I am finally done with my masters program. Finally! I turned in my masters thesis on Friday. I was exulted as I handed the bound 87 page paper in.
I kind of snuck something in there, as an almost easter egg for my thesis.
I have every letter from A to Z in my works cited section. I managed to somehow cite something from every single letter. I had to look up citations just for V and X... maybe that was cheating a little bit, but I legitimately worked those in too.
I am so pleased with myself, it's silly. Almost more pleased than actually having finished.
It's weird being finished. Wonderful, but kind of weird. As I was turning it in, it felt like there was so much more I could have done on it. But there's little sense in worrying about that now.
I don't know what I'm going to do with myself.
A lot of people are asking what I'm planning on doing afterwards. I fully intend on getting a job, but I don't really know what yet. I don't really know where any of my paths lead right now, but I do know one thing. All my paths lead forward. I mean, I'm going to get a job. I'm going to apply to a bunch of different places. I have no one path that's yelling my name out right now. For all I know, one of them could lead to a job in neuroscience or something. That'd be super fun. But it might also lead somewhere else. And that's the exciting part about where I am right now. I don't know where I'm going. It's kind of scary, but at the same time, kind of exciting. I know wherever I end up, I'll be able to make the best of things, and be able to make do. It's a matter of how fast I'll get to where I'm going, and what kind of sites I see along the way I suppose.
Someone jokingly, when I responded that I didn't have anywhere specific in mind (I meant mostly anywhere that would hire me, for the time being) that I didn't really have a game plan (which kind of characterizes my life right now), asked if anywhere meant McDonald's. I got super pissed. I snapped, associating it with all the "lolz non-STEM" kind of jokes people make about how we won't be able to find jobs and stuff. And this person counted himself as my friend, and I was kind of upset that he made that because we don't really have that kind of relationship.
But I was thinking, it would actually be kind of interesting to work for them in like, a waste division or something. Where you figure out how to deal with the waste from their distribution, packing, etc, or deal with making their food healthier or partnering with local communities. Because I think McDonald's has the potential to make a large impact, so just because it's fast food that the higher class people distain for organic and non-GMO slow food, doesn't mean that we should completely write it off.
Anyways, I'm getting rambley. I only meant to talk about graduating for realsies this time, and how I can finally tell people that yes, I'm 100% done now and I've finally graduated and I'm moving on to the next part of my life. (Unemployment lolololjk, I'm going to have a kickass job somewhere even if I don't know where that is yet)
Showing posts with label grad school. Show all posts
Showing posts with label grad school. Show all posts
Sunday, December 14, 2014
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
Dear Japanese
Dear Japanese,
I have a love/hate relationship with you. I'd say it's not you, it's me, but to be honest, I think it's a little bit of you too.
I love that I can communicate to people in a place I've come to love, and that when I go back it feels like I haven't been away for so long, and that mostly I'm going back home.
I hate that you're difficult to learn, but not just because you're difficult to learn. Maybe I'm just complaining too much, but I'm in 4th year Japanese right now, and yet, I wouldn't call myself anywhere near fluent, and it's practically killing me, this Japanese class. So much of my time goes to studying you, and yet, I'm not studying you the right way or something, because I still struggle to understand the basics of what you're trying to tell me in the articles I'm reading. I hate that it's treated like any other language, when seriously, it takes something like 10 years to master (or so I'm told).
I love the way you sound, and that one of my strong points is that I can speak with only a slight accent. But I don't like the way you expect my Japanese to be perfect because of that (it's not! Far from it).
I know it's part my fault; I should immerse myself in more Japanese (I should be writing this in Japanese!) if I want to get better while I'm living outside of Japan. I should read the news more. Use subtitles less. I swear I'm trying. But it's hard to read the news when reading the articles for class takes a monumental effort of god to just get through once with a barebones understanding of meaning. Being able to recall the following class what the paragraph was about too, is nigh impossible when I'm struggling to remember the words.
Apparently, I just need to sit down and memorize vocabulary. Getting definitions in Japanese doesn't help when I have to look up the words used to define each word (doubling the amount of time it takes to understand what's going on). Also I've noticed a trend to use some of the same words (or to use the adjective form of a noun) to define things... which is incredibly unhelpful.
I also hate that sometimes, when I talk in class, I can't help but feel like the dumbest student of Japanese, like I should be back in Japanese one. And maybe I should be, but I definitely am better than starting off in first year.
I'm sorry I'm not sorry I can't remember some of the grammar structures I learned over 7 years ago (holy cow). I'm sorry I'm not sorry I don't know enough vocab to be caught up with the class.
Going to Japan was the absolute best thing for my Japanese; it restored my confidence in speaking, and it was surprising how much easier it was to speak when I wasn't worrying all the time about using the correct grammar, because who cared as long as I got my point across (that's not to say that grammar was completely unimportant, just that things flowed way easier when I stopped thinking so hard).
One of the important things I learned when I was there was from my Aunt, who told me that when she asked me "what?" it wasn't that she had misunderstood me, or didn't understand what I was saying. It was that she couldn't hear me properly, and that I needed to speak louder. Speak with more confidence. Speaking loudly = speaking with confidence, which is pretty true I suppose. That's why when you mumble, you get yelled at because a) nobody can hear you and b) it sounds like you don't really know what you're doing because you're not projecting confidence in saying the things you want to say.
Really, it's like that no matter what language you learn. The more confidence you have in speaking, the better you're going to sound and the faster (I think) you learn. Confidence was always something we were trying to get the students to cultivate by not worrying so much about their mistakes, and actually trying really hard to understand what they were saying.
