Your Future Awaits.

Since I’m in college now, and I really wanna go places, as in abroad, not just with my career ‘places’. I need a job, preferably part-time. But here, in Ireland, being a recession and all, there is no jobs. WAIT, there is, lots of them but you need experience. AND LOTS OF IT. That’s all well and good, but for part-time jobs in Cafe’s, Fashion Shops, 2-3 years experience, ridiculous. If the students can’t get jobs, then how is the country supposed to make money? No jobs means all students are either leaving during study and going away to finish and never coming back, and graduates leaving to find work elsewhere. Ireland will eventually be left with just retired people and the Government. If even.. Even the retired are going abroad, to Spain and Italy. It seems it’s not as enjoyable being retired here anymore.

Anyways, this week I found some cool sites, some you all probably know already but I thought I’d share them with you incase you didn’t. There interesting and helpful, and very informative blogs. So take a look at your leisure.

• CouchSurfing
• Irish Polyglot
• The Odyssey
• StumbleUpon.

Been watching a lot of Korean Dram lately, stirred away from the J-Drama, but it’s because of the K-Drama, they are amazing, you feel like you’re in the story, you know these people, you cry for these people, and when the series is over, your very sad, because you know they’re not your friends. I don’t have much else to say about them, this sums up what I think about them and thought you should know. So go give them a watch. Go to Viki it’s legal to watch them there, there’s tonnes already on it. So go, enjoy and let me know what you think!

As you know, I am going back to college this year. Induction Day was Thursday just gone, the 8th of September. I was so so nervous, as usual, not as bad as I used to, but nervous all the same. I thought they would make us play “Circle Time”. Where you sit in a circle, and everyone stands up, says their name, and something about themselves. It’s supposed to ‘break the ice’. But for me, and a lot of people I know, it embarrasses them so much that going back in the next day makes them even more nervous than before. It didn’t happen so I’m alright, we just went in, heard about the college and the course, got the tour of the college and where each classroom is and then got our timetables and left. It took about an hour. There’s not to many people in my course. Which is Business, and I also get to pick Chinese as an option, which I am definitely going to take. 2 birds with 1 stone. I was planning on learning it eventually, might aswell get a head start. So, I’m looking forward to class, starting on Tuesday. in at 12pm. Not to bad, whole timetable isn’t bad either! So wish me luck!

In my world of Japanese, I have my Hiragana down. All of it, printed off some work sheets today, just to keep it up. Also Katakana, nearly have it all off by heart, and printed of some exercise sheets for that.

Japanese Words of The Week.

This week, I actually started studying Japanese properly,with some motivational websites that found. (See above) So I decided to put my progress reports, as you have seen above, and my words and/or phrases of the week into my Post’s from now on. Hopefully it will help other people out there learning Japanese with the same motivational levels as me, which is usually waiting for it to come to me, rather than me actually studying. You might say I think that if I wish enough I’ll wake up magically fluent one day. But that’s not gonna happen so we have to do it and do it NOW.

Hope these help! 😀

椅子 – Chair/Stool/Post/Office

南 – South

こるから– from now on/after this

車 – Car/Wheel

朝 – Morning

国籍 – Nationality

お寿司 – Sushi

食べる – To Eat/To Live Off

理屈 – Theory/Reason

鼻 – Nose

物はね – Imitation/Mimicry

ぽんす– Citrus Soy Sauce

昼飯 – Lunch/Midday Meal

不愉快 – Discomfort/disagreeable

客観的 – Objective

はっぴょうけっか– Results announcement

直感 – Intuition

必死 – Frantic/Desperate/Inevitable Death

絶対 – Absolutely/Unconditionally

決着 – Conclusion/Decision/End/Settlement

失敗 – Failure

中途半端 – Half-way/Half measures/Unfinished

厄介 – Trouble/Burden/Care/Bother/Worry/Support

しょっちゅう – Always/Constantly/Frequently/Often

So, that is all for this week.
There’ll be more Kanji etc next Friday, and other mindless ramblings.

