As you may have guessed from the title of this entry, it's going to be pretty random. Subjects to be covered: my slightly worse homesickness, me whining about how busy we are, my desktop background recently having been changed, my current level of Japanese ability, all the things I wish I could do with the time I don't have, my washer being kind of a piece of crap in a way unmentioned as yet, instant soba apparently being a terrible idea, previews for the next couple of blog entries, and further information on how I'm currently feeling and what I'm doing. In no particular order.
Well then, shall we?
First off, the homesickness thing. Actually, when I really wanted to write about it (about two days ago), it was slightly worse, but I think it's only better now because things get blasted out of my head so often these days that I barely even notice anymore. Mostly I miss my friends, and that's mostly because here I have very few people to do things that I enjoy with. For example, I rarely get to play games with anyone, which I find very, very sad. Of course I have no one to play either hard or soft pad ITG with, partly because it doesn't exist here, but yeah. I also miss my friends' senses of humor a lot, and even humor in general. I'm getting to a point where I can be humorous in Japanese, but I'm still very obviously limited in that regard.
That combined with and the fact that between school and paying attention to Tina I have virtually no time to myself often causes me to feel very discomforted, frequently prompting me to stay up into the wee hours of the morning to get A, some time to myself, and B, some time to be on the internet while my friends are awake. I do this more for the former reason than the latter, because while talking to my friends prevents me from being sad to some degree, time away from other people prevents me from going insane, and these past couple days risk to my sanity has been the slightly higher of the two. As it is with class alone I tend to get mentally broken down after a couple of weeks at a time, and lately the forced extra curriculars have been uncomfortably high as well. It isn't that they're not fun, they're just very taxing and time consuming. At this point fun isn't so much what I need (nor is cake, but that's not what everyone else seems to think >_< ). What I need is to relax. A lot. More.
Aside from staying up late, I've been coping by cooking dinner a little less, which saddens me, and trying to take things a little slower, which doesn't always turn out so well. (Right now it's almost 2 a.m. for example.) I also recently changed my desktop background from a cool looking planet from Starcraft 2 to a picture of a cute, blushing girl with cat ears and giant eyes wearing a skimpy Santa costume and lying on a bed with presents scattered around her. This makes life slightly easier for some reason.
If I did actually have time to do anything ever (aside from writing this obviously, though I'm kind of making time to do that as it is) I would be studying additional Japanese that I don't have time to think about with all of the other Japanese that's trying to find room in my head, playing more games both with other people and by myself in my room, writing in this blog slightly more often, seeking out the company of people that I'm not actually obligated to spend time with--the exception here being Olle, because in addition to being the only person my age besides Tina who can speak English at a high level, he has a Wii and I get along with him quite well, experimenting with food a little bit more often, drinking more often (though I think my urge to do this stems partly from stress to begin with, and sleeping a healthy amount.
So, with all this apparent sacrifice I'm making, is my Japanese getting better very quickly? Honestly, I think I would be better off if the workload and pace would diminish a bit. Actually, that's too simple of a statement.
Lately I've had numerous complaints with both our grammar book and our kanji book, and because of those have wanted to take studying into my own hands on numerous occasions. Because of these flaws, I believe that some of the work I'm putting into study of these two mediums would be better spent researching online and putting things together myself. It's not that I devalue what I do learn in class, but with all the time I'm spending on it right now, I can't do the additional work that would reinforce class learning. I suppose I won't go into my specific complaints just yet. Later I'll be writing an entry directed at the Japanese learning crowd about what I like and don't like about our books and methods of study, particularly at this pace.
I'm afraid I can't think of a really good place for this next bit, so consider yourself informed that I'm about to randomly jump topic.
Instant soba is a terrible idea. Don't try it, because you probably won't like it. Contrary to what I thought, it's nothing like instant ramen.
Another random complaint: My washer has put holes in one of my shirts. Why do our washers suck so badly? (Tina has had the same problem.)
Stay tuned for my trip to a fancy Japanese hotel, today's events, and Interesting Facts About Japan part 2. Onegaishimasu.
No comments:
Post a Comment