Japanese and Fondue and SIMS 2

So, yeah, yesterday, we definitely used the vocabularly I DIDN'T learn in Japanese class, and it was, of course, that's the real hard-ass about the memorized "Core Conversations" and always marks me down for that in our weekly progress reports, always . . .

It's really a very Japanese way of doing things, though . . . memorizing the perfect example and then working from there . . .

Speaking of learning in Japanese, Jessica's roomate (Risa)'s friend, Kana, wrote me back again . . . she wants me to help her with English, though, lol, her English is certainly as good (and mostly likely better) than my Japanese, as I can tell from her letters asking me, lol ^_^ Ah well; I can help her practice!

Yesterday my Peer Advisor group went to the Melting Pot, a fondue place. We got four different types of fondues to try: chocolate, s'mores, cookies and creme, and Amaretto (which was really, really good). There were things like pineapple, strawberries, graham-cracker- or chocolate-coated-marshmallows, pound cake (my favorite ^_^ especially with the Amaretto, mmm ^_^), brownies, cheesecake, cherries, graham crackers, bananas . . . all to dip in the chocolate mixtures. MMMMMM!!!

There is also a Coldstone across the street from it. I need to go to the Loop more often, lol . . . though I do have no money, after all, lol . . .

Patricia has the SIMS 2, and I definitely made the Gaunt family and the Riddle family, with Tom and Merope as teenagers. They're going to fall in love, and have Voldemort, and then I'm going to start a whole Harry Potter world (er . . . neighborhood) with all of the proper generations and everything!).

( Quizzes )

Japanese and Fondue and SIMS 2

So, yeah, yesterday, we definitely used the vocabularly I DIDN'T learn in Japanese class, and it was, of course, that's the real hard-ass about the memorized "Core Conversations" and always marks me down for that in our weekly progress reports, always . . .

It's really a very Japanese way of doing things, though . . . memorizing the perfect example and then working from there . . .

Speaking of learning in Japanese, Jessica's roomate (Risa)'s friend, Kana, wrote me back again . . . she wants me to help her with English, though, lol, her English is certainly as good (and mostly likely better) than my Japanese, as I can tell from her letters asking me, lol ^_^ Ah well; I can help her practice!

Yesterday my Peer Advisor group went to the Melting Pot, a fondue place. We got four different types of fondues to try: chocolate, s'mores, cookies and creme, and Amaretto (which was really, really good). There were things like pineapple, strawberries, graham-cracker- or chocolate-coated-marshmallows, pound cake (my favorite ^_^ especially with the Amaretto, mmm ^_^), brownies, cheesecake, cherries, graham crackers, bananas . . . all to dip in the chocolate mixtures. MMMMMM!!!

There is also a Coldstone across the street from it. I need to go to the Loop more often, lol . . . though I do have no money, after all, lol . . .

Patricia has the SIMS 2, and I definitely made the Gaunt family and the Riddle family, with Tom and Merope as teenagers. They're going to fall in love, and have Voldemort, and then I'm going to start a whole Harry Potter world (er . . . neighborhood) with all of the proper generations and everything!).

( Quizzes )

The Passion of Japanese

I feel like a fucking kindergartner.

Actually, more like a 12 grader in fucking kindergarten.

Yeah-- the first exercise in my workbook is "recognize the katakana," as in: Find which ones are katakana out of kanji and hiragana. You don't need to know them. You don't need to read it.

It's all I can do to keep from being an obnoxious ass and commenting on the the little letters and sentences in the workbook, since I can understand them. We have to correct ourselves in red pen, and it's annoying as hell (particularly since I don't even own a red pen; I had to borrow it from Carol), and I'm half-tempted to write little conversations to myself in red pen and pencil about how it "It'll be okay, Amy-chan, you're not as stupid as this book is telling you you ought to be; see, you got 100% on your katakana sections!" as like the consoling side of my brain with the red pain . . . make them think I'm all insane . . . because I am, lol . . .

