I really need to stop staying up so late. Course, last night I got like 11 hours of sleep, so it’s not that surprising, but still. Ah well, what can I do? I’m just naturally inclined to a nocturnal schedule. =P
You know, I’m starting to feel like I’m just not getting enough practice. It isn’t that I’m forgetting anything that I’ve learned, but I haven’t really used much Japanese lately, outside of the very occasional anime. I was watching more of those for a while, but lately I’ve been hooked on quite a few shows that have nothing to do with my language study. When you add on that I lost my Language exchange partner (and I’m having some trouble getting a new one), I just don’t feel like I’m using it enough.
Not that I need something like that as a motivator, as I’m still going along with learning the language at the same pace I was. No, I just can’t help but find it fun trying to translate things. I mean, as rough as starting to learn the language was, I’m thoroughly enjoying trying to use it. =P I’m not actually sure what I can do about this (that I haven’t been trying to do already), but I needed something to talk about tonight, and complaining seemed like it would be as good as anything else. =P
I would add something else to this post, but my bed is calling to me, and it’s pretty persistant about these things. Oh sure, you might think it’s a minor thing to ignore it and try to entertain you all, but if I don’t go to bed soon, it’ll never let me hear the end of it! What, your furniture doesn’t do such things to you? Well, try not to worry about it too much, I’m sure once you’ve lost your mind like I have (lack of sleep will do that to you), it’ll finally open up and start talking to you. =P おやすみなさい！
It was one of those days where I got like 3 hours of sleep, and have now been up like 22 hours after that, so my posting got somewhat delayed. =P
Well, I’ve found some recipes for Ramen, and it doesn’t look like it’ll be too hard to get everything I need. The real hard part is going to be deciding which one to try first! =P
I have to be honest, I’m completely and thoroughly exhausted at this moment, I almost fell asleep at my keyboard. =P So, I need to come up with something to entertain you all, while also making it so I don’t have to think up too much stuff to cover. =P
Well, on Crunchyroll today (or was it yesterday? It’s kind of a blur), I stumbled across a video of the group Morning Musume. Now, I’m not a fan of this J-Pop group. It’s not that they can’t sing or anything like that, just not my kind of music. Well, it’s a clip from what I can only imagine is an unbelievably entertaining show, in which they are given an English word, told what it means, and they need to tell a story about something that has happened to them that would make them feel that way (the two examples I’ve seen were “shocked” and “Angry”). Once they have told a story to everyone, they must attempt to do so in English.
I think the whole thing was handled very well, and I couldn’t stop laughing during the clip. I think the best part is, I know exactly how they feel, and I imagine it would actually be pretty fun to try something like this with Japanese. =P
Well, I must go get some sleep now. I’ll try to stop posting Youtube vids and actually put up something entertaining on my own tomorrow, but this clip deserved to be watched. =D おやすみなさい！ =D
Nice, short, and I haven’t named a post after it yet. I officially approve of this title. =P
So, why name my post Ramen? I’ve got a couple minutes to kill while I wait for my message board to come back from maintenance, so I’m going to sit here and ramble for a little bit. Today, I’m rambling about ramen. =P
You know, I love Maruchan chicken flavored ramens. Those and the Maruchan Cup Noodles are things I have loved ever since I was a child (I can actually remember eating my very first Cup Noodle =P). You know what really shocked me? People said they’re nothing compared to real ramen from Japan. Now, I’ve gotten the chance to go to a few Japanese restaurants around here, and while I enjoyed every trip, I was always saddened to find out they didn’t have ramen on the menu. I mean, given how well known ramen is outside of Japan, you’d think they would make some. I actually knew a guy who used to live in Japan. He said he and his friend would drive 3 hours each way to hit this one little shop for its ramen. Can you imagine driving that far just for food? And yet still, the restaurants don’t have it here.
So, here I was, about 2am, deciding to make a ramen as a late night snack. Crisco (my cat my overlord and master) decided to steal my chair while I was away, and I couldn’t resist his puffy face and half asleep eyes. So, I did some shoulder exercises to keep myself busy while my food cooked. You know what I realized? It could be years until I actually manage to try some of this mythical “real” ramen. So, you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to make it myself! Now, it may just be my tired mind deciding to do this, but how hard could it be to find a recipe and gather the ingredients? I mean, there are some of those Asian specialty food stores around here, so even if there’s something that can’t normally be purchased, it shouldn’t be too hard for me to get.
