Vacation Chinese Studying

Well, the teaching period has ended, and I started my vacation on Wednesday. This means that I may have more time to dedicate to studying. The first part of my vacation will be dedicated to traveling, so studying may take a back seat. I intend to maintain my discipline of studying Anki everyday. Anki is a flashcard program that I am using to work on many areas of Chinese learning. Right now, I am focusing on pronounciation. I created an Anki pronounciation file that will likely take 11 months in total to complete. I have been working on it for over three months so far, so I have another eight months left. Although I am focusing on pronounciation, I am also working on other areas as well. I am in the process of listing all the information from a Chinese character textbook onto Anki. I practice my writing as well as my pronounciation, but I am not focusing as hard on the character writing right now, I spend between 20 - 30 minutes per day on character writing. I also work on files that were created on a now defunct website known as 'Smartfm'. They have been produced for Anki, but they have been adapted to suit the Anki format. I am not really focusing on these study tools as greatly as the others. I also have an Anki lesson that pertains to HSK preperation sentences, chinese characters, and a lesson that pertains specifically to food related vocabulary.
I also created a file that I use to learn words that I learned using Chinesepod and from my grammar textbook. This also takes a pretty good chunk of studying time. In all, I spend over an hour per day on Anki. In the short-term, I expect that that time will increase, then maybe in 6 months or so, decrease back to the level that I am at now.
A few weeks ago, I made the jump from Intermediate to Upper-Intermediate on Chinesepod. It was quite hard. I am still doing Intermediate lessons as well as I find that I can still learn new content. Despite daily Chinese studying, my score on the Chinesepod placement exam has not improved considerably. Perhaps in a few more months, I will find improvement on that exam.
So after three years of studying, my Chinese is still not that good. It is improving at a moderate pace over a considerable period, but I still have a long ways to go.I can understand simple conversations, and I do pretty well if I am talking to someone speaking the standard dialect, and speaking carefully. If they try to talk to me like they would a Chinese person, they easily blow me out of the water. Anyhow, thats all for now.

01 year 9 weeks into study

Hello everyone,
The progress this week started off a bit bumpy, but the last few days have been average. I would say that the progress of this week, like last week, was either average or a little bit under average. Here are the specifics;
Currently, I have flashcards for 640 terms (more or less) and I have already selected 60 terms for next week. I have started the term selection for the following week, adding a handful of terms that are repeaters from words that I learned previously. This is a delicate way for me to admit that I had forgotton some of the terms that I had learned. My stack has gotton so large that I review only half the stack each Wednesday instead of the entire stack. This is after carefully shuffling the entire stack to attempt to get random terms, which can be quite the task.
Using the flashcards, I had a good week besides Friday. I am averaging 10 words or so getting added to the stack every day, which is good because I am adding 10 words to the pile of words that I am learning each day. This means that I am keeping pace. I find that when I add words, I learn them at roughly three times going through them, which is good. This means that I am normally done with the flashcards for the night within an hour.
Speaking and listening started out a bit weak, but the last three or four days have been average to above average. On Wednesday, I did two podcasts instead of my normal one podcast. As I have pointed out in the past, the speaking and listening is more difficult for me than reading. I add 10 words to the flashcards everyday (except wednesday which is my review day), and the podcasts have about only 5 - 10 words each. Being that I do only one podcast per day, it is necessary to conclude that the speaking will continue to fall further behind the reading.
While speaking and listening are difficult, I have found one strategy that seems to help some. When listening to the audio review, and encountering a new term, I try to think of an english word, or sound that is similar to the term. Once I do that, I memorize the sounds and words instead of trying to memorize the word. On the next pass through, I focus on the sounds and words for the pronounciation. This ensures that I get the term correct. Soon, I don't have to remember the sounds and words anymore, and I acquire the new term in Chinese. Subsequently, I repeat the word to get as close to the model as possible.
I hope this is helpful, also please feel free to leave comments if you have any strategies for learning how to speak the language.

01 year 06 week into study

Hello everyone,
Things are much better than they were when I wrote the last update. For one thing, it doesnt take forever for me to type anymore. It took a bit of time to write that last post. Anyhow, this week I have had slow but steady progress. Like always, I struggle with verbal, and I do better with the reading. I am focusing on recognizing the symbols, but I haven't practiced writing them. I also found a nifty way to print off flashcards instead of doing them by hand. This saves time, and it also helps ensure that I am getting the correct character.
Physically, I am not feeling so hot, so I think I will stop talking now.

01 year 02 week into study

Hello everyone,
Once again, I am posting this a few days early on account of having to work over the weekend. This week was another slow one, being that I am consumed with final exam week at my college. I have flashcards for about 280 terms now, acquisition on about 250 or so, and proficiency on about 75. Study has been slow and steady. I have been working at it every day except for those days where it is not possible to do so.
I haven't started my pinyin studies yet, and I plan to do so in the upcoming weeks. I don't feel as enthusiastic about my chinese studies as I did when I first started. It is hard work, and it is slow going, but like someone said to me last week, the words will 'snowball' and soon I will find that I have a range of vocabulary.
I am really weak in the spoken side of my learning. Since the email from last week, I have completed three lessons. I really struggle with pronunciation. Also it seems that I have difficulty retaining the spoken words. For example, I will listen to a podcast, repeat a vocabulary word ten times, play it again, and not remember the word I was just pronouncing. This is quite frustrating. Anyhow, I am still trudging despite these discouraging events.
Feel free to leave thoughts or other feedback