Learnt my 50 kanji for tomorrow, yesh! We have to learn how to write them from memory now, something which is harder than it seems! So many strokes in certain orders. TOO MANY RULES.

(I’m currently trying to open a pot of tiramisu with little luck… I will be back)

Mmmm, tiramisu!!! Oh my god I totally have an iPhone now so I can show you (I have recently converted to the dark side… late I know!)

Hmm, doesn't look like much here but it was really tasty!

Haha that looks so pathetic! You can even see my ancient laptop! Shame on me! So yeah, just got myself an iPhone!!! (Well, I found one in a taxi and claimed it!)  Still don’t really know how to use this thing and to be honest I don’t really love it, I used to have an awesome LG which I loved with all my heart… alas gone it is!

Anyway.. don’t really know what that tangent was about! And now I’m way too tired to carry on writing! So goodnight!

Rage!

Luckily I’d already done quite a bit of work for my presentation, which I’m very kindly going to share with you now!

Firstly I’ve done a bit about Japan’s Twenty-one Demands to China in 1915. So, the rest of the world was so preoccupied with WWI that Japan took advantage and got aggressive all over China, demanding certain privileges, knowing that nobody was around to bail them out.  (I ramble on about this for a few pages!)

Next comes Japan’s Peace Preservation Law of 1925. They basically denied about 200,000 people the right to vote with a little loophole, and then, to stop people having a response to this awful bill they enacted a law saying that people basically didn’t have the right to oppose the political party in ANY WAY – very George Orwell/Totalitarianism.

And last, but by no means least, the March 1st Movement in 1919 where Korea decided they’d had enough of Japan’s crap, drew themselves up a Declaration of Independence and then strolled though the cities in protest, wanting to be independent of Japan.

It all looks a lot more impressive that this… So, I’m in need of help please, what do these 3 factors have in common? I need a little summary

Click for my article on On... Yeah I know, I'm so funny.

I’m currently working on another little art-related article for the wonderful people of Lingualift BUT I mustn’t neglect Japancinema.net so tonight I’m gonna watch another explicit movie and see what everyone has to say about it!

Until all of that however I have a lot of uni work to do (it never ends!) Today I’m focusing on 2 (TWO!) presentations that I have next week! One is a Japanese speaking test, I’ve gotta describe a photo, I’ve decided to use one of me and my friends on holiday in Italy… I’ll show you it:

My wonderful friends and I in Itaria!

Ahhh, my beautiful long hair *sniff*

I figure that there’s quite a lot to talk about in this picture so it should make for a good presentation.

My next presentation is about… Hmmm… I don’t actually know! That doesn’t help… Let me see…

The history of Japan – The Twenty-one Demands (don’t know what that is?) The Peace Preservation Law (again, what?) and The March First Movement! So all in all, I’m pretty screwed for that! Sounds as boring as it gets doesn’t it really? Any takers?

Yummy

Bento fun

How good do they look? They look like they would take about 14 hours to make, how do these women have time for housework? Unfortunately, my western indoctrination doesn’t really allow me to see the nice point of view in women’s subordination. I mean, I totally agree that different sexes are good at different things (women nurture and men go to war!) We have different roles and although I’m all for equal rights and what not, sometimes we have to just sit down and think about what our gender says about us, our instincts as men or women and what we know about each sex. HOWEVER I would like to stress that although I think different sexes suit different roles, I DON’T think that one role is more important than the other!!! The world needs men to go out and fight, hunt and build for our survival, but it needs women to raise future fighters/hunters/builders and to look after her husband and their home so that he has anything to even fight/hunt/build for, without the emotional, nurturing and logical support that a woman provides, men wouldn’t be able to do all of those manly tasks that they are so proud of… and vice versa.

Eat that men of the world.

Aww, Valentine's Octopussy

And luckily, here in the UK we  get chocolates and presents, yay! I know that in Japan it’s customary for the women to give chocolate to men and then you have a sort of  ’reply day’ a month later? But from what I’ve read the women get back about 3 times what they gave so that can’t be bad! To be honest, Valentine’s Day is a bit of a jib really, all this commercialism is enough to make me wanna throw up! And literally all the shops turn pink and fluffy, it’s a bit too much (Japanese shops are probably pink, fluffy and kawaii all year round so it wouldn’t be that bad!)

I’ve just eaten out of date houmous. Ew.

In other non-Valentine’s news, I got myself a post for a wonderful blog; Lingualift.com The site is aimed at those wanting to learn Japanese but they also have a brilliant blog section with all sorts of articles about Japanese culture, food, fashion etc. It seemed apt that I start out writing a post on a Top 5 must-see Japanese films sooooo GO:

Click for my post

All this blogging and review writing gets me really excited Anyway, on with my Japanese studies, I’ve been a bit naughty and neglected it! Happy Valentines Day Everyone…

Happy today Found out I could see what we were going to study in our Reading and Writing class before the lesson so I was as prepared as I possibly could have been today! On top of that, during my Person-hood, Gender and the Body in Contemporary Japan lecture I met this fourth year Japanese student who seems as much as an outsider as me (ie, he’s normal!) So now my group work for that lecture doesn’t seem so daunting because I have a friend. YAY!