I wish I was better at Japanese. One of my goals had been to get my japanese to the interpreter level, where you basically know everything and anything about vocabulary and grammar. That was probably a little ambitious of me, especially being outside of Japan. I wish I had more time to devote to Japanese, and I wish I found that perfect way to study this language of area I've come to really love. Learning this language has taught me so much, and shown me so many different things.
I think I've just needed to realize that learning 4th year Japanese is NOTHING like learning 3rd year Japanese. 4th year is hard. You're studying the academic equivalent of it. Even English words like that are hard and require vocab tests in high school and stuff.
I realize I might have made a mistake, taking fourth year Japanese. It seemed like the natural thing to do at the time. But I think I work best when I can go at a slightly slower speed (Stanford is seriously too fast and the knowledge never sinks deep enough for me to remember it long term). But what's done is done. It's not like I can quit now, though admittedly, there have been several days where I've been ready to just throw up my hands and throw in the whole towel to grad school (it's complicated, since my funding is tied to my language learning class, so quitting Japanese is kind of like saying hi I don't want your money here take it back) because of this one class. It's disheartening, to feel so stupid and to sit through class, knowing that you prepared maybe not as much as you could have, but as much as you could have given the time constraints on your life and the fact that you have other classes and need to take sanity breaks and write ridiculously long blog posts and that no, you shouldn't be working on Japanese for 4 to 5+ hours daily.
Anyways, here's my promise to you, Japanese. I won't give up on you, if you don't give up on me. Please don't give up on me, no matter how stupid I might seem at the moment, and even though it might seem like I'll never actually become fluent. I've always hated how, when I said I was interested in learning how to play the violin, the first thing everyone has ever said was "oh you're too old" meaning it was something out of my range and impossible for me to even learn how to play. Similarly, people (especially Japanese people) constantly say, "Japanese is really hard" in the sense that well, maybe you'll never master it. Despite the ridiculously long rant here about how hard Japanese is, I hate when people say that because it's always said in the context of "well you probably won't master it but it's okay because it's hard" which, sure, makes it more difficult (hence why I'm complaining) but surely if you persevere, even a foreigner can learn Japanese well, right?
Right?
Love,
Jess
I have a love/hate relationship with you. I'd say it's not you, it's me, but to be honest, I think it's a little bit of you too.
I love that I can communicate to people in a place I've come to love, and that when I go back it feels like I haven't been away for so long, and that mostly I'm going back home.
I hate that you're difficult to learn, but not just because you're difficult to learn. Maybe I'm just complaining too much, but I'm in 4th year Japanese right now, and yet, I wouldn't call myself anywhere near fluent, and it's practically killing me, this Japanese class. So much of my time goes to studying you, and yet, I'm not studying you the right way or something, because I still struggle to understand the basics of what you're trying to tell me in the articles I'm reading. I hate that it's treated like any other language, when seriously, it takes something like 10 years to master (or so I'm told).
I love the way you sound, and that one of my strong points is that I can speak with only a slight accent. But I don't like the way you expect my Japanese to be perfect because of that (it's not! Far from it).
I know it's part my fault; I should immerse myself in more Japanese (I should be writing this in Japanese!) if I want to get better while I'm living outside of Japan. I should read the news more. Use subtitles less. I swear I'm trying. But it's hard to read the news when reading the articles for class takes a monumental effort of god to just get through once with a barebones understanding of meaning. Being able to recall the following class what the paragraph was about too, is nigh impossible when I'm struggling to remember the words.
Apparently, I just need to sit down and memorize vocabulary. Getting definitions in Japanese doesn't help when I have to look up the words used to define each word (doubling the amount of time it takes to understand what's going on). Also I've noticed a trend to use some of the same words (or to use the adjective form of a noun) to define things... which is incredibly unhelpful.
I also hate that sometimes, when I talk in class, I can't help but feel like the dumbest student of Japanese, like I should be back in Japanese one. And maybe I should be, but I definitely am better than starting off in first year.
I'm sorry I'm not sorry I can't remember some of the grammar structures I learned over 7 years ago (holy cow). I'm sorry I'm not sorry I don't know enough vocab to be caught up with the class.
Going to Japan was the absolute best thing for my Japanese; it restored my confidence in speaking, and it was surprising how much easier it was to speak when I wasn't worrying all the time about using the correct grammar, because who cared as long as I got my point across (that's not to say that grammar was completely unimportant, just that things flowed way easier when I stopped thinking so hard).
One of the important things I learned when I was there was from my Aunt, who told me that when she asked me "what?" it wasn't that she had misunderstood me, or didn't understand what I was saying. It was that she couldn't hear me properly, and that I needed to speak louder. Speak with more confidence. Speaking loudly = speaking with confidence, which is pretty true I suppose. That's why when you mumble, you get yelled at because a) nobody can hear you and b) it sounds like you don't really know what you're doing because you're not projecting confidence in saying the things you want to say.
Really, it's like that no matter what language you learn. The more confidence you have in speaking, the better you're going to sound and the faster (I think) you learn. Confidence was always something we were trying to get the students to cultivate by not worrying so much about their mistakes, and actually trying really hard to understand what they were saying.
I wish I was better at Japanese. One of my goals had been to get my japanese to the interpreter level, where you basically know everything and anything about vocabulary and grammar. That was probably a little ambitious of me, especially being outside of Japan. I wish I had more time to devote to Japanese, and I wish I found that perfect way to study this language of area I've come to really love. Learning this language has taught me so much, and shown me so many different things.
I think I've just needed to realize that learning 4th year Japanese is NOTHING like learning 3rd year Japanese. 4th year is hard. You're studying the academic equivalent of it. Even English words like that are hard and require vocab tests in high school and stuff.
