Funny Things - Age Appropriate?
11 years ago
Tuesday, July 21, 2015
KAEDAMA! One more time. I haven't updated this blog in years, but I think it's time for a photo dump for any who want to see what I've been up to the last year in Japan. I came back for one last hurrah, and while I may not be back for a while, I doubt this will be my last visit to the Land of the Rising Sun. It's been a challenge. It's been an adventure. Love you, Japan.
Friday, May 7, 2010
Saturday, January 9, 2010
あけましておめでとう！
happy new years to everyone from japan! ^^
it was quite a different year this time around for the holidays. i definitely missed my family! thanks to the power of the interweb i was able to talk to some back home on christmas, which was a pretty excellent christmas present all in itself.
winter vacation is just coming to a bitter cold end. the break was short, but very sweet. lots of parties at local bars, two big year-end parties with teachers and school staff, and of course my studies to keep me from losing my mind these last couple of cold, lonely weeks.
my very humble japanese skill is finally starting to improve with time. not as fast as i had hoped, but i haven't been the japanese studying machine that i was planning on.
the jet program, unlike what some will tell you, is no walk in the grass. some high school alts (assistant language teachers) will teach only a handful of classes a week, but working at middle schools and elementary schools, i'll be teaching four to six classes every day some weeks. it's quite tiring and time consuming! this is especially true for a couple of the elementary schools where i'm completely responsible for lesson plans, classroom management, and everything else involved.
all of this was to stress that it's harder to devote most of your time to japanese than one would think being an alt in japan! when i would get home from school, i would open up the textbook that the program provided me, and want to sleep. after i'd sleep, i'd open it again, and want to sleep some more. studying japanese from that textbook was turning into a chore, and a chore wasn't what i wanted after working 8 hours without 10 minutes of break time.
over the break i tried out a new style of studying! japanese acquisition at it's best!? i don't know yet! perhaps!?
i read manga, watch movies, listen to japanese music and podcasts, read japanese blogs, and i pull my study material from all of them. if there's a sentence that has a curious grammar, or a word i don't know, i make a flashcard out of it online. the front of the card is japanese, and the back is the reading of all the kanji (chinese characters) and the meaning in english if needed.
my textbooks <("<) (>"<) (>")>
the flash card program is called SRS (spaced repetition system). when i see the flash card, i rate myself from 1-5, 5 being that i understood the sentence immediately without having to think about it, and 1 being that i totally forgot how to read it or what the meaning was. if the card was easy, it will show me again in six days. after six days, if i rate that it was easy again, i won't see it again for perhaps 1 month, and so on. if it was difficult, it'll show it to me again after a few minutes, or only one or two days. it works towards putting everything into your long-term memory.
so, this is how i'm learning japanese recently! i've cut english out of my diet as much as possible, and all of my media, especially, is japanese. i speak with other english teachers in english, and i use english at school, but that's all. getting rid of the textbook and using comics and movies and the like is keeping it fun as well, so i'm really motivated to study. i invested in some japanese grammar dictionaries for the tough times when i can't figure out the meaning of a sentence from context. i'm also devoting the time to learn 50 new kanji every day!
i had a good long conversation with an old man at a tea shop yesterday (in japanese). i had my hair fixed and my way cool jacket on, so he thought i was from the local university, haha. we talked for about 15 minutes. he said, "i know it's rude to ask, but, are you single? did you come to japan alone?" i told him that i am, that i did, and he asked me about cooking at home. i told him that i can't really cook, but i'm trying my darndest! he said he's doing the same because his wife passed away recently. he said he's never cooked before, but he's been finding some good recipes online. he gave me a 50 cent discount on the tea, and i told him i'd be sure to come back!
situations like that make the effort all worth it when it comes to studying the jps.
so, that's the update! here's your bonus picture! it's me! and a castle!
it was quite a different year this time around for the holidays. i definitely missed my family! thanks to the power of the interweb i was able to talk to some back home on christmas, which was a pretty excellent christmas present all in itself.
winter vacation is just coming to a bitter cold end. the break was short, but very sweet. lots of parties at local bars, two big year-end parties with teachers and school staff, and of course my studies to keep me from losing my mind these last couple of cold, lonely weeks.
my very humble japanese skill is finally starting to improve with time. not as fast as i had hoped, but i haven't been the japanese studying machine that i was planning on.
the jet program, unlike what some will tell you, is no walk in the grass. some high school alts (assistant language teachers) will teach only a handful of classes a week, but working at middle schools and elementary schools, i'll be teaching four to six classes every day some weeks. it's quite tiring and time consuming! this is especially true for a couple of the elementary schools where i'm completely responsible for lesson plans, classroom management, and everything else involved.
all of this was to stress that it's harder to devote most of your time to japanese than one would think being an alt in japan! when i would get home from school, i would open up the textbook that the program provided me, and want to sleep. after i'd sleep, i'd open it again, and want to sleep some more. studying japanese from that textbook was turning into a chore, and a chore wasn't what i wanted after working 8 hours without 10 minutes of break time.
over the break i tried out a new style of studying! japanese acquisition at it's best!? i don't know yet! perhaps!?
i read manga, watch movies, listen to japanese music and podcasts, read japanese blogs, and i pull my study material from all of them. if there's a sentence that has a curious grammar, or a word i don't know, i make a flashcard out of it online. the front of the card is japanese, and the back is the reading of all the kanji (chinese characters) and the meaning in english if needed.
my textbooks <("<) (>"<) (>")>
the flash card program is called SRS (spaced repetition system). when i see the flash card, i rate myself from 1-5, 5 being that i understood the sentence immediately without having to think about it, and 1 being that i totally forgot how to read it or what the meaning was. if the card was easy, it will show me again in six days. after six days, if i rate that it was easy again, i won't see it again for perhaps 1 month, and so on. if it was difficult, it'll show it to me again after a few minutes, or only one or two days. it works towards putting everything into your long-term memory.
so, this is how i'm learning japanese recently! i've cut english out of my diet as much as possible, and all of my media, especially, is japanese. i speak with other english teachers in english, and i use english at school, but that's all. getting rid of the textbook and using comics and movies and the like is keeping it fun as well, so i'm really motivated to study. i invested in some japanese grammar dictionaries for the tough times when i can't figure out the meaning of a sentence from context. i'm also devoting the time to learn 50 new kanji every day!
i had a good long conversation with an old man at a tea shop yesterday (in japanese). i had my hair fixed and my way cool jacket on, so he thought i was from the local university, haha. we talked for about 15 minutes. he said, "i know it's rude to ask, but, are you single? did you come to japan alone?" i told him that i am, that i did, and he asked me about cooking at home. i told him that i can't really cook, but i'm trying my darndest! he said he's doing the same because his wife passed away recently. he said he's never cooked before, but he's been finding some good recipes online. he gave me a 50 cent discount on the tea, and i told him i'd be sure to come back!
situations like that make the effort all worth it when it comes to studying the jps.
so, that's the update! here's your bonus picture! it's me! and a castle!
Saturday, December 26, 2009
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