So yeah, that’s my plan… Ramen. Now, I just need to ask you all one thing. Do you know of any good recipes for ramen? I mean, I’m likely going to be digging through the Internet trying to find a decent one, or at least a “generic” recipe, but I figured some of you might be able to save me the trip. =P
Now, I’m off to sleep, to dream of Ramen that will blow my mind! =P おやすみなさい！ =D
I don’t have too much to write about tonight, having started some things, but not actually accomplishing much, so I’m likely going to add a Youtube video to the end of this. It’s one that I only saw a day or so ago, and since I was reminded of it, you get to witness OMG cat. =P
Well, I haven’t gotten a reply from the language exchange ad I wrote to, guess they didn’t like what I said. In my defense, I didn’t have my ibus working yet, so my Japanese had to be written in romanji. =P
I really do need to finish up that ad of my own and just put it up. I had one before and it got quite a few responses, one that I horribly miss translated and someone here was kind enough to inform me of what it really meant (it was an awkward translation, and I’m sure anyone who feels like finding out can search for it on here =P). You know what? That’s definitely something I can “accomplish” towards my Japanese learning tomorrow. So, tomorrow night (barring horrible unforeseen circumstances, or someone putting up an ad that I reply to) I shall have an ad up! There, that wasn’t so hard, was it? =P
That’s it for me. I told you I didn’t have much to talk about. Speaking of which, I almost forgot to link the video! =O You know what? I’m going to do a few videos, I have to keep you entertained somehow. =P
That’s just 4 shy of my busiest day ever. I guess people are really excited about Erin’s Challenge! =P
Alright, I just corrected the Links page and removed the comments from the review and my Links page. I could edit the other post too, but I’m feeling lazy tonight. Our bird gave us a bit of a scare this morning, so I’m going on only a handful of hours of sleep (somewhere in the realm of 3). Don’t worry, he seems to be fine, but we were worried for a while there.
I’ve re-created my Kanji flashcards, but I was honestly too drained to work on a lesson plan. I know, I’m a terrible human being, I have an excuse, but I’m not going to bother using it. =P
Alright, I really need to get some sleep now (I’m shocked I stayed up this long). Sorry to keep this one short, but things should be getting busy in the future. Now that I’m going to be fully using Anki, I can start writing a detailed review for it, plus there’s the actual custom lessons that I’m working on. I suppose if they work out well, I might put some of the decks up, but we’ll have to see. I’m likely not the most “polished” individual when it comes to things like that, and we all know I can be un-reliable about updates on that. =P
Still, it would be kind of cool to create some sort of free language learning tool. I might do that one day, once I’m skilled enough with Japanese. I’d call it something like “This is next”, as it seems a lot of people write the very same question I did, “Where do I go from here?” =P
Alright, I’m rambling. See what happens when you guys get me talking? I just can’t stop myself. I blame all of you for this, of course. I have absolutely nothing to do with it, I’m too tired to be anything but innocent! =P おやすみなさい！ =D
So, today felt like a very long, but generally great day. =P
Honestly, I’m just really happy to have been told about the Erin’s Challenge. Granted, I now have plenty of material I can work from, but I really wanted to like that one, and now I can. ^.^
I’ve put back most of my Kanji list, but not all of it. I would do more, but I’ve got another pounding headache and I’d like to get to bed kind of early tonight. I also managed to get my iBus(the program I use for Japanese input) working again, just needed to get a few libs together.
So, come tomorrow I’m going to start putting together custom lessons with material from the JLPT, finish my Kanji list, and I might even watch a few Erin’s Challenge episodes. =P
Alright, that’s it for me. Sure, this post isn’t very long, but you got two of them today. =P おやすみなさい！ =D
Edit: Oh and Honigon messaged me again, it turns out I can link directly to the English verision of the site, I just need to make it an https:, so I’m going to correct all of the links tomorrow. =D
I contacted the Japan Foundation about the website that is streaming content from their Erin’s Challenge DVDs, it is an official webpage and she assured me that it is legit. So, for everyone who is learning Japanese I recommend you at least checkout the new Erin’s Challenge website!
Some of you read my review and know that I had some problems with it. It wasn’t the actual content I had a problem with, but how the subtitles are handled that was an issue. So, what makes this page so different? While it doesn’t possess all of the content from the DVDs, it does allow you to turn on and off subtitles as you see fit, and yes that includes enabling them during the explanations! =D
As if all of that wasn’t enough, the webpage is completely free, you don’t even have to sign up. It does have some sort of function for that, but I don’t see what it actually does (I’ll have to check that out later).