*Sigh*

Might be a day or two delay in the next post. I’m checking all my “Word’s of the Week” to make sure they’re not wrong for the next post, but a lot of them are.
I can’t stay up all night as usual to fix them because College is in 2 days and I want good start this time as you know. So, forgive the lateness and bare with me.

There will be 100+ “Word’s of the Week”. So there is something to look forward to!

Post should be up on September 8th (Planned date) or September 9th. September 10th at the latest.

甘夢 (Sweet [pleasant] dreams)

I Really Have No Patience

This week I finally planned out the next few months, so my brain doesn’t stress out. College is in a week, well the Induction Day, and I’m so nervous. But like the last course I did, I’m gonna take it full on by the horns. I was grand last time, but I made a few mistakes last time and know what I’m don’t do this time around. Apparently my class in the college is small enough, but I doubt it will be in the university part. I’ll be a recluse all I like when it comes to bigger campus’, but this year, I’ll be social too. University is more important, especially if I want to go to Japan soon-ish.

So, while waiting for College to start, I’ve sorted out my Japanese Study Journal, so I can join it with my Business Studies. It’s a win-win situation. It’ll be easy, since we took 13 different class including 4 different languages in our first year of secondary School. If I can do that, I can do anything. So, back to my Study Journal.

It consists of:

• Grammar
• Reminders of Word Order etc.
• Hiragana and Katakana. (平仮名とカタカナ)
• 2 New Kanji
• 2 New Words/Phrases
• All words are relevant to me. Eg: College, Business, Fashion etc.

I will go over once a week everything I’ve put into my Journal, and every day go over words, phrases and 平仮名とカタカナso as not to lag behind and it will help me learn business in Japanese which will be very helpful in the future.

Now, only ONE WEEK TO GO until College begins. I just want it to start already, get the ball rolling, I really want to prove I can stick the year out and pass amazingly. So I can move on in life too! Get away from everything I want to get away from. So wish me luck! Also got my Grant Forms in, on the closing day, but if I didn’t, I wouldn’t be me, late for my own funeral I will be.

I think that’s all, my cat just fell and dug her nails into my foot. Ouch!!
Until the next time, sorry if the post is a bit small! What can you do when there’s not much going on? Yet…

It’s Been Awhile – No Internet, No Dorama.

You will become a house hatcher until the end of the series and then you'll probably watch You're beautiful, like I did, even though it came out first. Heartstrings looked more appealing.

I know I haven’t written anything in a while, and I apologise. But I have been
busy, but busy not doing a lot of the important things I should have been
doing, like learning my Japanese, and sorting out Student Grant Forms and
Registering for college.

But don’t worry, I have registered, I got my forms, and now I just got a kick
in the face to keep up my Japanese, I need to keep things in mind. Keeping
things in mind was never my strong point, I think I’m just a bit ahead of
myself than the normal person, like a few years to many. I don’t know why it
is, but I seem to always have been this way. I need constant reminders of
everything. But even that doesn’t work sometimes. I ignore them on my phone, I
don’t notice them on my Laptop and if I do notice them or not ignore them, I
wiggle my way around them somehow and then I realise sometime after and the
circle begins again.

Starting college soon, will put me in the academic mind-set thank god, but I
was hoping to have some Kanji down so I could write my notes in some Japanese,
and it’d probably help me learn both subjects at the same time. I am thinking
of writing everything in Katakana, to learn them off by heart so I can progress
to Kanji a bit quicker. Well, to more Kanji, I do have some down but I’ve
forgotten a lot. I will also find the Japanese for my business vocab and use
them then in notes so not everything is in katakana, some things will be in
Kanji and Hiragana, like it should be. Then you see, I’ll be learning quicker.
Mind-set helps.

I’m looking forward to getting back to college, I just hope the Induction Day isn’t
one of those cheesy days where your forced to play games that are supposed to
help you get to know your friends. I don’t really care, I’ll make friends, the
games make it worse for the shy people and make them go into themselves more. I’m
20, they should have a get-to-know-eachother with a few vodka and 7up’s down
the pub, there’s enough of them around. Or have a chat in the smoking area at
college. That’s how you make friends at this ages, otherwise, you already have
friends from Secondary School and Primary School.