This would have been fun 6 years ago. You know, the 6 years ago, when I spent my summer diligently learning this on my own, spending every summer morning reviewing the alphabet to myself, an innocent child, who should have been out playing Harry Potter (for that was the summer of Harry Potter, the summer of the third book, when everyone was in love with Harry Potter and it was the right age to be in love with him, and there was no such thing as slash and Remus/Sirius yet, for they had only just barely arrived on the scene, lol . . . ) but was inside making up words to use with the hiragana and katakana, spelling out my name and practicing writing out the entirely alphabet, in love with the language I had no idea how to pronounce. I had a passion, then; I had a love for the writing and the language and I hadn't even met it yet. I would have loved a workbook and pretending I was a little kindergartner in Japan, learning the alphabet for the first time. I loved the entire learning affair.

This whole thing is making me cry.

Yet, somehow, now, it's not so fun anymore. I think something has killed the passion for me in Japanese.

Oh, yeah, that's right: It's them telling me I suck. It's me consequently only scoring 4 out of 5 every day in Japanese class, even though I know all this, because they told me I suck, and, hence, I believe them, because I perform according to expectations. It's this Japanese class, driving me absolutely insane, because I know I'm above this and yet I'm not and yet I'm being gaslighted into believing I'm stupid, or maybe I just AM stupid, and somehow I can talk to Risa in Japanese and she acts like she understands but maybe she's just humoring me, or maybe all I learned in Japanese was a lie or maybe this class is all just a lie and maybe there's no such thing as a Japanese language and I'm just going fucking insane.

I'm the opposite of Megumi (my character from my story, oh ye unenlightened ones, lol), really; she speaks Japanese and hates her Japanese heritage. I write Japanese and wish I had a Japanese heritage.

*Sigh; deep, fulfilling, strengthening breath*

At least it's moving fast.

( I Hate My Life And Want To Die: Every Day I Polish My Revolver And Shoot Myself In The Head LIKE A ROCK STAR )

The Passion of Japanese

I feel like a fucking kindergartner.

Actually, more like a 12 grader in fucking kindergarten.

Yeah-- the first exercise in my workbook is "recognize the katakana," as in: Find which ones are katakana out of kanji and hiragana. You don't need to know them. You don't need to read it.

It's all I can do to keep from being an obnoxious ass and commenting on the the little letters and sentences in the workbook, since I can understand them. We have to correct ourselves in red pen, and it's annoying as hell (particularly since I don't even own a red pen; I had to borrow it from Carol), and I'm half-tempted to write little conversations to myself in red pen and pencil about how it "It'll be okay, Amy-chan, you're not as stupid as this book is telling you you ought to be; see, you got 100% on your katakana sections!" as like the consoling side of my brain with the red pain . . . make them think I'm all insane . . . because I am, lol . . .

This would have been fun 6 years ago. You know, the 6 years ago, when I spent my summer diligently learning this on my own, spending every summer morning reviewing the alphabet to myself, an innocent child, who should have been out playing Harry Potter (for that was the summer of Harry Potter, the summer of the third book, when everyone was in love with Harry Potter and it was the right age to be in love with him, and there was no such thing as slash and Remus/Sirius yet, for they had only just barely arrived on the scene, lol . . . ) but was inside making up words to use with the hiragana and katakana, spelling out my name and practicing writing out the entirely alphabet, in love with the language I had no idea how to pronounce. I had a passion, then; I had a love for the writing and the language and I hadn't even met it yet. I would have loved a workbook and pretending I was a little kindergartner in Japan, learning the alphabet for the first time. I loved the entire learning affair.

This whole thing is making me cry.

Yet, somehow, now, it's not so fun anymore. I think something has killed the passion for me in Japanese.

