Monday Blues

Aw man, I’ve just bought a muffin with fruit in it! That’s not cool! It cost me like £2! Still gonna eat it, obviously.

Just finished my review for Japan Cinema… though I’ve left half of it at home so I can’t even send it off, frustrating! The rest of today will be spent learning Japanese? I’m in the middle of doing some sort of oral test which I haven’t actually started yet, it includes putting on an awful headset and recording yourself reciting a poem for a member of my class to then listen to and JUDGE! These are things that I do not like. (I’ve gotten muffin all into the gaps on this keyboard… I guess that’s why we’re not allowed to eat in the library!)

Possibly gonna do some work on this Gender essay? I have 2 essential books from the library for a limited time only so I might as well make the most of it!

I hate Mondays.

Short update to let you know I’m still alive!

Remembered all of today’s awful kanji in the nick of time! All disaster related (lovely!)

Can’t believe this semester’s nearly over, I feel like I have done the most ridiculous amount of work yet not actually learnt a single thing!

What I have done however, is produced a number of half-decest posts for Lingualift Here’s my new one about Yayoi Kusama:

Currently working on two reviews for Marcello of JapanCinema Probs should go and do that now…..

There’s an app for that

Second post of the day? Whoa there!

Recently (well, today) I was told that you couldn’t view my blog from an iPhone? Well fear not people! WordPress hasn’t been left behind in the massive technological industrialisation of the 21st Century, low and behold (is that the phrase?) a WordPress app:

Get it, find me, calm down knowing that you can still read my wise words from anywhere in the world.

Polka dots and lesbians

Loving life today..

Had a reasonably fun Japanese lesson; some sort of stereotypically cute Japanese trainee teacher taught us… I didn’t understand a word she said but she was nice to look at (looking back at this comment I realise that, combined with the fact that I’m doing an essay about lesbianism, I must appear inclined that way..) Anyway, it was fun let’s leave it at that.

Got an hour before Japanese Modern History (BANE OF MY EXISTENCE!) but now that that awful exam is over I can go back to not paying any attention which will undoubtedly lead to failing again next time. The joy.

I managed to write another post for Lingualift about Yayoi Kusama, she’s awesome, let’s all just look at how awesome she is:

She’s in her 80s, living in a mental institution (voluntarily) likes painting polka dots and is collaborating with Marc Jacobs for Loius Vuitton. Oh, she also likes to get people naked and cover them in polka dots…

Hopefully the post will be up on Lingualift soon because quite frankly, I’m not gonna repeat myself when I’ve already written a whole article about her!

I also watched another crrrazy Japanese film last night ‘Apartment 1303′. Verdict: Don’t watch it, but DO read my review (which I haven’t actually started yet… Sorry Marcello, you will have it by the end of the week!)

Right, history lesson time….

Fashion, art and a near-mental-breakdown

Right well I seem to have returned from the portal of stress! In the past 2 week I’ve had THREE exam a presentation, 2 mini tests and I’ve been to work for 6 days. AND THEN my laptop broke so I couldn’t do any of the above with ease, but I made it out alive!!! I can hardly believe myself!

And yeah, so what I haven’t actually painted anything as the above implies I HAVE written another article for Lingualift about a painter… pretty much the same thing right? Japanese painter Nakanishi Natsuyuki. It’s pretty bad ass so go have a look pretty please:

I’m working on another one about Yayoi Kusama, you may have heard of her as she is AWESOME! Crazy, but awesome. She’s doind a fashion collaboration with Louis Vuitton, but I won’t say too mucha bout it as I do want you to read my post when it’s done don’t I?!

Kanji writing practice is on the cards today, I’m a week behind (oh no!) so these are last weeks which I need to learn how to write from memory:

走 送 待 貸 多 単 短 暖 遅 長 痛 低 利 親 足 男 弟 頭 彼 母 妹 友 知 着 通 働 動 読 買 売 泊 発 疲 飛 払 聞 閉 変 返 勉 歩 忘 遊 落 理 料 練 連 話 加

BLEURGH!!!!

So I gotta go and pick up my laptop from the repairers and then we can expect a lot more posts! Hazzah!!!!

Cure to flying time?

It’s been a while! I’ve had so much work to do you wouldn’t believe! And as we all know, time flies…

I had my oral exam yesterday (describing that photograph that I showed you..? Remember?) which, needless to say went pretty horrific! I had prepared and gotten myself an AWESONE little speech together and then as soon as I got the computer room to record it, everything went away! Hopefully I will have still passed because what I did manage to say was pretty good! Then today, another exam! This time a writing test, eek! I had to talk about food from Japan and England WITHOUT A DICTIONARY! Who do these people think I am???

AND next week I have another exam on Japanese History! I seriously don’t know how I haven’t pulled my hair out! I don’t think I can cope much more! In between all of this I haven’t managed to write any more posts for Lingualift.com, but somehow pulled another film review out of thin air….

READ READ READ.

So I’ve gotta go and revise now! But I will be back soon!

Mmm, tiramisu!

EPIC shift in uni today. 12 hours. TWELVE-FREAKIN-HOURS! Even more epic was that only 3 hours of it consisted of lectures. It was a hella day in the library but I feel so good now! Though I’m still not on top of all my work? How can that be? Hmph, it’ll be a miracle if I ever pass this course!

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!)

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!

Japanese Modern History help please :)

I was well into researching Japanese history when this absolutely mad girl comes BARGING into the computer room, slams all of her stuff all over the desks and starts ranting in some foreign dialect, completely putting me off!?? Rage!

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

 

Remembering my natsuyasumi when all I have now is work!

It’s a wonderful day! I’ve had another post put up for Lingualift! Yesh! It’s about the Japanese conceptual artist On Kawara. He’s pretty awesome and a bit obsessed with the concept of time and existence, it’s deep stuff! Check it out yo!

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:

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?

Beautiful Obento and the role of the Japanese woman

Done absolutely loads of work today! Mostly reading on the gender roles of women in Japan. There was one part in particular about Bento boxes and how the more pleasing to the eye they are, the better mother you are? If you gave your child a tuna sandwich and a packet of crisp the school would probably drag your sorry backside into school for a meeting about the child’s welfare. So let’s have a look at some beautiful Obento…

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.