So, the link is http://www.erin.ne.jp/en/, and I want to thank Honigon once again for telling me about this website (click English in the top right)! =D
I’ve added it to my Links page and updated my Erin’s Challenge review to include the webpage, which I can’t recommend enough. =P
Alright, now I’m going to re-install my IME so I can write a different sign off than “おやすみなさい” (I always forget to re-install something). =P
Alright, first I want to apologize about not posting last night, I was exhausted and while I did have some interesting news to type up, I just didn’t have it in me to do it. =P
So, what makes this post new and exciting? First, I did do my re-install, and with the exception of a handful of minor details (Icon sizes, re-installing a couple of my games, etc) my computer is back in all of its former glory, but this time it’s new and improved! Anki is now fully capable of playing videos, and I even found a video editor that looks pretty easy to use (at least, the Youtube videos made it look that way =P). So yeah, starting to look like I’m going to get something done!
So, here’s the bad news, I might have forgotten to backup my deck of Kanji flashcards before the re-install and now I need to make it again, which is going to suck (and that means I did not practice my Kanji this evening, but I’m sure it can wait until tomorrow), but at least I can finally start to create something nice! =D
So, clearly that can’t be everything, I did say this post was exciting after all. Well, I received a comment on my Erin’s Challenge review today. This poster has informed me of a webpage (he claims it is the main webpage) that is hosting Erin’s Challenge for free with subtitles for the explanations! I did a quick google search of the link, and I think it might be legit. Still, I couldn’t find anything on the Japan foundation’s webpage (and they do own it), so before I can approve his comment/add this link to my page, I’m going to call them up tomorrow and find out if this link is legit. I’d love to see Erin’s Challenge with subtitles in the explanations, so let’s all hope it’s true! =P
As if that all wasn’t enough, I think I’ve found an ad for a language exchange partner that shares my hobbies, so I’m about to write a reply to them before I head to bed (learned from my mistake last time =P).
You could say things are going pretty well for me. Course, not everything is going well. I’m on about 3 1/2 hours of sleep because I woke up completely unable to hear out of my right ear. I don’t tend to have earwax problems, but it’s quite frustrating on the occasions where something like that happens. Fortunately for me, the drugstore sells this awesome little product that feels like thousands of bugs are crawling around in your ear, which you must endure for about 15 minutes, once that’s complete you blast all of that away with scalding hot water and you can hear again!
So, now that I’ve left you with that undoubtedly terrible image, I’m off to write a reply and get some sleep! おやすみなさい！ =D
Well, I’ve got some good news. No, I didn’t actually re-install my operating system today, but I’m going to tomorrow! =D
All I have to do tomorrow is stuff around the house (vacuum, sweep, laundry, etc, etc) which actually works out kind of nicely with the re-install, since I’m not going to be able to use my computer anyway. So yes, come tomorrow I’m going to finally get it over with and hopefully be able to move on. =P
So, now that tomorrow is decided, what do I have for you today?! Err, nothing really. =P Sorry, I had places to go and people to see, it happens. Yes I’m still just cramming some Kanji and doing some occasional review of the stuff I’ve already learned, but that’s not very interesting. Also, I feel kind of bad about having so little to do for my Japanese lessons. I mean, before it was actually quite a time investment, but right now, it just isn’t.
Course, I’m not going to be able to immediately jump into my new lesson plan once I re-install, as I’m going to have to actually learn how to put together a few videos. I don’t think it’ll be too hard, I mean, they’re bound to make some sort of idiot proof program that a monkey could use to put together a video… right? =P
I have actually been pretty bad about looking into that, in-fact, I think I’ll take a quick look around before I head to bed. While it’s late, I’ve been going to bed later, so I think I can spare a couple minutes to at least get a ball park of what I have to look forward to.
Okay, since I’m going to do that, and have a (hopefully) busy day tomorrow, I’ll be heading off. おやすみなさい！ =D
So, I tried to come up with a way to make this post not boring, but I’m pretty much out of ideas. I could cheat and give you guys a couple of adorable videos again, but that just doesn’t seem right. I know I haven’t been posting much entertaining stuff lately, but things have been busy, and I can’t really move on with my review/majorly move on in my studying until I re-install, which I did not accomplish today.
Now, don’t think it was because I was busy hanging out with a friend, because they didn’t actually make it over today. =P So, will I actually do it tomorrow? I’m not sure, I have some tentative plans, but based on how things go I might find myself unable to actually do it. I know, I’m just making excuses, but I wouldn’t look nearly as bad if this wasn’t a daily posting blog. I bet you’d all be amazed at how much I could get done if I didn’t have to try and come up with something new every night… Alright, maybe not. =P
So, I might have lied about not posting an adorable video. I mean, like I said, I don’t really have much else to do, and I’m getting pretty tired. So, without further delay, I give you Otters playing with pebbles!
And that’s it for me folks, off to sleep. I hope to tell you how my re-install went very well tomorrow and that how I can start writing a proper review and get to work on a better lesson plan, but we’ll just have to wait and see. おやすみなさい！ =D
Posted by felirc 
Felirc Learning Japanese 