Oh, yeah, that's right: It's them telling me I suck. It's me consequently only scoring 4 out of 5 every day in Japanese class, even though I know all this, because they told me I suck, and, hence, I believe them, because I perform according to expectations. It's this Japanese class, driving me absolutely insane, because I know I'm above this and yet I'm not and yet I'm being gaslighted into believing I'm stupid, or maybe I just AM stupid, and somehow I can talk to Risa in Japanese and she acts like she understands but maybe she's just humoring me, or maybe all I learned in Japanese was a lie or maybe this class is all just a lie and maybe there's no such thing as a Japanese language and I'm just going fucking insane.

I'm the opposite of Megumi (my character from my story, oh ye unenlightened ones, lol), really; she speaks Japanese and hates her Japanese heritage. I write Japanese and wish I had a Japanese heritage.

*Sigh; deep, fulfilling, strengthening breath*

At least it's moving fast.

( I Hate My Life And Want To Die: Every Day I Polish My Revolver And Shoot Myself In The Head LIKE A ROCK STAR )

Japanese and Crossing Borders

Tonight is my study-night in.

I have so much to do. I have about an hour total study time tomorrow, and an exam on Thursday, so, hence, most of all of my studying must take place tonight.

I don't like this gap in the system, though.

The whole Japanese situation is just so weird. I hate every minute of the class, almost, sitting in there and knowing I'm failing and hearing things and understanding it, and yet, when she comes to me, being unable to say anything, and stuttering and stammering and having her correct me and knowing I knew it and hating her and resenting her and wishing she would call on me when she wouldn't and not call on me when she would and jumping and leaping at the chance to say something else beyond the ridiculous, retarded "Core Conversations" and getting it wrong if I try anything else within it.

Maybe writing will actually BE better. I learned Japanese backwards, you know; I learned some kanji first of anything, interested first in Chinese, and then I taught myself the syllabaries. I spoke a little Chinese as a 5th and 6th grader, but didn't say my first Japanese words until 7th grade exploratory Japanese, when I realized "desu" wasn't actually pronounced "desoo" but "des" (I remember, in fact, even asking Elizabeth Wynn when she came *home* from Japan one year whether "me" was "meh" or "mee," having no way of knowing with the supplies I had). Yet though I spoke nothing, I could spell all the names of the world, and even write out sentences in the few little grammar patterns I knew, spelling "konnichiwa!" and "sayounara!" and "arigatou gozaimasu!" with pride.

Even now, I write it better than I speak it, able to phrase myself with the time to think. Maybe that's where I go wrong: When I write to people, they think I'm phenominal; yet, when I speak to them, face to face, they humor me for my wrongness in expecting that deep down I must know it because I can write it.

(Speaking of which, I still don't understand-- and probably never will-- why they spell it "arigatoo" in so many textbooks-- it's either that or with the o overlined, which makes more sense but still not a whole lot-- when it's clearly spelled in Japanese, in hiragana, "arigatou" . . . why not make it easier for the poor English-learning students and spell it "arigatou" when they're learning romanized forms?)

Maybe in all of this trials, I'm supposed to be enlightened to provide a new way of learning Japanese that actually makes sense. Maybe I'm supposed to be tormented by the struggles of my own learning of it, to come up with some refined, better system.

Maybe teaching Japanese (or English-- and I've heard tell that the Japanese schools are million times worse about language-learning) is still on-- and with renewed, heightened force.

Anyway, I have Crossing Borders homework to do-- the first exam of my college career, ever . . . I'm really quite scared. I have no idea of what to expect from this exam, and it's one-third of our grade. At least one-half of it (the exam, no; not the grade, lol . . . ) is take-home and in bizarre essay-format with a group project that requires six people to work together on one essay-report of 15 pages and make it sound coherent like one person wrote it, lol . . . I get to concern myself with pre-Westphalian borders-- basically, borders before nation-states existed, which apparently is like before the dawn of time, to this class, lol . . .

Whoever keeps calling Carol needs to realize that she's NOT going to pick up, no, not even on the 18th try, because she's not here . . . and that her cellphone ring might possibly be damn annoying to her roomate when it keeps going off, in excess, lol . . .

