"Six Feet Deep" or "How's School Coming Along?"

I think I mentioned that this semester gave me a much heavier workload than the previous two semesters... If not, this should give you an idea of how bad it is:

This coming Friday I have a test in Japanese. I also have to do all remaining homework for this chapter in Japanese, which amounts to 3 workbook pages including some translating of audio clips.
Over the weekend I have to read an entire chapter on Islam and write a paper on it for Monday.
Also this weekend, I have to watch at least two Akira Kurosawa films, come up with a thesis for and write a 5 page paper for my film class for Tuesday.
Oh, and I also have to study at least the last two chapters from my Japanese book, probably more, for an oral interview I have on Wednesday.

Stressed? Me? Nah...

Who gives a QUIZ on the first day of class?!?!

Ok, so today is my first day of school for the Winter 2010 term, and my very first class was my Art History 100 class. Now, I've taken a lot of classes over a lot of years, but I've never had to take a quiz on the very first day of class before today! Now, I'm aware that there's a quiz in my Japanese class on Friday, my second day of class, as a review of last semester, but how is it possible that someone actually thought it would be a good idea to have a quiz on the first day of class of a 100 level course?

In my professor's defense, the order came down from above, and this waws intended as a practice quiz so we students know what to expect, and for them to know where we are in terms of knowledge of the subject, but damn that was uncool.

Any ways, now that it's over, I'll be prepared next time...

Japanese Oral Interview: Aced.

Today, I had my oral interview in my Japanese class, and though I had feared it, I aced it. I want to send my thanks out to Professor Yasuda for being such a great teacher, and for being so patient with me and my fellow students!

A Few Thoughts on Japanese

The problem with Japanese is that it is Japanese. I love the language but honestly, it's as alien to a native English speaker as Klingon is. And vice versa, really, because English is a monster of a language composed of thousands of words from dozens of other languages, which (if there were some master language editor) could be greatly simplified to eliminate hundreds of words that mean the same damned thing. But I digress...

What I like about Japanese is that once you get the hang of the basic syntax, you're about halfway done learning the language. All you need then is to learn words to fill in the blanks, and master th pronunciation of most of those. Again, that's not to say it's easy, but it's easier than learning the sometimes contradictory rules of my native tongue.

The hardest thing about fully learning Japanese is Kanji: the Chinese writing system adapted by the Japanese hundreds of years ago. Rather than each symbol representing a sound or word, they represent ideas that must be interpreted and associated with syllables, words, or phrases. Given that there are thousands of Kanji it's no wonder that even they need a Kanji dictionary!

Any how, I have a oral interview in Japanese for my class in about an hour and a half. Wish me luck!

コーヒーはにほんであなたをのみます。

Ok, if you read and speak Japanese, you probably know that the title of this post is bad, and likely a mistake. Well, it's a mistake, but it was done intentionally. For those that don't speak Japanese, the title translates roughly to, "Coffee drinks you in Japan." Now, the reasons I wrote this title like this are two fold: first, while in my Japanese class today, we were working on using the de (で) particle, which denotes a place an action takes place, and on a couple occasions, I was placing the nouns in the wrong place, resulting in sentances like "Coffee drinks you in Japan." Second, there's a somewhat common meme that goes something along the lines of "In Russia, the coffee drinks you!"

Now, I didn't think about what I was screwing up in this second context until I was on my way home. When it suddenly occurred to me, I started laughing uncontrollably and decided to make this post. So, the translation of the title, in the spirit of this meme is, "In Japan, the coffee drinks you."

I had some other random things to say, but they've slipped my mind. If they come back to me, I'll make another post.