Sorry about that minor rant, I really dislike them games.

Either way though, I’m dying to begin the course, keep me and my mind off
stupid things, this summer, even though everything went wrong, I have realised
who my true friends are, what I want to do with my life and what and who to
leave behind. It hasn’t been the best of years so far but I can feel it’s
leading up to the beginning of a great new year. Three more New Years and
hopefully I’ll be planning my move to Japan. 😀

So, anyways, not writing posts for so long was annoying, I was in my friend’s house
for a week and a half, for a little holiday. Helping her sort out college and
putting in her hair extensions. So that was another reason I didn’t post in
awhile, I also couldn’t watch my Dorama’s. My Dorama’s (Japanese and now
Korean) were also another distraction, I’m addicted, but today I said enough
was enough, get some work done. But Id recommend watching them they are
amazing. Seriously. But warning, highly addictive, you wont want to leave your
house. I didn’t.

I hope the end of Summer is good to everyone, I think I’m going up to Belfast
with Orange before College officially starts, which is the 13^th
September. It’s not long away and I don’t know if I can come up with college
money then. But we’ll see. I’ll let you know how that goes then anyway. Today
though, going over Kana for whatever amount of time, shouldn’t have a time
limit, makes it monotonous and then I’m going to read some all Kana articles
and then find out what the words mean and then maybe the various Kanji for
them. NO ROMAJI! BOLD ROMAJI!

Have a good one 😀

The “J” Word

Sorry to mention the “J” word, every five seconds, but I have to, if not. Well, I’ll forget I’m on my J-mission.
Part of today’s mini-mission of the J-mission is that the only English thing I’ll do today is this. Writing my post. My Facebook and Twitter are in Japanese and now I have some new Japanese acquaintances to talk to in…yes, you guess it JAPANESE. So, I’m excited I can have some more exposure to Japanese, and I’ve got my head around certain things since finding these Japanese. Which is god. (Yes, you could say I am a stalker, finding these people I do not know on the web, but I’m not. Blame Khatz for being such a good influence on all of us AJATTer’s, he started it all)

So today’s plan is quite simple. I will be doing…:

1. Hiragana and Katakana
   I just need to check my Hiragana. Katakana I must learn all today. I will not fail.
2. Kanji Reviewing
   I have the website I found for that. Linkishere.
3. Drop some Anime
   I’ve run out of Anime I think, but I think I need to work more on my basics until I watch another Anime, because I want to try without Subtitles so bad, and the Anime I love, I’ve only ever watched with subs/dubs. So now it’s time to understand them properly. Then I can go find new Anime. I’d say there would be new ones out by the time I’m finished re-watching the others RAW. Oh and I watched a real person Japanese movie today, it’s the real version of Kimi no Todoke. It was great. Must go find names of Producers and Actors etc. I’m hooked. Officially.
4. Search some Manga.. (Newbie)
   So, yes. I am a complete Noob when it comes to Manga, it never interested me, but it will if it’s in Kanji. So making inquires to ALL the comic book stores in Dublin if they have them or not. ONLY IN KANJI. Waste of time, effort, and money to buy them in English you must enjoy them in their true form, to get the jokes, not the lame jokes put in in English.
5. Some online Japanese reading after No.1
6. Definitely, not even some, LOADS. Lots of sentence picking too. If I’m stuck I can help one of my new Japanese acquaintances to help.
7. Japanese talking time. 😀
   With new friends, well soon to be friends on SKYPE, still dont like the whole call/camera call thing. Freaks me out. If only Murz was Japanese, I could talk to her for days on end.. Or if Kirsty was Japanese, I could slag her for days on end. OR if Orange was Japanese, we could conceive our evil and strange ideas together in Japanese. My arm just cracked like the bone decided to snap…. Weird
8. And perhaps find some more music artists. The Japanese kind. (Obsessed already)
   It’s quite catchy soft rock, feel good music. Even the overly cute “choir” idols group AKB48 is addictive. Brainwashing me I should say. Few other bands whose names I keep forgetting to take down, but they’re  in the Favourites thing. But didn’t put any names beside them. I’ll put them up on Twitter later when everything is done.