I realize I might have made a mistake, taking fourth year Japanese. It seemed like the natural thing to do at the time. But I think I work best when I can go at a slightly slower speed (Stanford is seriously too fast and the knowledge never sinks deep enough for me to remember it long term). But what's done is done. It's not like I can quit now, though admittedly, there have been several days where I've been ready to just throw up my hands and throw in the whole towel to grad school (it's complicated, since my funding is tied to my language learning class, so quitting Japanese is kind of like saying hi I don't want your money here take it back) because of this one class. It's disheartening, to feel so stupid and to sit through class, knowing that you prepared maybe not as much as you could have, but as much as you could have given the time constraints on your life and the fact that you have other classes and need to take sanity breaks and write ridiculously long blog posts and that no, you shouldn't be working on Japanese for 4 to 5+ hours daily.
Anyways, here's my promise to you, Japanese. I won't give up on you, if you don't give up on me. Please don't give up on me, no matter how stupid I might seem at the moment, and even though it might seem like I'll never actually become fluent. I've always hated how, when I said I was interested in learning how to play the violin, the first thing everyone has ever said was "oh you're too old" meaning it was something out of my range and impossible for me to even learn how to play. Similarly, people (especially Japanese people) constantly say, "Japanese is really hard" in the sense that well, maybe you'll never master it. Despite the ridiculously long rant here about how hard Japanese is, I hate when people say that because it's always said in the context of "well you probably won't master it but it's okay because it's hard" which, sure, makes it more difficult (hence why I'm complaining) but surely if you persevere, even a foreigner can learn Japanese well, right?
Right?
Love,
Jess
Sunday, December 16, 2012
History Haikus
Somehow, I have managed to survive the first quarter of graduate school. Taking twenty units was super dumb, but somehow I managed to meet a lot of awesome people, have fun, and generally stay somewhat-sane, even if I did practically shut myself in my room for the last two weeks of school.
But it's all over now! Hooray! That's the good thing about quarters I guess. Before you know it, it's over.
Speaking of over, one of my neighbor boys is graduating this quarter, so he's moving out tomorrow. So sad! His program was only 4 quarters (only!), so he's departing. It's a shame though, because he was super chill; totally not what I expected from a guy in Pike haha. Maybe I judge people just a little based on those things. But D was super sweet, and part of our neighbor dinners :) Also made amazing stuffed bellpeppers. Funny, how despite only knowing the boys next door for a quarter, I feel like, actually comfortable with them. Really, we lucked out. It'll be interesting to see who moves in next door...
But yes, so, for my history class (Modern Japanese history), since we had to memorize when certain major events were (I was told we were just supposed to know generally important things, and I guess I've never really thought of dates as important), I created some haiku to help me remember lol.
Hooray for history haikus! Especially since it turned out I didn't really need to remember them after all. Sigh.
(On the effects of the cold war)
1-9-4-7
Key to economic rise
re- all the old things!
(on the Hibiya Riots)
Hibiya riot
Angry in 1905
government target
(on Mori Arinori)
champion of wives
no basic human morals
no more concubines
(on the New Constitution)
1-9-4-7
Controversial number 9
right to unionize
(on the reasons for the Japanese economic miracle)
zaibatsu leaders
Lucky Korean War boom
Dodge Line deflation
(on salariimen)
emerged in Taisho
Salary Man family
70s real life
(on the Rice Riots)
In 1918
Wartime inflation of rice
bottom-up riot
hooray for history!
But it's all over now! Hooray! That's the good thing about quarters I guess. Before you know it, it's over.
Speaking of over, one of my neighbor boys is graduating this quarter, so he's moving out tomorrow. So sad! His program was only 4 quarters (only!), so he's departing. It's a shame though, because he was super chill; totally not what I expected from a guy in Pike haha. Maybe I judge people just a little based on those things. But D was super sweet, and part of our neighbor dinners :) Also made amazing stuffed bellpeppers. Funny, how despite only knowing the boys next door for a quarter, I feel like, actually comfortable with them. Really, we lucked out. It'll be interesting to see who moves in next door...
But yes, so, for my history class (Modern Japanese history), since we had to memorize when certain major events were (I was told we were just supposed to know generally important things, and I guess I've never really thought of dates as important), I created some haiku to help me remember lol.
Hooray for history haikus! Especially since it turned out I didn't really need to remember them after all. Sigh.
(On the effects of the cold war)
1-9-4-7
Key to economic rise
re- all the old things!
(on the Hibiya Riots)
Hibiya riot
Angry in 1905
government target
(on Mori Arinori)
champion of wives
no basic human morals
no more concubines
(on the New Constitution)
1-9-4-7
Controversial number 9
right to unionize
(on the reasons for the Japanese economic miracle)
zaibatsu leaders
Lucky Korean War boom
Dodge Line deflation
(on salariimen)
emerged in Taisho
Salary Man family
70s real life
(on the Rice Riots)
In 1918
Wartime inflation of rice
bottom-up riot
hooray for history!
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Ice Ice Baby
Before today, the only ice hockey I had seen consisted of The Mighty Ducks 1 and 2. Never been to a game, since, growing up in California where it doesn't actually snow... there aren't too many professional teams (though, I do remember there were teams at the ice skating rink I used to visit as a child in Berkeley). We have one in northern california - the San Jose sharks (who apparently used to play at the Cow Palace).
