So in the time between this and my last update, an entire quarter has passed by. An entire quarter. People have graduated, and semi-permanently left my life (or at least, it's immediate proximity). It's not even like I had a super crazy quarter. Or well, okay maybe I did. Especially socially. Also the fact that it was spring quarter and my macbook's backlight went out didn't help either. But yeah, those are just excuses. I've been not balancing time with what I need to do with typing and things.
I finally got a monitor to hook up to my old macbook after trying out one of the new retina display macbooks (thank you mom and dad for the birthday present), so I can finally use my old macbook again! Hooray! I can delay the process of buying a new computer just a little bit longer now...
Having this giant monitor is super nice. :D That doesn't really change my desire to get a 15'' macbook pro; I'm not in my room often enough doing work to settle with a 13" small screen (I prefer to work in other spaces like the library or the East Asian Studies building, where there are infinitely less distractions and less of a likelihood that I'm going to get into an hour conversation with my roommate). I tasted the sweetness of having a 15" and working on it for a little bit, and I don't think I can go back to small. I mean, if I was doing purely typing things and stuff on my computer, sure. But my work habits include opening a crapton of windows and tabs (like around 80) and I do all my research on my laptop so having the ability to look at two windows at the same time is really nice.
Speaking of nice, so is this giant monitor and typing on my laptop. God I love the F1 key; when I was setting up the computer with the monitor it was on the setting that extends the display... or well, actually, I had forgotten that I had to actually log into my computer at first so I spent a good five minutes trying to figure out how to open the display settings so I could change it, and then google gave me the glorious power of mirrorring via F1 key and I felt dumb because I hadn't yet put in my password haha.
Anyways. I have been failing hardcore at any type of regular typing, both on here and something I was trying out as a kind of daily journal. Yep. I think I lasted a good... three days before I forgot and then it was all downhill from there.
Recently it's felt like I haven't had any time for doing writing outside of the reading I'm supposed to have already done and the workload for the Japanese class I'm taking. It's an intensive course, so it's four hours a day from 10-3 with an hour break for lunch... but then they expect you to do just as much work outside of class.
And like, you really need to do at least a solid four hours outside of class to be able to retain anything that class has been teaching, and to practice vocabulary (it's a LOT of vocab). I mean, you're squishing a whole year into 8 weeks, so that much work is understandable...
...except to friends who are planning things and doing things because hell, *they're* not being crazy and taking a huge courseload over the summer. Most of the grad students who are still here are doing research or something of the sort (though most the people in my program are in Beijing, and the ones who are still here are in language programs).
And I'm really grateful that people are inviting me to things, truly. But I think the largest challenge I've faced in graduate school thus far is managing my time, and managing what I do with it and balancing work with play. Because I've been playing pretty hard recently. I also got a new tv recently (thanks millions of accumulated points via credit card!) that was pretty much free. ...so I've actually been able to play my Japanese games because I can now read the kanji on the screen. Seriously, that was an actual problem, not being able to even make out what the characters were. But now... hooray, I can pass it off as Japanese studying! I mean, it kind of is right? Listening practice and then also vocabulary...
....and before you say to yourself, "Ha! Japanese practice. When is she ever going to use the words in video games? That's silly," actually, I've seen a number of vocabulary words that have shown up in class recently in the video games I've played. Never going to use the word for attack? Read an article that mentions world war II. We read one that touched on the Tokugawa shogunate's decision to close the country... and hey what do you know, the word for army 軍 showed up. Aw yeah, chalk one up for playing historical Japanese games. Well, you might say, that at least vaguely has to do with japanese history, so that might be slightly useful. But what about Pokemon? Fear not! The word used for opponent, 相手 and the word for items/tools 道具 ? Totally came up in class lat year. The inner child in me was like, BOOYAH.
But those are like, useful words and stuff right? What about games like the Hack'n'Slash Gundam version of dynasty warriors that I have recently sunk more hours than I should into? And the recent unit we've had talking about things like 期待 (hope, anticipation) and 責任 responsibility/duty? COVERED. Gundam has my back. Plus I look up words that I don't know (or at least some of them since there's a lot) and my reading speed actually seems like, at times, it's gotten better. Either way, I think I've proven to myself (and justified) the hours I've been playing these Japanese games recently ahaha...
Yeah though, more studying needs to happen on my part.
I forgot how much I like typing though. It's actually a lot of fun. I like the way the keys click on the keyboard when you type. At least, as long as you're not in a super quiet library.
I also got these sweet speakers... which I still might exchange for something like headphones since like... I live in an apartment and blasting music on my speakers probably isn't going to make me too many friends. Or put me on good relationships with my roommate.
...though I wonder what people walking by outside think when they hear Winnie the Pooh -- the DDR dance version - yes, I totally have it, and it's awesome -- blasting from this room haha.
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