So, I think that’s it. It’s time to start another beautiful day in my make-shift Japan. 😀
I’m looking forward to it.
Oh… and if your also studying Japanese, and reading this. Get up off your arse and study now.. THIS IS IN ENGLISH…Dude

 

QUICK QUICK QUICK, STOP THE PRESS

IMERSE YOURSELF INTO THE LANGUAGE. DONT LEARN THE LEARN JAPANESE, BECOME JAPANESE!
Found these wise words at: AJATT Very inspiring and clever little site. Makes complete sense too. I recommend it, especially if your the mental type and really love Japan and all things Japanese. Hope my Hiragana Chart helps aswell!

Becky

P.S. Posts up later will be longer. If you read articles on that site^. You will understand my hastiness in this one.

The Early Bird Catches The Worm

I for one, wouldn’t like to go catching worms, and I also don’t fancy being up so early. Since it’s become a bad habit of mine, getting up early (not catching worms), I might aswell use this time to WRITE RANDOMLY. Do I do anything else? No. But soon it will get less random. I promise.

So, the plan today is:

• Re-Train my two Cats. (They’ve been very bold lately)
• Finish of the Japanese I’ve been learning and move on. (Post up later for this)
• Blog and Post. (Must organise..again)
• More Job business. (Driving me crazy)
• Figure out this Installing WordPress malark. (If anyone can explain in an easier way I’d be most grateful)

I thought I’d show you our GLORIOUS SUMMER WEATHER here in Dublin City. I didn’t take the photo, but this is pretty much it, except for the 3 days where no Irish person could leave the house because it was sooo hot out. We’d probably die from heat.

I’ve thought, I always have a lot to do, and sometimes leave the big stuff until last-minute. Which is never good, because then someone will say “this is on, are you coming?” And I’ll automatically go. It’s like my brain wipes clean just as I hear that phrase and I only remember I had to do whatever a few days later.. sometimes weeks. I’m a sucker for a night out, so that’s why. My mobile has been off, if someone really wants to get in contact they can ring my house or email me. I’ve kept myself away from Facebook as much as possible. Only went on to set up things for the Blog, and appeared offline on anything like FB Chat, MSN or Skype. I also gave myself distractions, fun distractions, but addictive ones. So I’d forget about being “social” for a while so I can get my act together.

Yes, I know I may sound like I’ve decided unconsciously to become a hermit, but I think it’s good for everyone to do this a few times a year, well, once a year. You can gather your thoughts, see whats really happening that maybe you didn’t notice before, enjoy your own hobbies, and get work done. Without actually taking a holiday from work itself.. Relaxing your senses perhaps you could call it. I know a lot of people who need to relax more than once a year.. Every second week they forcefully should get locked in a room, to relax. But you can’t help those who don’t know how to relax. You have to let them find how to relax in their own way.

My tooth is hurting me a lot today by the way, well my gum.. It’s not painful, it’s just irritating, and itchy-sore. If you get me. I just want my tooth back again. I had to look at what day it was there, I’ve had it out nearly a week.. A week tomorrow. The pain and the swelling, should it still be here? I still look like the Godfather on one side of my face. HOPING I don’t have dry socket. I’ll absolutely die. It’s also very sad that you only get two chances to keep your teeth healthy, when you’re a child you don’t want to do as your mother says. When you’re a teenager, well lets just say I know a lot of people, who still to this day in their twenties,  are still going through the “no hygiene” phase. So please, if you want to have all your real teeth in your twenties to thirty’s. GO CLEAN THEM NOW. WI thought my teeth were fine except for one, I was so wrong, and how. I had 8 cavities that if I had left them another 4 months, all 8 teeth would have fallen out. Plus I had to get the one I thought was the only bad one out. You can see cavities at the start.. But if you’ve a hole in your tooth, and its black or brown, go to the dentist, because you probably have a few lurker’s somewhere aswell.  (As I was writing this paragraph I had to get up and brush my teeth, I freaked myself out so much).