I had no idea there was another league outside the NHL. Apparently there is - the ECHL. And apparently San Francisco just got a team: the Bulls. And apparently, my parents had purchased tickets to go to the game... so to avoid what happened with the football game last time, where my family went without me and I was just kind of stuck, I said yes, I'd go (despite this looming amount of work for school that keeps on staring at me, that I'm still procrastinating on as I write)
Ice hockey, it turns out, is a lot more interesting to watch than certain other sports for the whole game, especially when the players fight or take a fall. There were some pretty spectacular falls tonight too. Plus, it's only three periods long! I'm totally okay with this. I actually found it hard to sneak in a little bit of reading when I could, because there was always something going on, and the puck was always moving back and forth, so it never really got boring to watch.
It seems so... angry and violent though. Near the end of the third period, one of the players ripped off his helmet and gloves and started punching one of the other players. It took a lot longer for the refs to pull them apart than in other sports.
Speaking of refs... ice hockey is not a sport I would like to ref. I think I'd rather ref any other sport, even if I could skate really well (which I can't). The moves I saw the refs pull, and the jumps, and near misses (and some hits) the refs were subject to... yeah. Seemed kinda dangerous.
But overall, that wasn't too bad. Kinda fun, actually, despite not knowing what was going on most of the time and not being able to keep track of where the heck the stupid puck was.
*
Also, recently it was thanksgiving... my first one back in the states in two years! HOORAY, AMERICAN FOOD. I'm thankful for turkey and stuffing and thanksgiving food! Except we had thanksgiving in NorCal this year (which, for a while, we had thanksgiving in San Diego because that's where I was going to school and stuff) so we had a Chinese thanksgiving with the extended family. My siblings came back home too, so it was really nice to see them again, despite wanting to kill my brother several times (he still has this magic way of pushing my buttons just the right way. I guess that's the job of brothers...). He's so frustrating sometimes! lol. But I am really glad I got the chance to see them again, even if the butt did forget to bring the rice cooker back up for me.
Chinese thanksgiving means Chinese sticky rice stuffing with the mushroom and sausage stuff and turkey, potato salad, rolls, cranberry sauce, gravy, and deviled eggs. Oh, and party punch (which is a combination of sorbet and 7 up, no alcohol involved), and pies. But no regular stuffing, and no mashed potatoes. NO MASHED POTATOES OR STUFFING. I was actually kind of sad. Ironically, I've had those the past two years, and it was the turkey that was always lacking (though, my first year we *did* have turkey and my second year in Japan we had the best chicken I've ever eaten). Seriously. Those two things are my favorite parts of thanksgiving. ...AND WE DIDN'T HAVE THEM. SUPER SAD FACE. Chinese sticky rice stuffing is also pretty good, but it's like they combined the mashed potatoes and stuffing and made it Asian by turning it into rice.
I know what I'm making for dinner over the next few days...
This thanksgiving, also, will forever be remembered as the infamous thanksgiving where our uncle maybe tried to kill us (or at least make us sick) by putting out rancid butter. Like seriously, when we went to the adults asking if they noticed something funny about the butter, my uncle was like, "Oh yeah, that butter's kinda old..." So old, apparently, that both the taste and texture changed. It tasted like mizithera cheese to me (and Parmesan to my cousin, and blue cheese to my brother), and had the texture of crisco. It probably wasn't wise of me or my brother to actually continue to eat it once we put it on our rolls... I'm not sure how much he ate (he spread it all around the outside of his roll), but I had put it on half my roll and kept eating it to make sure it was really kind of strange tasting with a weird texture.
Shoulda trusted my taste buds when they said "WOAAAAAAAAH SOMETHING IS OFF." I'm not sure if it's the cause, but I got a little sick the day after, and I'm blaming it on the butter because my brother felt a little not well too, though for not as long. Maybe I ate more butter? I had no idea butter could actually go bad like that though. -_-
I'm not ready for thanksgiving break to end. D: I NEED MORE TIME. I don't know what happened to all the- oh wait. Yes I do. I went to Disneyland for two days, then driving up and down took basically two days (though I did get a lot of reading done during those days), and then thanksgiving happened, and then the day after we went wine tasting which took all day, and then my uncle had a birthday party I didn't find out about until the day before thanksgiving and we went to the hockey game, and now, somehow, impossibly, we're at Sunday, with school - week 9 - starting Monday. WEEK NINE. WHERE DID THE QUARTER GO?! Seriously.
Next quarter, I'm taking less classes. D:
I had no idea there was another league outside the NHL. Apparently there is - the ECHL. And apparently San Francisco just got a team: the Bulls. And apparently, my parents had purchased tickets to go to the game... so to avoid what happened with the football game last time, where my family went without me and I was just kind of stuck, I said yes, I'd go (despite this looming amount of work for school that keeps on staring at me, that I'm still procrastinating on as I write)
Ice hockey, it turns out, is a lot more interesting to watch than certain other sports for the whole game, especially when the players fight or take a fall. There were some pretty spectacular falls tonight too. Plus, it's only three periods long! I'm totally okay with this. I actually found it hard to sneak in a little bit of reading when I could, because there was always something going on, and the puck was always moving back and forth, so it never really got boring to watch.
It seems so... angry and violent though. Near the end of the third period, one of the players ripped off his helmet and gloves and started punching one of the other players. It took a lot longer for the refs to pull them apart than in other sports.
Speaking of refs... ice hockey is not a sport I would like to ref. I think I'd rather ref any other sport, even if I could skate really well (which I can't). The moves I saw the refs pull, and the jumps, and near misses (and some hits) the refs were subject to... yeah. Seemed kinda dangerous.
But overall, that wasn't too bad. Kinda fun, actually, despite not knowing what was going on most of the time and not being able to keep track of where the heck the stupid puck was.
