(no subject)
Wow, last post was depressing, sorry. Mother says I must update so as not to leave it like that.
For the past month, I've been busy busy busy. Was apartment hunting for a lot of it, but I've finally found a place that I really like! It's super convenient and nice and clean and safe and new and pretty much everything I wanted. Now for furniture! That's going to take me a while to accumulate properly, 'cause I want to get real things and not just crap.
Also started school and work.
School is going well. I'm definitely learning a lot. Not sure how much I'm REMEMBERING, because it's a lot to try to cram into my head and have stay there. But it's interesting. A lot of "oh, so THAT'S what that is!" moments, where suddenly things I've been hearing for a long time make sense.
My classmates are... erm. Interesting. Mostly, their pronunciation is ATROCIOUS. To the point of it being almost impossible to understand people. Everyone's always told me that my pronunciation is great (it's about the only thing I have going for my Japanese :P), but it always seemed kind of like... well. Japanese pronunciation is easy? So it's not hard to sound natural? But apparently I'm wrong, because my classmates are AWFUL. I'm starting to see why people think mine is really great, because not to be stuck up, but compared to everyone else's? IT IS.
Grammar, however, is not so great. There are definitely people who seem to be better than me, but then, I wouldn't really know, and that's my problem. XD
One guy seems to be very good at conversation, but his pronunciation is so bad that even the teacher can't understand half of what he says.
I'm one of the stronger people in class in general, but that's more to do with experience. I'm used to the sound and flow of Japanese. My listening tends to be better, as is my ability to repeat things. But only if I kind of know them. When the teacher says a new sentence with grammar that I don't understand, I definitely have to slow down a bit. But for any review stuff, it's annoying trying to slow myself down to everyone else. My listening/understand is a lot better, too, but to be fair, I've been here and surrounded by the language for a while, and most of the people have only been here a few months, max.
But I knew this was going to happen when I signed up. Because I'm generally stronger than most people at my level, but when it comes to all the grammar and about half the vocab they're teaching, it's still all new to me. Or sometimes not new, but in the sense that I've had exposure to it, but never understood how to use it myself, or what exactly a person was saying when they used it.
All in all, it's kind of nice, because I'm getting a ton of new stuff thrown at me, but the pace in class is usually slow enough for me to feel very comfortable.
Of course, after school is work. Bolt down a quick lunch, and then it's 4 hours of office duty. So far, I've done a bit of general secretarial stuff like data entry, scanning, paper cutting, etc. Done some editing of what looks to be a new kanji textbook. Most of their translation from Japanese to English is done by someone more fluent in French, so it usually makes sense, but also usually sounds strange. So I have to go through and make it sound like actual English. Also edited a whole bunch of pamphlets and info things for... a recruiting fair? I'm not sure, to be honest. But general admissions type stuff with info about the school. Needed a whole bunch of reworking. I also asked about being allowed to edit the website and they said the IT guy will come in next week and show me how to do it directly. Whoo! Am also in charge of a new long-term project to increase the enrollment of American students. It's kind of similar to a lot of what I did as a student admissions representative in college, and I loved working on the council for that. So this should be interesting. :D Work is tiring because unlike class, there's no neat little ten-minute breaks, but whatever.
Days feel long, but they're 9-5:15 basically, which isn't longer than I was working. I just feel like all I do is go to class, go to work, come home and do homework, eat, and sleep. I guess the difference is that before, all my work was AT WORK. Now I have school and work, but I get home and I can't just relax. I have to do all my homework for the next day. I've been taking breaks to scan things or whatever for fun, but... ugh, tired.
Also, my schedule now means that I can hardly ever talk to anyone from home. Before it overlapped nicely, and people were always around when I was online, but now I feel kind of isolated and that sucks a lot. D: A LOT.
Oh, and while I won't talk about it here much (that's what fandom is for), I've also been following Kis-My-Ft2 around Japan for most of their national tour. So far I've been to Kagoshima, Sendai, and Niigata. Still to come are Hiroshima, Sendai again, Yokohama, and Nagoya. It's been exhausting and expensive, but super super super super fun and I'm loving it OMG YES. Just thinking about the last shows, or the next shows, can totally get me through the day/week/whatever. Whenever I feel stressed out or down or whatever else, I can just listen to some of the music and it makes me feel so much better. I may be an incurable fangirl, but it makes me happier than almost anything else, so. I will work hard at work and school and do my best, and spend my free time as ニカ担当.
