Oh dear, sickness. About half my residence got sick and I keep hearing people coughing, it's terrible. I think it's dying down now, which is good, but I'm afraid of getting sick too. :|
Wow, your suite sounds great! And I guess you could always just consider the distance from campus as some good ol' exercise? :)
It's interesting to hear how Chinese is taught at the beginner levels as the age of the class increases, because when I first took my Cantonese lessons we learned writing from our cute little workbooks with the big characters showing you the direction and order of strokes, and I imagine learning Mandarin with its four tones is much different from learning Cantonese with its nine. (Theoretically, this means I could pick up Mandarin pretty quickly due to having to learn fewer tones and the simplified characters relating for the most part with the traditional characters, but I haven't quite succeeded at that yet. :|)
At least this offer from your teacher means that you must be good? :) And if it ever came down to it, you could try to cut back on the 'gaijin' thing. Frankly, it's kind of self-induced on their part so it's only fair. But life is not fair, is it.
For the strangest reason, I enjoyed Clap Your Hands the most. XD I'm on the complaining-of-excessive-autotune side, and it's not exclusive to 2NE1 either. However, watching the live performances gives me a much better appreciation of the songs because their voices without all the frills lets them shine IMO. Actually, my appreciation of most songs change with a strong live performance; when I first heard No Other I was genuinely concerned for its strength as a follow-up track, but after the first live performance full of hearts, kisses, self-quotation and huge smiles I was completely and utterly convinced. (Again, my bias kicks in too. XD)
I managed to avoid my dorm's diseases in previous years more than I would have thought possible, I think mostly through a strict regimen of overdosing on vitamin C every time I coughed. XD This year, since I have my own kitchen and have therefore vowed never to set foot in the convenience store again, picking up medicine's a bit more difficult... so mostly I don't bother. |D;
It's definitely good exercise! I just complain a lot because, though I will walk anywhere remotely feasible, our campus is made of hills, whose existence I had mostly forgotten. ;_;
I'm not sure my professor's approach can or should be taken as representative: he spent a good ten minutes of our first class talking about different teaching approaches among his colleges at other universities, some of whom focus more on pinyin, some of whom take the traditional handwritten approach. Honestly, I think the latter approach makes more since to me, and it is how we learned kanji in my beginning Japanese classes, but my professor thinks that computers are becoming the medium for writing of any length in China anyway, and focusing on reading rather than writing proficiency lets him introduce more characters and give tests after one semester that our peers at, say, Harvard wouldn't be able to take. I am interested to see how his theory works out, and I've been doing in-class things via computer input, but I like handwriting my homework--it just feels more proper. And honestly, I generally need all the written practice I can get. XD;
I do wonder how much the traditional/simplified (or Cantonese/Mandarin) divide might influence teaching approach. Hypothesizing wildly, it seems like people raised with traditional characters might take a more traditionalist approach to teaching too? Of course, it's only an issue at all for older classes, but it might be an interesting survey for college professors.
Haha, I think "life is not fair" is really the best and shortest summary of Japan possible--I really think you have to know and come to terms with this to live there, especially as a foreigner. I do get this, and it never really made me resent Japan--just convinced me I wouldn't want to live there forever. XD I think that liminal space you have to occupy as a gaijin--particularly as a resident, particularly if you speak any Japanese--is really fascinating, and I wrote quite a bit about the ways Japan does not expect and does not allow you to integrate, but I think you need a certain degree of Westernization to see it... tl;dr I like asking what probably boil down to uncomfortable questions. Probably just not Japanese enough or starry-eyed enough for Japan, haha.
Live performances often make songs for me, too--though I've actually been sold on No Other since the MV. ♥ I do tend to need some kind of visual from Suju: I'm not generally too impressed the first time I hear a new song, and No Other was no exception, but I think the cuteness got me. |D I do tend to like follow-up tracks better than the original albums, too--Neorago is probably my favorite Suju song ever. And again, it didn't move me at all on first hearing!
Wow, your suite sounds great! And I guess you could always just consider the distance from campus as some good ol' exercise? :)
It's interesting to hear how Chinese is taught at the beginner levels as the age of the class increases, because when I first took my Cantonese lessons we learned writing from our cute little workbooks with the big characters showing you the direction and order of strokes, and I imagine learning Mandarin with its four tones is much different from learning Cantonese with its nine. (Theoretically, this means I could pick up Mandarin pretty quickly due to having to learn fewer tones and the simplified characters relating for the most part with the traditional characters, but I haven't quite succeeded at that yet. :|)
At least this offer from your teacher means that you must be good? :) And if it ever came down to it, you could try to cut back on the 'gaijin' thing. Frankly, it's kind of self-induced on their part so it's only fair. But life is not fair, is it.
For the strangest reason, I enjoyed Clap Your Hands the most. XD I'm on the complaining-of-excessive-autotune side, and it's not exclusive to 2NE1 either. However, watching the live performances gives me a much better appreciation of the songs because their voices without all the frills lets them shine IMO. Actually, my appreciation of most songs change with a strong live performance; when I first heard No Other I was genuinely concerned for its strength as a follow-up track, but after the first live performance full of hearts, kisses, self-quotation and huge smiles I was completely and utterly convinced. (Again, my bias kicks in too. XD)
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It's definitely good exercise! I just complain a lot because, though I will walk anywhere remotely feasible, our campus is made of hills, whose existence I had mostly forgotten. ;_;
I'm not sure my professor's approach can or should be taken as representative: he spent a good ten minutes of our first class talking about different teaching approaches among his colleges at other universities, some of whom focus more on pinyin, some of whom take the traditional handwritten approach. Honestly, I think the latter approach makes more since to me, and it is how we learned kanji in my beginning Japanese classes, but my professor thinks that computers are becoming the medium for writing of any length in China anyway, and focusing on reading rather than writing proficiency lets him introduce more characters and give tests after one semester that our peers at, say, Harvard wouldn't be able to take. I am interested to see how his theory works out, and I've been doing in-class things via computer input, but I like handwriting my homework--it just feels more proper. And honestly, I generally need all the written practice I can get. XD;
I do wonder how much the traditional/simplified (or Cantonese/Mandarin) divide might influence teaching approach. Hypothesizing wildly, it seems like people raised with traditional characters might take a more traditionalist approach to teaching too? Of course, it's only an issue at all for older classes, but it might be an interesting survey for college professors.
Haha, I think "life is not fair" is really the best and shortest summary of Japan possible--I really think you have to know and come to terms with this to live there, especially as a foreigner. I do get this, and it never really made me resent Japan--just convinced me I wouldn't want to live there forever. XD I think that liminal space you have to occupy as a gaijin--particularly as a resident, particularly if you speak any Japanese--is really fascinating, and I wrote quite a bit about the ways Japan does not expect and does not allow you to integrate, but I think you need a certain degree of Westernization to see it... tl;dr I like asking what probably boil down to uncomfortable questions. Probably just not Japanese enough or starry-eyed enough for Japan, haha.
Live performances often make songs for me, too--though I've actually been sold on No Other since the MV. ♥ I do tend to need some kind of visual from Suju: I'm not generally too impressed the first time I hear a new song, and No Other was no exception, but I think the cuteness got me. |D I do tend to like follow-up tracks better than the original albums, too--Neorago is probably my favorite Suju song ever. And again, it didn't move me at all on first hearing!
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