*
Also, recently it was thanksgiving... my first one back in the states in two years! HOORAY, AMERICAN FOOD. I'm thankful for turkey and stuffing and thanksgiving food! Except we had thanksgiving in NorCal this year (which, for a while, we had thanksgiving in San Diego because that's where I was going to school and stuff) so we had a Chinese thanksgiving with the extended family. My siblings came back home too, so it was really nice to see them again, despite wanting to kill my brother several times (he still has this magic way of pushing my buttons just the right way. I guess that's the job of brothers...). He's so frustrating sometimes! lol. But I am really glad I got the chance to see them again, even if the butt did forget to bring the rice cooker back up for me.
Chinese thanksgiving means Chinese sticky rice stuffing with the mushroom and sausage stuff and turkey, potato salad, rolls, cranberry sauce, gravy, and deviled eggs. Oh, and party punch (which is a combination of sorbet and 7 up, no alcohol involved), and pies. But no regular stuffing, and no mashed potatoes. NO MASHED POTATOES OR STUFFING. I was actually kind of sad. Ironically, I've had those the past two years, and it was the turkey that was always lacking (though, my first year we *did* have turkey and my second year in Japan we had the best chicken I've ever eaten). Seriously. Those two things are my favorite parts of thanksgiving. ...AND WE DIDN'T HAVE THEM. SUPER SAD FACE. Chinese sticky rice stuffing is also pretty good, but it's like they combined the mashed potatoes and stuffing and made it Asian by turning it into rice.
I know what I'm making for dinner over the next few days...
This thanksgiving, also, will forever be remembered as the infamous thanksgiving where our uncle maybe tried to kill us (or at least make us sick) by putting out rancid butter. Like seriously, when we went to the adults asking if they noticed something funny about the butter, my uncle was like, "Oh yeah, that butter's kinda old..." So old, apparently, that both the taste and texture changed. It tasted like mizithera cheese to me (and Parmesan to my cousin, and blue cheese to my brother), and had the texture of crisco. It probably wasn't wise of me or my brother to actually continue to eat it once we put it on our rolls... I'm not sure how much he ate (he spread it all around the outside of his roll), but I had put it on half my roll and kept eating it to make sure it was really kind of strange tasting with a weird texture.
Shoulda trusted my taste buds when they said "WOAAAAAAAAH SOMETHING IS OFF." I'm not sure if it's the cause, but I got a little sick the day after, and I'm blaming it on the butter because my brother felt a little not well too, though for not as long. Maybe I ate more butter? I had no idea butter could actually go bad like that though. -_-
I'm not ready for thanksgiving break to end. D: I NEED MORE TIME. I don't know what happened to all the- oh wait. Yes I do. I went to Disneyland for two days, then driving up and down took basically two days (though I did get a lot of reading done during those days), and then thanksgiving happened, and then the day after we went wine tasting which took all day, and then my uncle had a birthday party I didn't find out about until the day before thanksgiving and we went to the hockey game, and now, somehow, impossibly, we're at Sunday, with school - week 9 - starting Monday. WEEK NINE. WHERE DID THE QUARTER GO?! Seriously.
Next quarter, I'm taking less classes. D:
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Day of Rest
Today was supposed to be my day of rest... and well, I guess it was my day of rest. But by "day of rest" - when I thought about it on saturday - was supposed to be more like "day of productiveness and doing things like laundry and school prep and stuff."
Thanks to a giant huge (and still at large) bumblebee (yes I know they're mostly harmless) and this drama series called My Boss My Hero, yeah, that didn't really happen today. Oops. The drama at least is practicing my Japanese a little (I'm determined to get better and pass the N3 level JLPT! For the sake of enrolling at Stanford, sheesh, I need to pass this test since I told them that I had taken the test and I dunno, it'd be kind of shameful if I got there and was like "well yeah, actually I didn't pass the test..." so I'm going to try my hardest).
The bee though. The bee was one of those fatty ones, with the huge bodies like pompoms. I think it was about the size of my thumb up to the knuckle - the body. Like the size of my whole thumb. It was a big mofo! I actually shut the doors and ran to hide from it in my room for a while haha. Eventually, when I had to use the bathroom (it was trapped in the bathroom area) I went back to see if it was still there and found that it had kinda like... crash landed next to my laundry soap.
So yeah, no laundry got done today. Sigh.
Actually, shamefully, I didn't really go outside much. I just aired out my futon a little bit, which is a shame because today was actually really nice. I really should have gone outside! Sigh. Somehow it's nine pm, and while I did study a little bit on my Japanese, there were a bunch of things I didn't do. Saaaaaaaaaaaa.
Yesterday though, was fun.
I went in to Okayama for a cherry blossom viewing party, called "hamami." I also saw one of my former students at the train station. She asked if I remember her, and I told her もちろん - or, "of course!" since she was one of the really loud cheerful students in my home ec girls class. Really thankful though that she didn't ask me what her name was because yeaaaaaaah I wouldn't have actually known. I'm so bad with names!
The hanami party was really fun though. My friend Maeve organized it, and a bunch of us went down to the river area and sat under the cherry blossoms, drank, and had a grand old time. Hanami - which literally translates into something like "flower look" - is where you go for a picnic with friends or family in a place with cherry blossoms and enjoy both the beautiful flowers and the good company. Often times as well, people will bring portable BBQs -- or in the case that it's near a famous place, they'll have a place where you can rent one. Usually too, people will drink alcohol as well as they watch the cherry blossoms fall. It's kind of like a giant excuse to drink during the day.
