School problems
This year I have finally come to understand what it means to work hard. In high school, the only subject I actually had to study was mathematics. Then I had maturity exams. I thought learning for them was effort-consuming. Then I started to learn Chinese. It was like having a maturity test every other week. This year, after I started Japanese, I realized just how much free time I had last year. Currently I’m learning two difficult, unrelated languages, and while the amount of lesson hours is not higher than in high school (well, I had a lot more subjects back then), I am spending most of the time I’m at home studing for either language. What’s worse, I’m having trouble with keeping up to date with the material, and lacks in my vocabulary are becoming more and more visible. I’m afraid I might finally fail something. I do not know what to do - I don’t think I would have been able to sacrifice more of my leisure time, especially since most of it comes after 7 or 8 p.m .
The biggest problem is that I do not have time to study for my English classes. This year we are having a transcribtion class, dedicated to teaching proper pronouncation. In my opinion it is completely useless, especially since to get good grades, one has to be able to recognize, if the “a” sound is long “a”, “ash”, “dash” or “schwa”. I learned to distinguish Chinese tones, but all those “as” seem exacly the same to me. I have failed every single test in this subject, and have no idea how can I improve. So far, I decided to omit the next class. I have a test in Chinese later the same day and I want to be as well prepared as possible.
On the other hand, I have won a small prize in a competition organized by an internet shop selling comics and related goods, among other things doujinshis. I was allowed to make shoppings up to a certain amount of money for free. While searching the site, I found some amazing items I immediately booked: issues 4-8 of “Associated Student Bodies” (a furry comic dealing with a shy student falling in love with his roommate), “My Little Pony” badges (I choose Twilight and Pinkie) and… “Pandora Hearts” porn, a doujinshi featuring Sharon and Break (I have chosen it because of ridiculously funny cover). The package arrived today. The badges turned out lovely and the comic as funny as I predicted (I hope I’d be able to understand it in near future, so far I could translate only when they were calling each other’s names…). ASB, however, was a disappointment. Neither the characters nor the plot were well-developed and I had a feeling I have read the same story at least a few times before. The most interesting parts for me were guest comics by Terrie Smith, an artist I know and adore. Those were porn. Bam.
The biggest problem is that I do not have time to study for my English classes. This year we are having a transcribtion class, dedicated to teaching proper pronouncation. In my opinion it is completely useless, especially since to get good grades, one has to be able to recognize, if the “a” sound is long “a”, “ash”, “dash” or “schwa”. I learned to distinguish Chinese tones, but all those “as” seem exacly the same to me. I have failed every single test in this subject, and have no idea how can I improve. So far, I decided to omit the next class. I have a test in Chinese later the same day and I want to be as well prepared as possible.
On the other hand, I have won a small prize in a competition organized by an internet shop selling comics and related goods, among other things doujinshis. I was allowed to make shoppings up to a certain amount of money for free. While searching the site, I found some amazing items I immediately booked: issues 4-8 of “Associated Student Bodies” (a furry comic dealing with a shy student falling in love with his roommate), “My Little Pony” badges (I choose Twilight and Pinkie) and… “Pandora Hearts” porn, a doujinshi featuring Sharon and Break (I have chosen it because of ridiculously funny cover). The package arrived today. The badges turned out lovely and the comic as funny as I predicted (I hope I’d be able to understand it in near future, so far I could translate only when they were calling each other’s names…). ASB, however, was a disappointment. Neither the characters nor the plot were well-developed and I had a feeling I have read the same story at least a few times before. The most interesting parts for me were guest comics by Terrie Smith, an artist I know and adore. Those were porn. Bam.