milkypink [dot] net

So I’m thinking about going into translation as a working field.
I don’t know if it will work out, and in general there’s not a lot of demand for J->E translation in the US, but it’s something I’m actually interested in.
and, is slightly more realistic than some other ideas I’ve had…
I’m still interested in making music, but it’s really unlikely that I’ll ever make anything close to a living off of it and that’s fine with me. I should probably attempt to study theory again at some point though… *cough*
I’d like to work with computer-related tech but I lack a lot of… shall we say, credentials… in that field. But I’m a fast learner, so given some focus and/or experience I could do a wide variety of stuff… which is incredibly vague. XD
I’m pretty sure Working With Children will turn into a last resort, though I do enjoy it to some extent. The effort put into obtaining any kind of certification for doing a job that’s underappreciated, underpaid and a hell of a lot of work… just doesn’t seem worth it, in the long run.
But why is it that UMass is the only place in the state with a Translation Masters? I would have thought something in Boston… but it seems like that’s not true.
Anyway, still doing research on the subject, and still moving forward with the JLPT. It’s not a certification for translation, but it’s worth getting, and worth studying for.

So in typical spring/summer fashion, leaving the windows open has invited in the itty bitty insects.
I wonder if I’ll wake up with mosquito bites tomorrow…
I’m trying to keep a schedule of four lessons into mnemoyne per day, but that’s to varying degrees of success… I still have two to go for today, for example, and it’s pretty late already. I can finish in a little over three weeks and actually start memorizing things properly (although I’ve already remembered loads by inputting so much as it is, kind of crazy).
I did make the amazon.co.jp order I was contemplating before, with the addition of the K-ON! OP/ED singles because I never buy CDs anymore…
So, once kanji has been solidified, it’s on to grammar and test-specific-prep. If I had the time, I might aim for 2級 first to get experience but as it is I really need to shoot for the top before the changes are implemented. If I fail I’m only out the money & time to take the test, which is exactly what I’d be out taking 2級 anyway, and still be stuck trying to figure out how the hell to study for a test that hasn’t been sat yet.
I’ll probably attack parallel parking this weekend, at least a bit. No matter what ends up happening for the test, I have to know how to pp anyway so there’s no use in not practicing. I can three-point easily only because I did it about a hundred times so logically pp should be the same…
It’s not like I’m not smart, I just don’t put any effort into things. (years of public school that was too easy kind of trains you this way, somehow… ) So, if I just shut up and do it there’s no problem.
Randomly, I feel like practicing French again, but that’s a Bad Idea, let’s not mix languages…
not to mention all the Korean I keep exposing myself to.
So far I think I’ve picked up “hello” “thank you” “I’m sorry” “I love you” (although I knew that before… I know that in several languages, somehow…) and can tell when someone’s being polite or not… possibly. I couldn’t romanize any of those phrases, however, because korean romanization is bizarre and I don’t actually know how they’re written in hangul (which is something else that breaks my brain).
I can study random languages to my heart’s content once I get the JLPT out of the way… XD

I might spend this weekend parallel parking until I can do it in my sleep.
I have to stop overwhelming myself. I’m a good driver! I just need to be able to park and I can pass it and get my license. Then… I can go places alone.
Where I go… is another issue entirely.
Summer is my time, so I need to make the best of it!
If I can keep my heart stable like this, I can make some progress.

Let’s move forward, one step at a time!

M’s post about feeling like she’s not able to dress the way she wants kind of reminded me to talk about this a little bit…
As far as fashion goes, what people around me (that is to say, random and not-so-random people I encounter on a daily basis) think about what I wear doesn’t bother me much. If they like it and say nice things, all the better, but if they don’t… well, so what? I can ignore them easily enough (hence, the music) and I dress the way I do because it makes me happy. And after enduring months of being stared at pretty much constantly in Japan… what’s the point in getting skittish now?
But, it’s not to say no one can affect how I dress.
People who’s opinion I actually really value can impact it greatly. Even small remarks, maybe not even necessarily meant so strongly, impact it.
And, having my carefully chosen style completely ignored by these people bothers me as well. It’s fine if you like me the way I am normally, but at least try to appreciate the effort I’ve taken to express what I feel like inside myself.
Girls understand this, I’m sure, but I don’t know if guys do, as much.
One side to wearing makeup is of course to appear more put-together (hiding the lack of sleep, for example?) but the other side is… well, boredom! To see that face in the mirror every day… don’t you just want to change it, sometimes? I don’t think you can really say to anyone else that it’s not boring to see them because it isn’t the same. This is a boredom born from an entire lifetime of staring in the mirror, from the time you recognized your reflection. To other people, you seem to have changed, but inside yourself, it’s too steady a flow to see it, and so it always seems the same. I suppose it would be weird to find a completely different person in the mirror sometime… but still, the boredom is there.
Clothing is the same way, and even if there’s not a set rubric for what each color, texture, and style is expressing, at the very simplest, it’s expressing what I think looks good at that moment, on that day. And that’s a part of me I’m sharing with you. Sometimes the intent is low, sometimes I’m just cold, or hot, so comments then mean even less because I’m not trying. But sometimes the intent is high, the effort is high, everything is chosen with love… to ignore that, is to ignore me. Maybe I’m not dressing for you, but my heart is in it, nonetheless.