It was especially fun though, because it was like a big group BBQ, so I got to see a lot of people whom I haven't seen in ages! That's why I really enjoy going to the AJET events and big group stuff, though my closer friends are also fun to hang out with. Even if there are going to be people there I'm not really fond of (and at times want to punch lol, but let's be honest, my bark is way bigger than my bite), the fact that I can see a bunch of other people as well make me look forward to going to more of these things.
So yesterday was basically a day of enjoying good company, a good view of flowers, and a tiny bit of daytime drinking to make the lights a little shinier hahaha. It's times like those that I feel like - despite being in the company of a bunch of foreigners - I'm truly in Japan.
Now that the winter doldrums have disappeared (mostly) spring and flowers and greenery (and bugs -- boo I'm such a downer!) have returned, and I've come to realize that I live in a very very beautiful place. In August, most people know (since I've been on a smallish bragging streak lol), but I'm leaving Takahashi to come back to California for graduate school at Stanford studying East Asian Studies, or basically, Japan and Japanese. I'm even getting paid for it! Actually, I've been trying hard not to brag, but every time someone says it inside me has a reaction like this:
I'm not going to lie - I really look forward to returning to burritos and cheddar cheese and chipotle. At the same time though, I'm sad that I'll be leaving my bug-infested second home. I really do love the people here. Everyone is so kind -- even the Chinese and Korean foreigners here, as much as I want to shake my fist at them for driving so damn fast and close next to me on my bike. Really, I've found so many small places here, and actually, I can get pretty much everything I need at Polka, albeit for a little bit more sometimes than I can obtain elsewhere. And Izumi is far, and there's no gym. And that I really probably would prefer to live in a city or suburb like Kurashiki or Okayama.
But still. I really do like Takahashi and Okayama Prefecture (and Niimi too!). The friendliness of the people and students and other teachers has made my experience wonderful and memorable, and I'm truly thankful for the opportunity to have lived here for my tenure on JET. I even like commuting now, up and down to Niimi, for all that means that a social life on Friday is impossible. Though maybe I'm biased since like, honestly the kyudo students make Niimi a thousand times more amazing. That's my favorite part about going to school, is getting to participate in kyudo and interact with students in that setting.
That's not even including all the wonderful foreigners I've met over here -- my fellow JETs, as well as the Japanese people I've met as well!
I won't miss the work though hahaha. I'm not super fond of lesson planning and it's kind of tiring to be this organized all the time with my classes, so I don't think I'll miss that very much. Maybe a little, after I leave and stop doing it. But what I'll miss the most I think, are the friendships and connections with people here. Those kinds of things though, I suppose, are the kinds of things that - given a little effort - can span over distance though, it's not quite the same as being here in person.
Ahhhh I'm getting so sentimental! Still have three more months! Guess we gotta make the most of it then, hm?
Thanks to a giant huge (and still at large) bumblebee (yes I know they're mostly harmless) and this drama series called My Boss My Hero, yeah, that didn't really happen today. Oops. The drama at least is practicing my Japanese a little (I'm determined to get better and pass the N3 level JLPT! For the sake of enrolling at Stanford, sheesh, I need to pass this test since I told them that I had taken the test and I dunno, it'd be kind of shameful if I got there and was like "well yeah, actually I didn't pass the test..." so I'm going to try my hardest).
The bee though. The bee was one of those fatty ones, with the huge bodies like pompoms. I think it was about the size of my thumb up to the knuckle - the body. Like the size of my whole thumb. It was a big mofo! I actually shut the doors and ran to hide from it in my room for a while haha. Eventually, when I had to use the bathroom (it was trapped in the bathroom area) I went back to see if it was still there and found that it had kinda like... crash landed next to my laundry soap.
So yeah, no laundry got done today. Sigh.
Actually, shamefully, I didn't really go outside much. I just aired out my futon a little bit, which is a shame because today was actually really nice. I really should have gone outside! Sigh. Somehow it's nine pm, and while I did study a little bit on my Japanese, there were a bunch of things I didn't do. Saaaaaaaaaaaa.
Yesterday though, was fun.
I went in to Okayama for a cherry blossom viewing party, called "hamami." I also saw one of my former students at the train station. She asked if I remember her, and I told her もちろん - or, "of course!" since she was one of the really loud cheerful students in my home ec girls class. Really thankful though that she didn't ask me what her name was because yeaaaaaaah I wouldn't have actually known. I'm so bad with names!
The hanami party was really fun though. My friend Maeve organized it, and a bunch of us went down to the river area and sat under the cherry blossoms, drank, and had a grand old time. Hanami - which literally translates into something like "flower look" - is where you go for a picnic with friends or family in a place with cherry blossoms and enjoy both the beautiful flowers and the good company. Often times as well, people will bring portable BBQs -- or in the case that it's near a famous place, they'll have a place where you can rent one. Usually too, people will drink alcohol as well as they watch the cherry blossoms fall. It's kind of like a giant excuse to drink during the day.
It was especially fun though, because it was like a big group BBQ, so I got to see a lot of people whom I haven't seen in ages! That's why I really enjoy going to the AJET events and big group stuff, though my closer friends are also fun to hang out with. Even if there are going to be people there I'm not really fond of (and at times want to punch lol, but let's be honest, my bark is way bigger than my bite), the fact that I can see a bunch of other people as well make me look forward to going to more of these things.
So yesterday was basically a day of enjoying good company, a good view of flowers, and a tiny bit of daytime drinking to make the lights a little shinier hahaha. It's times like those that I feel like - despite being in the company of a bunch of foreigners - I'm truly in Japan.
