and even God took a day off! 🙂