Now, on to… THE JAPAN FRONT! As I said earlier in this post. Later on I will be writing yet another post but the first of my proper Japanese posts. That’ll be after I sort out the blog. So it looks alright and is navigable. 😀 Basically it will compose of What I’ve learned, How I’ve learned with pictures and maybe a video.. OF ME. Explaining it all.. Maybe not, I’m not ready for my close up. Juuust yet.. We’ll see.. I need a good blog before I can make good videos I think.

So this is all about today, the other points at the beginning of this pst basically explain themselves, my rant about tooth hygiene was necessary, I would have freaked out all day if I didn’t vent somewhere. I think my friends who listen to all my know-it-all rants cannot take anymore Thank you Murz.. 😀

So, that’ll be all for now. I think. If I don’t stop myself now, I’ll keep writing.

Have a lovely day, not Dublin, because it looks shit outside. What’s new?

Becky

Balls Rolling

Image via Wikipedia

Hiragana Practice Sheet – Basics – This I found to be helpful to learn all Basic Hiragana in the few days I did. Featured Image will help you write too. Goodluck!

So, I’ve looked around the internet, well I went into super mode and really scanned everywhere I could for  some information on Japan, more blogs about, to do with Japan and of course anything to help with my Japanese! I have surprised myself, and have found tonnes! By going from one blog and finding more blogs on that blog, Internet is amazing isn’t it?

Right, so get to the point Becky…. Well, while I’m still trying to figure out how to make blog as cool look and as handy as some other J-Blogs, I’ll write some addresses that I found useful at the end because first I must write about me. How selfish of me… On my blog.

ANYWAYS! I’ve always wanted to write a book, but because my attention span to things has never been the mae west I never really tried to sit down and think about it. But today, I was chatting to my dear friend Justine about it, I don’t remember how it came up but we ended up talking about it. So, I think it’s time, since I have all this crazy motivation recently, (possibly growing up at last) I think I may sit down and think about it, when I have time, I am in Hiragana mode now so nothing will make sense. But I think it’s a about time, I have always kept a Journal growing up, I’ve had many blogs, due to lack of motivation I gave up on. But they still contain much which I have long forgotten.

I must now collect all my Journals, Diary’s and try remember blog names and passwords.

On another note, as I previously said, other blogs look cooler and are handier, and my blog is still very messy, which I planned not to do but can it be helped? No it can’t. I work better in organised chaos.. Its my speciality and I think that’s how my brain works.

My Japanese up to today is going well, since I decided to kick the 9 week plan. I’ve memorised all but 3 of them and 2 I  mix up. But I’ll write out a plan today or tomorrow on another blog for those of you that don’t have a tonne of time to spare.

I hope this is comprehensible and helpful
I think I use too many apostrophes.

Becky

Japanese

Finally, found two good websites that give free Japanese lessons.

The first one, well whoever who has written it, hasn’t got perfect english, but its understandable and the teachings are good. Nice Hiragana chart and explanations of everything.

Site One: Learn Japanese Adventure

The second site is very good. Has forums, lessons, print offs, flash cards, etc.
At the end of Lessons, you can comment, and fluent speakers will explain anything you need to know.
Chat room where other learners are conversing in perticular topics, relating to whichever lesson they are on. They all seem to be doing the same subject with each other, which is good I think. They have support. This site is good for working on kanji or any charachters and basic phrasing etc. (Basic and Intermediate)

Site 2: Learn Japanese

Hope these are helpfull to anyone intrested.

Becky

P.S. Heres a chart showing how Im learning my Hiragana so far. 😀 幸運!

平仮名ごじゅうおんず Hiragana gojuuonzu

The reason I have it 5 Hiragana per week, is because learning to write them is harder then memorising them. It’s like English in teeny tiny pictures.. And there is thousands more to learn. Dun Dun Dunnnnnn!