Now that the winter doldrums have disappeared (mostly) spring and flowers and greenery (and bugs -- boo I'm such a downer!) have returned, and I've come to realize that I live in a very very beautiful place. In August, most people know (since I've been on a smallish bragging streak lol), but I'm leaving Takahashi to come back to California for graduate school at Stanford studying East Asian Studies, or basically, Japan and Japanese. I'm even getting paid for it! Actually, I've been trying hard not to brag, but every time someone says it inside me has a reaction like this:
I apologize if it's seemed like I was bragging. I'm trying not to. Sometimes when I'm alone though I giggle gleefully because oh my god Stanford is giving me money.
Also, the slightly immature part of me that has a bunch of family and friends who are Cal alums and also got rejected from UC Berkeley want to say something like, suck it Cal, since omg, stanford, full ride.
But that would be immature. Hee.
I digress. Since I'm leaving though, I've come to realize that I actually really really like Okayama and Takahashi, and not just -as when I first came here - "the scenery is beautiful" (which, really, it is). I've come to love the people here, the atmosphere, the students, the not-big-city feel, and of course, the scenery. And while I do prefer city atmospheres like Kobe and Seoul and San Diego (Tokyo and Osaka are a little too big for me) there's just a certain charm about Okayama that makes me happy to be here. Perhaps that's what rubbed me the wrong way about certain people in our prefecture, and some of the Interact ALTs here in Takahashi. They would count down the number of days before they were released from their hellish existence here, or would say things like that Okayama was ridiculously backwater and that the whole country thinks of it as a hicktown and how much they couldn't wait to escape. I guess this is how people from the midwest/south feel when us city folk poke fun at countryside places. I'd like to claim that it's different, but honestly, it probably isn't.
I'm not going to lie - I really look forward to returning to burritos and cheddar cheese and chipotle. At the same time though, I'm sad that I'll be leaving my bug-infested second home. I really do love the people here. Everyone is so kind -- even the Chinese and Korean foreigners here, as much as I want to shake my fist at them for driving so damn fast and close next to me on my bike. Really, I've found so many small places here, and actually, I can get pretty much everything I need at Polka, albeit for a little bit more sometimes than I can obtain elsewhere. And Izumi is far, and there's no gym. And that I really probably would prefer to live in a city or suburb like Kurashiki or Okayama.
But still. I really do like Takahashi and Okayama Prefecture (and Niimi too!). The friendliness of the people and students and other teachers has made my experience wonderful and memorable, and I'm truly thankful for the opportunity to have lived here for my tenure on JET. I even like commuting now, up and down to Niimi, for all that means that a social life on Friday is impossible. Though maybe I'm biased since like, honestly the kyudo students make Niimi a thousand times more amazing. That's my favorite part about going to school, is getting to participate in kyudo and interact with students in that setting.
That's not even including all the wonderful foreigners I've met over here -- my fellow JETs, as well as the Japanese people I've met as well!
I won't miss the work though hahaha. I'm not super fond of lesson planning and it's kind of tiring to be this organized all the time with my classes, so I don't think I'll miss that very much. Maybe a little, after I leave and stop doing it. But what I'll miss the most I think, are the friendships and connections with people here. Those kinds of things though, I suppose, are the kinds of things that - given a little effort - can span over distance though, it's not quite the same as being here in person.
Ahhhh I'm getting so sentimental! Still have three more months! Guess we gotta make the most of it then, hm?
Thursday, May 26, 2011
CHALLENGE-MASHO
Last night, I had this amazing conversation about food with one of my JTEs. We were talking about how recently, there's this category of food called B-rank-gome. It includes places that serve food that's not quite restaurant-y, but isn't quite fast food. It's good food, it's cheap, and it's fast. It includes things like takoyaki, okonomiyaki, and ramen. Apparently, Tsuyama is quite well known for it. They even have contests to figure out which place is the best B rank restaurant.
The interesting thing though, is that the ranking kinda stops there. There's no C rank. A rank is really just like, sit down food, so there's not much of a point of differentiating between A ranked restaurants.
But there's more to that, other than the rankings not being an indicator of general cleanliness and likelihood to pass health inspection (though, I really would rather not think about that since there may or may not be a link to this; I know next to nothing about how Japanese kitchens operate, but when I was at this Izakaya place learning to make torimomo oroshiai, well, I dunno if kitchens in America do that too but yeaaahhhh). The place has to have backing from the community, or something like that. I'm not entirely sure. More research is required. So the JTE I was talking to said he'd email his anthro prof from college and ask him for resources on that, since he was pretty sure there was a good deal of scholarly articles/books written on the topic of food in Japan from the Japanese perspective.
I find this all completely fascinating. （≧∇≦）Seriously, if I get into grad school, it's the kind of thing I want to study. But. This means that my kindergarten level kanji skills need some serious level up grinding, cause it really is that low. Sigh. I need to be able to read newspapers. Sigh. LET'S KANJI SHIMASHO~
Speaking of grad school, several of my friends were kind enough to tell me about/point me in the direction of a different ranking style for the GREs: the percentile ranking. Hooray. But, basically, my Verbal scores are fiiiiiiiiiine.
The interesting thing though, is that the ranking kinda stops there. There's no C rank. A rank is really just like, sit down food, so there's not much of a point of differentiating between A ranked restaurants.
But there's more to that, other than the rankings not being an indicator of general cleanliness and likelihood to pass health inspection (though, I really would rather not think about that since there may or may not be a link to this; I know next to nothing about how Japanese kitchens operate, but when I was at this Izakaya place learning to make torimomo oroshiai, well, I dunno if kitchens in America do that too but yeaaahhhh). The place has to have backing from the community, or something like that. I'm not entirely sure. More research is required. So the JTE I was talking to said he'd email his anthro prof from college and ask him for resources on that, since he was pretty sure there was a good deal of scholarly articles/books written on the topic of food in Japan from the Japanese perspective.