If I weren't afraid of phones, I might pick up and be like, "SHE'S NOT HERE!!!" *SLAM PHONE DOWN.*

. . . but I am.

On another complaining sidenote, my ear hurts like a motherfucker. I have no idea what's wrong with it. It squelches when I try to mess with it, and it just generally hurts, yet I don't think it's an earache or anything remotely fixable . . .

Japanese and Crossing Borders

Tonight is my study-night in.

I have so much to do. I have about an hour total study time tomorrow, and an exam on Thursday, so, hence, most of all of my studying must take place tonight.

I don't like this gap in the system, though.

The whole Japanese situation is just so weird. I hate every minute of the class, almost, sitting in there and knowing I'm failing and hearing things and understanding it, and yet, when she comes to me, being unable to say anything, and stuttering and stammering and having her correct me and knowing I knew it and hating her and resenting her and wishing she would call on me when she wouldn't and not call on me when she would and jumping and leaping at the chance to say something else beyond the ridiculous, retarded "Core Conversations" and getting it wrong if I try anything else within it.

Maybe writing will actually BE better. I learned Japanese backwards, you know; I learned some kanji first of anything, interested first in Chinese, and then I taught myself the syllabaries. I spoke a little Chinese as a 5th and 6th grader, but didn't say my first Japanese words until 7th grade exploratory Japanese, when I realized "desu" wasn't actually pronounced "desoo" but "des" (I remember, in fact, even asking Elizabeth Wynn when she came *home* from Japan one year whether "me" was "meh" or "mee," having no way of knowing with the supplies I had). Yet though I spoke nothing, I could spell all the names of the world, and even write out sentences in the few little grammar patterns I knew, spelling "konnichiwa!" and "sayounara!" and "arigatou gozaimasu!" with pride.

Even now, I write it better than I speak it, able to phrase myself with the time to think. Maybe that's where I go wrong: When I write to people, they think I'm phenominal; yet, when I speak to them, face to face, they humor me for my wrongness in expecting that deep down I must know it because I can write it.

(Speaking of which, I still don't understand-- and probably never will-- why they spell it "arigatoo" in so many textbooks-- it's either that or with the o overlined, which makes more sense but still not a whole lot-- when it's clearly spelled in Japanese, in hiragana, "arigatou" . . . why not make it easier for the poor English-learning students and spell it "arigatou" when they're learning romanized forms?)

Maybe in all of this trials, I'm supposed to be enlightened to provide a new way of learning Japanese that actually makes sense. Maybe I'm supposed to be tormented by the struggles of my own learning of it, to come up with some refined, better system.

Maybe teaching Japanese (or English-- and I've heard tell that the Japanese schools are million times worse about language-learning) is still on-- and with renewed, heightened force.

Anyway, I have Crossing Borders homework to do-- the first exam of my college career, ever . . . I'm really quite scared. I have no idea of what to expect from this exam, and it's one-third of our grade. At least one-half of it (the exam, no; not the grade, lol . . . ) is take-home and in bizarre essay-format with a group project that requires six people to work together on one essay-report of 15 pages and make it sound coherent like one person wrote it, lol . . . I get to concern myself with pre-Westphalian borders-- basically, borders before nation-states existed, which apparently is like before the dawn of time, to this class, lol . . .

Whoever keeps calling Carol needs to realize that she's NOT going to pick up, no, not even on the 18th try, because she's not here . . . and that her cellphone ring might possibly be damn annoying to her roomate when it keeps going off, in excess, lol . . .

If I weren't afraid of phones, I might pick up and be like, "SHE'S NOT HERE!!!" *SLAM PHONE DOWN.*

. . . but I am.

On another complaining sidenote, my ear hurts like a motherfucker. I have no idea what's wrong with it. It squelches when I try to mess with it, and it just generally hurts, yet I don't think it's an earache or anything remotely fixable . . .