Hope you're all doing well.
♥
For the past month, I've been busy busy busy. Was apartment hunting for a lot of it, but I've finally found a place that I really like! It's super convenient and nice and clean and safe and new and pretty much everything I wanted. Now for furniture! That's going to take me a while to accumulate properly, 'cause I want to get real things and not just crap.
Also started school and work.
School is going well. I'm definitely learning a lot. Not sure how much I'm REMEMBERING, because it's a lot to try to cram into my head and have stay there. But it's interesting. A lot of "oh, so THAT'S what that is!" moments, where suddenly things I've been hearing for a long time make sense.
My classmates are... erm. Interesting. Mostly, their pronunciation is ATROCIOUS. To the point of it being almost impossible to understand people. Everyone's always told me that my pronunciation is great (it's about the only thing I have going for my Japanese :P), but it always seemed kind of like... well. Japanese pronunciation is easy? So it's not hard to sound natural? But apparently I'm wrong, because my classmates are AWFUL. I'm starting to see why people think mine is really great, because not to be stuck up, but compared to everyone else's? IT IS.
Grammar, however, is not so great. There are definitely people who seem to be better than me, but then, I wouldn't really know, and that's my problem. XD
One guy seems to be very good at conversation, but his pronunciation is so bad that even the teacher can't understand half of what he says.
I'm one of the stronger people in class in general, but that's more to do with experience. I'm used to the sound and flow of Japanese. My listening tends to be better, as is my ability to repeat things. But only if I kind of know them. When the teacher says a new sentence with grammar that I don't understand, I definitely have to slow down a bit. But for any review stuff, it's annoying trying to slow myself down to everyone else. My listening/understand is a lot better, too, but to be fair, I've been here and surrounded by the language for a while, and most of the people have only been here a few months, max.
But I knew this was going to happen when I signed up. Because I'm generally stronger than most people at my level, but when it comes to all the grammar and about half the vocab they're teaching, it's still all new to me. Or sometimes not new, but in the sense that I've had exposure to it, but never understood how to use it myself, or what exactly a person was saying when they used it.
All in all, it's kind of nice, because I'm getting a ton of new stuff thrown at me, but the pace in class is usually slow enough for me to feel very comfortable.
Of course, after school is work. Bolt down a quick lunch, and then it's 4 hours of office duty. So far, I've done a bit of general secretarial stuff like data entry, scanning, paper cutting, etc. Done some editing of what looks to be a new kanji textbook. Most of their translation from Japanese to English is done by someone more fluent in French, so it usually makes sense, but also usually sounds strange. So I have to go through and make it sound like actual English. Also edited a whole bunch of pamphlets and info things for... a recruiting fair? I'm not sure, to be honest. But general admissions type stuff with info about the school. Needed a whole bunch of reworking. I also asked about being allowed to edit the website and they said the IT guy will come in next week and show me how to do it directly. Whoo! Am also in charge of a new long-term project to increase the enrollment of American students. It's kind of similar to a lot of what I did as a student admissions representative in college, and I loved working on the council for that. So this should be interesting. :D Work is tiring because unlike class, there's no neat little ten-minute breaks, but whatever.
Days feel long, but they're 9-5:15 basically, which isn't longer than I was working. I just feel like all I do is go to class, go to work, come home and do homework, eat, and sleep. I guess the difference is that before, all my work was AT WORK. Now I have school and work, but I get home and I can't just relax. I have to do all my homework for the next day. I've been taking breaks to scan things or whatever for fun, but... ugh, tired.
Also, my schedule now means that I can hardly ever talk to anyone from home. Before it overlapped nicely, and people were always around when I was online, but now I feel kind of isolated and that sucks a lot. D: A LOT.
Oh, and while I won't talk about it here much (that's what fandom is for), I've also been following Kis-My-Ft2 around Japan for most of their national tour. So far I've been to Kagoshima, Sendai, and Niigata. Still to come are Hiroshima, Sendai again, Yokohama, and Nagoya. It's been exhausting and expensive, but super super super super fun and I'm loving it OMG YES. Just thinking about the last shows, or the next shows, can totally get me through the day/week/whatever. Whenever I feel stressed out or down or whatever else, I can just listen to some of the music and it makes me feel so much better. I may be an incurable fangirl, but it makes me happier than almost anything else, so. I will work hard at work and school and do my best, and spend my free time as ニカ担当.
Hope you're all doing well.
♥