I find this all completely fascinating. （≧∇≦）Seriously, if I get into grad school, it's the kind of thing I want to study. But. This means that my kindergarten level kanji skills need some serious level up grinding, cause it really is that low. Sigh. I need to be able to read newspapers. Sigh. LET'S KANJI SHIMASHO~
Speaking of grad school, several of my friends were kind enough to tell me about/point me in the direction of a different ranking style for the GREs: the percentile ranking. Hooray. But, basically, my Verbal scores are fiiiiiiiiiine.
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Superstitious
Now, normally, I'm not much of a superstitious person. I don't believe in ghosts or zombies or magic or anything like that... but at the same time, I won't go into a haunted house, scary movies will have me not sleeping for weeks, and stepping on a grave is very very very bad.
There are a couple of other things I do believe in though. Being able to jinx/bacchi yourself is one of them. The phrases that invite bad luck, like "what else could happen" or "what could go wrong?" or "it can't get any worse".
I also believe in test luck. Lucky underwear? Sure. Can't hurt. I don't think it'll do much really... but like I said before, can't hurt.
As some people know, I took the GRE (Graduate Record Exams - you need them for grad school in the states) in Osaka this past weekend since that was the closest location they offered it. Basically, I was studying this entire past week like a mad person when I wasn't procrastinating or working (which was often...). Paying for it turned out to be a really good motivator to study more.
So I was at my academic high school (Niimi South) on Friday, and I had gone to ask the kyuudo kids if there was any practice on tuesday since I couldn't stay for practice that day. Stupid studying. And I was talking to one of the students and we got into this conversation how both of us reaaaally don't like to study for tests lol. He's a nice kid. :) We have a similar dislike for math and studying English lol (though his English is pretty good, so I dunno what he's talking about). I swear, he looks like every single stereotypical smart boy in an anime who personifies the Japanese "theme" like Andou in Yumeiro Patissiere (see right).
But I mentioned that I was ahhhhhhh stressed and he was like "relax relax!" and he held out his palm and traced the kanji for person "人” three times in the middle. And then he pretended to eat it. And I was like... "what?"
This, he explained, was how you get rid of stress while you're studying. So I asked him if basically you ate people to feel more relaxed, and he said yes, and (as a friend pointed out later) who am I to argue with a Japanese student's study method? Especially one at an academic school? I guess it kinda worked; I generally felt silly enough to where the stress would lower a little lol.
I got my results back for the verbal and math. It's not bad, but I'm not sure how it weighs against the programs I want to apply for. I know my math is fine; I'm not applying for one of the hard sciences. So a 740 is fine. I'm more worried about the verbal score; I got a 650 and I haven't received my essay score yet. That's kinda lower than I wanted. >_< And if I'm going in to a social science... well... my verbal matters a lot more. Arrrrrg.
There are a couple of other things I do believe in though. Being able to jinx/bacchi yourself is one of them. The phrases that invite bad luck, like "what else could happen" or "what could go wrong?" or "it can't get any worse".
I also believe in test luck. Lucky underwear? Sure. Can't hurt. I don't think it'll do much really... but like I said before, can't hurt.
As some people know, I took the GRE (Graduate Record Exams - you need them for grad school in the states) in Osaka this past weekend since that was the closest location they offered it. Basically, I was studying this entire past week like a mad person when I wasn't procrastinating or working (which was often...). Paying for it turned out to be a really good motivator to study more.
So I was at my academic high school (Niimi South) on Friday, and I had gone to ask the kyuudo kids if there was any practice on tuesday since I couldn't stay for practice that day. Stupid studying. And I was talking to one of the students and we got into this conversation how both of us reaaaally don't like to study for tests lol. He's a nice kid. :) We have a similar dislike for math and studying English lol (though his English is pretty good, so I dunno what he's talking about). I swear, he looks like every single stereotypical smart boy in an anime who personifies the Japanese "theme" like Andou in Yumeiro Patissiere (see right). But I mentioned that I was ahhhhhhh stressed and he was like "relax relax!" and he held out his palm and traced the kanji for person "人” three times in the middle. And then he pretended to eat it. And I was like... "what?"
This, he explained, was how you get rid of stress while you're studying. So I asked him if basically you ate people to feel more relaxed, and he said yes, and (as a friend pointed out later) who am I to argue with a Japanese student's study method? Especially one at an academic school? I guess it kinda worked; I generally felt silly enough to where the stress would lower a little lol.
I got my results back for the verbal and math. It's not bad, but I'm not sure how it weighs against the programs I want to apply for. I know my math is fine; I'm not applying for one of the hard sciences. So a 740 is fine. I'm more worried about the verbal score; I got a 650 and I haven't received my essay score yet. That's kinda lower than I wanted. >_< And if I'm going in to a social science... well... my verbal matters a lot more. Arrrrrg.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
GRE
I have put off taking this stupid test for long enough.
I am going to sign up for it tomorrow, to take it this weekend. I don't feel prepared at all, but I need to take it otherwise I'll start to forget what I had to re-learn. I meant to take this in March/April; it's already passed the halfway mark in May! AIYAH.
I guess I'll make a weekend out of it or something. Thankfully, I don't have classes this week, so it's cram cram cram time for me!
I am going to sign up for it tomorrow, to take it this weekend. I don't feel prepared at all, but I need to take it otherwise I'll start to forget what I had to re-learn. I meant to take this in March/April; it's already passed the halfway mark in May! AIYAH.
I guess I'll make a weekend out of it or something. Thankfully, I don't have classes this week, so it's cram cram cram time for me!
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