Of studying Japanese... again
I confess I haven't been studying Japanese as hard as I should lately. It's easy to make up excuses (looking for summer jobs is too stressful, my mind is occupied by my master's thesis which I'm thinking of constantly but not actively working on, etc.), but I would actually have lots of time for it if I chose to spend my time better. I'm just soothing my guilty consciousness about it by watching tons of anime (which I admit, does actually help me practice my listening skills), but I should be doing more.
So yesterday night I finally got around to starting a diary in Japanese. And not one of these online diaries but one that uses a pen and paper. I understand a lot from what I hear of spoken Japanese, but I haven't gotten any practice at using Japanese since I left WWU two years ago. It was annoying to notice that even though I recognize quite a few kanji when I see them, I can't actually write that many from memory. So hopefully keeping a diary in Japanese will help me get used to using Japanese again. I'm only writing very simple sentences so far, since my skills don't allow anything more complex (and I'm sure even my first entry is full of stupid mistakes), but I'm hoping to improve with time.
Like I mentioned, my master's thesis really isn't coming along at all. I have about three pages (eight if you count the index and all the random thoughts I've just dotted down). But considering that starting a writing project is always the hardest part for me, continuing shouldn't be as hard now that I have some sort of outline. The thesis definitely won't be finished by the end of May, like I had hoped, but I'm not too concerned about it. If I can graduate by the end of this year, that's good enough for me.
I recently bought this dating sim game (Matches and Matrimony), which is basically a combination of three Jane Austen novels and you can choose who to pursue as a husband. After playing the Mr. Darcy ending I had this urge to read Pride and Prejudice again and finally bought myself the book. It's funny how I first started liking Pride and Prejudice when I watched the 2005 movie (which I really loved back then), but since then every time I reread the book or watch the 1995 British mini drama version, I keep liking the movie less and less. Not to say that it's badly done or anything, but I keep feeling that it doesn't do the original book enough justice. Too much has been cut out of the plot because they've tried to tell the whole story in only two hours.
Which reminds me, I recently bought myself the movie The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, because the trailer looked awesome and because it has a wonderful cast (Johnny Depp, Heath Ledger, Colin Farrel and Jude Law in the same movie, hell yes). But the movie was beyond weird. I think I sort of understood what it was about right at the end, but I didn't really enjoy the movie because I couldn't figure out what was going on. I suppose I might like it a bit more if I ever decide to watch it again.
So yesterday night I finally got around to starting a diary in Japanese. And not one of these online diaries but one that uses a pen and paper. I understand a lot from what I hear of spoken Japanese, but I haven't gotten any practice at using Japanese since I left WWU two years ago. It was annoying to notice that even though I recognize quite a few kanji when I see them, I can't actually write that many from memory. So hopefully keeping a diary in Japanese will help me get used to using Japanese again. I'm only writing very simple sentences so far, since my skills don't allow anything more complex (and I'm sure even my first entry is full of stupid mistakes), but I'm hoping to improve with time.
Like I mentioned, my master's thesis really isn't coming along at all. I have about three pages (eight if you count the index and all the random thoughts I've just dotted down). But considering that starting a writing project is always the hardest part for me, continuing shouldn't be as hard now that I have some sort of outline. The thesis definitely won't be finished by the end of May, like I had hoped, but I'm not too concerned about it. If I can graduate by the end of this year, that's good enough for me.
I recently bought this dating sim game (Matches and Matrimony), which is basically a combination of three Jane Austen novels and you can choose who to pursue as a husband. After playing the Mr. Darcy ending I had this urge to read Pride and Prejudice again and finally bought myself the book. It's funny how I first started liking Pride and Prejudice when I watched the 2005 movie (which I really loved back then), but since then every time I reread the book or watch the 1995 British mini drama version, I keep liking the movie less and less. Not to say that it's badly done or anything, but I keep feeling that it doesn't do the original book enough justice. Too much has been cut out of the plot because they've tried to tell the whole story in only two hours.
Which reminds me, I recently bought myself the movie The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, because the trailer looked awesome and because it has a wonderful cast (Johnny Depp, Heath Ledger, Colin Farrel and Jude Law in the same movie, hell yes). But the movie was beyond weird. I think I sort of understood what it was about right at the end, but I didn't really enjoy the movie because I couldn't figure out what was going on. I suppose I might like it a bit more if I ever decide to watch it again.