I don’t think I’ve actually explained to you how odd my class is… or how odd all Japanese classes seem to be (according to the ‘normies’ that I’ve met). So there’s me, I am obviously very into Japan, I have a keen interest and want to learn the language but I don’t really look like I do. Well, really when you look at any student in the university it’s not so easy just to guess what it is they’re studying because well, everyone just looks normal and peoples’ subjects don’t really stand out, everyone except the Japanese students. You can literally spot them a mile away, they are the ‘outsiders’ in any normal situation. Pink hair, cosplay hat, kawaii stickers all over their text-books, Hello Kitty bag, New Rock boots. My class looks like Malice Mizer puked all over a Ganguro convention. Literally all Japanese subcultures banged into one class room. And then there’s mere… I rolled out of bed, wearing joggers and a HUGE hoodie (it’s snowing here so it’s sooo cold) my hair is sticking up all over the place (but not in a cool punk way) there was just no comparison to the Visual Kei leather/fur that was going on. I’m too old. I always say that goth should have an age limit, the same goes for any other overly eccentric street fashion.

So, because of my difference in fashion and the fact that I’m not some sort of Japanese trekkie or otaku in an obvious way they all hate me and I have no friends! Brilliant. UNTIL I met my friend yesterday who was in the exact same position! Shame we’re not in the same Japanese classes really… Oh well, loneliness prevails!

My review on Japancinema.net. Click Click Click.

Not the most pleasant picture I’ve featured, but hey, we all need a bit of shock from time to time! Click the picture and read my review on Suicide Club. I’m sure most of you will have seen it, it is quite grim but definitely worth the watch. I should also mention that suicide is a real issue in Japan, the movie and its review are for entertainment purposes (I received a comment on the review… which you will see if you read it!)

If Marcello reads this THANK YOU! You really cheered me up I’ve been having a pretty stressful week, too much work, too little time etc. So now I’m gonna do some reading for my next lecture and write a little report on a documentary called Dream Girls which is about the Takarazuka Revue. It’s slightly odd for western women to imagine that women in other parts of the world have the view that the girls in this film do. I don’t think I fully understand Japanese women and why they feel subordinate to men… do they even feel like this? That’s the impression I got from watching the documentary. IOf you have seen it let me know what you think.

No Naruto, don't cry... You'll make me cry... WWAAAHHHHHH

Yesterday was just awful, I had work all day, got home and then had to do loads of reading (which I didn’t finish) and then revise for this silly Japanese test I had this morning. Consequently, I revised the wrong thing and had to guess most of the answers. Needles to say it didn’t go very well. FML. Then in class we learned the simplest crap that I’m sure we’ve already covered, namely ‘koto ga’, ‘dekiru/wakiru’ too easy (I’m on the uni computers, they don’t write in Japanese.) So although I’m finding the lessons so easy, my tests don’t reflect that because I’m an IDIOT!

Now I should be reading about the Meji Restoration but I think my brain has stopped working and nothing is going in anymore I need help and nice words to make me feel better about myself because I currently feel like s**t.

And then when I finish uni (in three frickin’ hours) I have to go home and do more reading  because I have to go back to work tomorrow and as such will have no time.

I hate life today.

I'd prefer to be busy

Today I have revised some of the kanji that we now have to learn to write from memory. EEK. Fortunately they are really easy this week, stuff like 石、川、兄、分、上 etc, which I can do already anyway. Then next week we are tested on a a few more complicated kanji: 雨､音 and then harder ones for the next 5 weeks. There will be 50 each week, so that 250 in 5 weeks. Seems a bit daunting.

At least my grammar lessons are going  swimmingly…

Other than that I have got a hell load of boring, long readings to do for Japanese History and Gender in Japan. BOOORING!!!

If this were my library, I would never leave. I can only dream...

Once a week we have these silly computer-room lessons where we all have to sit there with Britney-Spears-esque headphone/microphone and speak Japanese to help our pronunciation, beneficial by all means but just SO AWKWARD! Everyone listens to each other and laughs and quite frankly, I don’t like it one bit! Especially since the hour before was spent sitting on my own at the back of the class, trying to divert the teacher’s attention away from me!

So I am learning some kanji instead (although I’m actually not doing that either…) I’ve got an exam tomorrow on about 10,000 kanji (exaggeration) which I am so unprepared for and all my friends are going out tonight I’m very sad. And then I’ve got a lecture from 5pm – 8pm, this should be illegal.

So, no more blogging. ON WITH KANJI.