milkypink [dot] net

JLPT in one week.

………

once that’s out of the way, I’ll have to figure out what my next top priority is (might be driving).
maybe I’ll blog more. (yeah that’s not going to happen XD)
new laptop coming soon, estimated ship date is this coming Wednesday. It probably won’t arrive until week after this, however, since I chose standard shipping.

2009 has just one month left in it.
2010 should be the year everything changes.
scary, but exciting.

—————————-

日本語能力試験まで、一週間だけ残ってる。

．．．

それが終わったら、次の一番大事なすることを決めなきゃ。（運転することかもしれないね）
もっとブログしようかな～（なんてね。　笑）
新しいノートがすぐ来るはず。発想予想は今度の水曜日。急送じゃないんだから、来週の前に到着しないかもしれないけど。

２００９年は一ヶ月残ってるの。
２０１０年はすべて変わるはずだと思う。
怖いけど、やっぱりドキドキするよ～

Sometimes I think I really ought to be posting here more, and taking better care of this blog~
but I don’t know what I’d post about? XD kind of a problem… XD
well, I might post in the next couple of weeks about a certain new shiny that’s going to show up… ♥

I am escaping reality currently by playing Farmville and Fishville on facebook.
Laugh all you want, sim games are ♥ and perfect for wasting time.
maybe too perfect…. ( > >)
I must be careful not to buy Sims 3 until after the JLPT, that’s for sure.

I never posted about some things I meant to and I suppose if I go back and do those I’ll have some content XD
Like, I finally bought a Nendoroid (Konata~♥) and it’s so cute! I want Yui and Mio ones….
and of course I’ll update right before the JLPT with everything I’ve managed to do before the test… and then we can compare with how well I actually did when I get the results in February. I’m trying to be optimistic that I will pass, even by a very slim margin… XD

Something I’d like to do is blog bilingually, but I’m not sure how to handle it. Do each post in both, or have a separate stream that’s Japanese only? Which would you prefer? On the one hand, if you’re checking my work/learning, having things side by side might be useful, but if you would only want to read one or the other (not both) separate feeds is preferable. I’d have to work out how to handle that, though…

Having performances this week is screwing up my study schedule. Well that and practically inhaling the Death Note manga in a span of two days. And now Bones (oh how I love Bones ♥, thank you M!)

Trying to do at least one lesson today before I sleep, but of course it’s a lesson with two pages of sentences (most only have one)…

Starting to feel daunted again about the whole JLPT thing. Don’t want to lose my nerve, trying to keep perspective.

Missing shopping in Japan a little, wondering what the summer will be like, hoping I can get back to Ishiki progress eventually.

Emptying my head onto paper helps, but it just isn’t enough in the long run.
Emptying my heart through the keyboard helps, but it just isn’t enough to express.
Feeling level makes me worry – that in and of itself is wrong.

Deep breaths, let’s concentrate.

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

So, in random burst of determination, I’ve decided it’s time to get serious about Japanese again. Of course, it’s two months too late to register for the JLPT, but at least now I have a whole year to prepare for １級?
I’m taking my cues from nihongoperapera.com right now, as he (she?) recommends the Kanji in Context books, which I’m finding to be ridiculously helpful and well-organized – and I’ve only just started! Books full of the kanji by kanji, one at a time system really were not getting the meaning across to me well enough. Not that the mnemonics offered in A Guide to Remembering Japanese Character aren’t interesting, but the lack of kana and dictionary-like approach are really only good as a reference, I think. I stand by what I said before, about japanese-kanji.com being a good practice website, but that’s not the place for me to really learn the characters either.
My plan is this:
- complete the two Kanji in Context workbooks (which should take me a good few months)
- once I’ve mastered at least most of, if not all, the 1945 common use kanji, I’ll move onto JLPT １級 textbooks for test-specific study
- at the same time, when I get sick of doing test problems, I’ll read manga and light novels to increase my general vocabulary
- take practice tests at various intervals to track my progress
- REMEMBER TO REGISTER FOR THE JLPT IN 2009 (this one is going to be the hardest, somehow XD I always forget…)
- figure out a way to be in NYC for the test Dec 2009 (since the NYC location is the closest one to where I live right now)
- pass the test? XD ideally, anyway.

But to be honest, right now? I’m harvesting fruit in Animal Crossing. XD