Recycling
Took the trash out this afternoon. Finally.
While I was down there, I saw a stack of books in the paper recycling pile. On closer inspection, the top two turned out to be The Joy Luck Club and Things Fall Apart. I'm not positive that paper-pick-up day necessarily means "paper recycling," but it sure seemed a shame to let two books in good condition go out with the rest of the "gomi." I mean, recycling is better than throwing out is better than burning, but... once a book, it should stay a book, right? Something sad and... wrong about melting down (or however paper recycling works) a book and turning it into, I don't know, toilet paper. (The other books in the pile were study guides, which somehow don't seem as sacred as novels.) At any rate,
Score! Books for free! I've always felt I should read these anyway.
Today's exam wasn't *too* too bad. Much better than yesterday's test in fact. Part of it is that reading kanji is so much easier than writing them. In fact, I think that was the easiest part of the test. Phil and I were discussing this, that it's gotten to the point where many words in kanji we don't even have to think about to read. You know like those emails we've all received (multiple times) that say,
"Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe."
Whether or not the above is true, there are definitely a surprising number of words in Japanese we have come to be able to read without really looking at the kanji. The result?
We can't write them at all. ^_^
I also realized today that my speaking has improved much more than I thought. I didn't prepare at all for the interview portion of the exam (I normally write out a response to every possible question) but managed to get in there and chat with Suzuki-sensei for nearly 20 minutes (it's supposed to be 10min per person... oops!). I like to think she was just happy to see that my speaking had improved and not that I was talking her ear off. Part of it is that when I stop talking, she sits and smiles at me in silence for a while, and I always interpret this as a sign that I need to talk some more. Ah well. *shrugs*
And while we're on the subject of savouring small accomplishments, I wrote an email to the ITO Foundation in Japanese today without looking anything up. The reply that came back used two exclamation points to say my Japanese was improving surprisingly fast. So, thank you, ITO Foundation. Apparently your money is not going to waste.
On a little less upbeat note, the end-of-term/post-exam party was cancelled. We all made a mistake, and so Suzuki-sensei felt it was necessary. I can't say I'm too surprised or upset. Seems perfectly reasonable to me. I hope she doesn't feel too responsible though. She certainly can't have foreseen it.
So... next on the agenda? That darn paper. And I believe Chris plans to distribute demos this weekend. It will be interesting to see what (if any) responses we get. There are a few new pictures up on the myspace page from this month's Live... if you're interested. I realized that every time we've performed, I've managed to wear a NY t-shirt of some sort. Totally unintentional. In fact, I feel rather lame. Apparently, I haven't changed *that* much since high school - I just wear NY shirts instead of Star Wars shirts all the time. ^_~
While I was down there, I saw a stack of books in the paper recycling pile. On closer inspection, the top two turned out to be The Joy Luck Club and Things Fall Apart. I'm not positive that paper-pick-up day necessarily means "paper recycling," but it sure seemed a shame to let two books in good condition go out with the rest of the "gomi." I mean, recycling is better than throwing out is better than burning, but... once a book, it should stay a book, right? Something sad and... wrong about melting down (or however paper recycling works) a book and turning it into, I don't know, toilet paper. (The other books in the pile were study guides, which somehow don't seem as sacred as novels.) At any rate,
Score! Books for free! I've always felt I should read these anyway.
Today's exam wasn't *too* too bad. Much better than yesterday's test in fact. Part of it is that reading kanji is so much easier than writing them. In fact, I think that was the easiest part of the test. Phil and I were discussing this, that it's gotten to the point where many words in kanji we don't even have to think about to read. You know like those emails we've all received (multiple times) that say,
"Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe."
Whether or not the above is true, there are definitely a surprising number of words in Japanese we have come to be able to read without really looking at the kanji. The result?
We can't write them at all. ^_^
I also realized today that my speaking has improved much more than I thought. I didn't prepare at all for the interview portion of the exam (I normally write out a response to every possible question) but managed to get in there and chat with Suzuki-sensei for nearly 20 minutes (it's supposed to be 10min per person... oops!). I like to think she was just happy to see that my speaking had improved and not that I was talking her ear off. Part of it is that when I stop talking, she sits and smiles at me in silence for a while, and I always interpret this as a sign that I need to talk some more. Ah well. *shrugs*
And while we're on the subject of savouring small accomplishments, I wrote an email to the ITO Foundation in Japanese today without looking anything up. The reply that came back used two exclamation points to say my Japanese was improving surprisingly fast. So, thank you, ITO Foundation. Apparently your money is not going to waste.
On a little less upbeat note, the end-of-term/post-exam party was cancelled. We all made a mistake, and so Suzuki-sensei felt it was necessary. I can't say I'm too surprised or upset. Seems perfectly reasonable to me. I hope she doesn't feel too responsible though. She certainly can't have foreseen it.
So... next on the agenda? That darn paper. And I believe Chris plans to distribute demos this weekend. It will be interesting to see what (if any) responses we get. There are a few new pictures up on the myspace page from this month's Live... if you're interested. I realized that every time we've performed, I've managed to wear a NY t-shirt of some sort. Totally unintentional. In fact, I feel rather lame. Apparently, I haven't changed *that* much since high school - I just wear NY shirts instead of Star Wars shirts all the time. ^_~
posted by Bibhatsu at 04:18
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