水曜日 ありました。木曜日あります。
Halloween was so much fun…
Me as Wednesday Addams
Yes I am now one of those tw**s that takes a picture of themselves in the mirror!
Had a listening test today in Japanese. Those of you who are friends with me on Facebook (click here if you want to be) will have noticed already, heh! It went so very well but then I ran out of time! Damnations. I missed about 6 questions (out of 50?) but all of them that I did answer I think I got correct.
I find listening in Japanese so difficult. It’s ok when it’s written down and I can see what the vocab is, but when it is said (in super fast speed) I miss all of the important bits. Tomorrow I have Japanese conversation so I will get to practice some more!
I haven’t done my portfolio work yet and Sensei’s getting a bit miffed at me I think, so I better go and do that hey!
じゃまたね！
Wednesday Addams and Foreign Language Teaching
I’m going to a Halloween party tonight and I will be dressing up as my most favourite fictional person; Wednesday Addams
I was a little obsessed with her (and Christina Ricci) when I was younger and I pretty much own the same dress already (faux pas?)
So today’s Japanese lesson went really well actually. I nailed the vocab test and then actually understood most of the new grammar notes (causative form?) It’s getting a bit full on now so I must start living in the library again soon.
I’ve got half an hour to kill before my next lecture; Methodology of Foreign Language Teaching (yes, it is as boring as it sounds). It’s not that difficult, but so so loooong. The lecturer is a crazy cat-lady/hippy/extrovert and she repeats everything at least twice, sometimes three times. It kills me. And it’s 3 hours long. THREE HOURS GUYS. I stop concentrating after 20 minutes so you can imagine the joy I go through every Tuesday (I say every Tuesday but I’ve actually missed 4 lessons already… I just couldn’t cope okay!)
Tomorrow if I’m not too hungover I’m going to spend the WHOLE day doing work! I’ve got my first Japanese listening test on Thursday and then on Friday the Japanese exchange students will be visiting our class so that we get a chance to speak to them 🙂 I always get a bit nervous when speaking to actual Japanese people (mainly because my Japanese is excruciatingly terrible) but I want to try my best to at least impress them a little!
I still haven’t decided on a Japanese university but I think I’d like to go to Obirin… it may be a little far-fetched since they only allow 2 people in the year from our university, but a girl can dream right? I need info on Obirin please!
Other than that I hope everyone enjoys Halloween tomorrow. Halloween in Japan must be the funnest time of year.
Japanese University Choosing time!
So this week we had our first Year Abroad Meeting (waaah!) I am so excited about my year in Japan!
JAPAN… of course!
So we have to do a little research on the universities offered to us and then put down out first 3 choices. HELP ME! These are the choices…
Aichi Shukutoku University, Nagoya
Kansai Gaidai University, Osaka
Kitakyushu University
Kyushu Sangyo University
Meiji Gakuin University, Tokyo
Nagoya University of Foreign Studies
Obirin University, Tokyo
There are 3 others but they are for higher levels and I might as well not bother because my Japanese is CRAP!
So I don’t really want to go to Kansai, there are so many foreigners there that I might as well go to Europe or America instead, I feel that Nagoya may seem the same? I think I’d prefer to go to Tokyo so maybe Meiji or Obirin? Though I’m very drawn to Kyushu too.
I have to have my choices made in 3 weeks I think so I better get crackin’.
In other news, I have a listening test next week (boo) followed by another oral exam (double boo). For my oral exam I have to come up with problems I might face in Japan, then the teacher gives me some sort of answer and we have general chit chat.
Example 日本に行って、風をひいたら、どうしたらいいですか。
After that bit (which should last about 6 minutes??!!) we have a general pow wow about other things which we can’t prepare for, eek!
Pray for me please
じゃまたね！
Lesbian Invisibility in Japan
NEW POST FOR LINGUALIFT!!!!!! It’s about lesbians in Japan. I did an essay on this topic and I found it really interesting, so please read! (Click the pic)
Click for my article on Lingualift
Sorry I’ve been away for a while, I’ve been back home to Liverpool (YAY) Before that I interviewed the creators of Fullmetal Alchemist!!!!!!!!!!! The interview will be up on Japan Cinema soon, I’m so freaking excited!
Oh and the best news of all I PASSED ALL MY EXAMS!!!! Wow! I got all B+ so that ain’t half bad! My sensei even emailed me to tell me I’d done really well! Wonderful news 🙂
I’m just working full time at Russell and Bromley right now so life is a little dull, but I must get back to studying Japanese!
Brain-dead bunnies and a happy Pikachu
This is it, the day before my last exam! Been up since 8am, it is now 10.20am and my brain has already shut down.
I’m just doing some reading comprehension (lame!) I think the exam will give me a bunch of Japanese texts with some Japanese questions about said texts which I then have to answer in Japanese? Either way I’m pretty screwed… and scared! So I need to practice my reading skills, which are shocking to say the least:
All the pretty Japanese writing is tainted with my inevitable doom!
The library is dead! It’s hard to believe that this time 2 weeks ago people were actually sleeping in here. Now it’s just me and some other guy exchanging glances of worry.
So once again I need lots of luck, I might even wish myself luck because I’m grasping at straws here!
3 images in one post? Aren’t you lucky!
Library revision break post
Revision is going so well today! Hopefully I will be ready for tomorrow’s exam. Sweeet.
Currently doing some noun modification exercises (draaag) Please excuse my awful handwriting:
Yellow paper? Why not!
That looks awful! Needless to say it is kinda going in! If you’re having a little trouble getting your head around the craaaazy Japanese grammar, I recommend this book, it has literally saved my life!
BUT THIS BOOK NOW
That’s it for now I reckon. Should be getting on with these nouns. WISH ME LUCK!
I’M SO SORRY PLEASE COME BACK!
Right well I’m finally back! The month of coursework hell is over!!! All I have left is 2 exams and I’m FINISHED with this year!!! So this is the part where I apologise about the quite frankly crap effort I’ve been making in every other part of my life that doesn’t involve coursework:
Sorry guys 😦
So let me update you on the last month: COURSEWORK. JOB, STRESS.
That’s pretty much all I’ve been doing! Japanese seems to be going pretty well, I feel ready for Friday’s big exam. The exams are multiple choice BUT with negative marking if you get the answer wrong, intense. You better all wish me luck! So today I’m going to be mostly going over grammar points (I hate grammar!) Too many particles to understand, so I went and bought myself a super book to explain the lot to me BUT I can’t even understand the ENGLISH words (words like idiocyntasmiplosia… hnn, not exactly that but you get the idea).
Also gonna review a filmy for the beautiful Marcello 🙂
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!!!!
A Hundred Views of Edo