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To Japan!
Posted by Amber on October 28th, 2011
Filed under: School


I need to just move to Japan for a year and be immersed in the language. My Japanese professor has said countless times thus far I know enough Japanese that I’d be able to get around in Japan, and the stuff in the 200 levels and beyond is an extension. Swell. Well, if I know enough to get around then that’s what I really need to do. Going to class and talking in Japanese for less than an hour a day isn’t going to help me learn. You learn by doing, and if I go to Japan then I’ll pretty much be forced to speak, read, write and hear Japanese all the time, so it’ll eventually come more naturally to me. Shame I don’t have the money. I wanted to do at least one semester abroad in Japan but have never had the money. 日本語が上手になるように日本に行きたいよ!! That doesn’t sound quite right, but it does get what I’m trying to say across.

This week has been kind of meh. One a good note I only had biostats once this week because the professor “had an incident” with her horse. But on a lower note I didn’t have my micro lab this week. Yes, I have to get up at 6AM in order to get to my 8AM lab which lasts until nearly noon at the longest, but it’s the one class that I really enjoy what I’m doing. What can I say, I’m a micro nut. Now back to Japanese homework.

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It’s going to be a LONG year
Posted by Amber on August 23rd, 2010
Filed under: General,School


Yeah…where to begin?

Let’s begin with the apartment. Well, turns out that that exterminator didn’t know what the hell they were doing, because when we began moving the big stuff in Saturday we went around the edges of the room with bug spray, and they came running out. One even nearly went into my brand new couch, but my aunt caught it. And then the next day of course there’s more, I even found a few in my room. Honestly, this apartment thing had me crying last night. I was just so sick of having to deal with all this shit, and so pissed that the stupid apartment complex showed such a nice apartment to me when I was looking only for me to be given this piece of crap. I can’t even open the door regularly. To unlock the screen door from the outside I need to push in first then turn the lock, and the regular door just doesn’t like opening without some force behind it. And yesterday, after my mom sprayed the cabinets (is that the right word? For some reason I feel like it isn’t) and wiped all the bugs that were in there, she laid down some shelf lining and put the little bit of food I got in them. Then she told me to wash the dishes and such so they could be put away. I attempted to start with my silverware. Well, I didn’t even get through that, before the entire faucet came flying off and water went everywhere. My mom screwed it back on, but it came off again. So I ended up doing the silverware in the kitchen sink, and I had to do each individually because I don’t have a stopper for it. Today, although I was just going to wait until tomorrow because I was so tired, I went to the office and told them all of this. I mainly decided to do it today because I made my pot pie, was going into the extra storage closet to get a plate and I see a roach on the wall. Killed that sucker, then grabbed my keys and went up to the office, even missing the beginning of The Office and holding off on eating to do so. I guess tomorrow they’ll come fix the faucet when I’m at school, and she said she’d call an exterminator, although I don’t know when. She kept asking if it was ants, and I kept telling her no. If it was ants I could take care of them, there have been issues with ants a few times at home, they’re pretty easy to get rid of. And I have to go back in tomorrow, although I think they’ll be closed by time I get back from class, to pick up new keys, because my mailbox key won’t work and my other key won’t open up the laundry room.
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Clearly Japanese is better
Posted by Amber on May 13th, 2010
Filed under: School


I’m studying for my Japanese final which is tonight, and as I go over the grammar stuff, which is probably where I’ll mess up the worst, I noticed something. A lot of the grammar that I learned in the first few chapters is second nature to me. I just know to write or speak using it. I know that I had issues with Italian and trying to remember all the damn grammatical rules, and it’s obvious why. Because there’s way too many damn irregular verbs, and way too many tenses, and just too much weirdness. Damn you Latin based languages. Seriously, if English hadn’t been my first language, I don’t think I’d ever bother to learn it. Too confusing. I think the thing that makes Japanese seem so difficult to people is that you have to learn a new writing system. As I’m sure I’ve said at one point, the hiragana isn’t difficult at all because it’s used to often, and eventually I’ll get the katana down, more than what I use for my name. Kanji…it isn’t too bad I guess, maybe…it’s just hard for some of them because they have so many different meanings. And there are a few that are read different in specific words, like 今日。The first character is normally read as either こん(kon) or いま(ima), which is the word for now. And the second character can be read as に、にち、か、じつ、ひ、or び。 But combined the two characters are きょう、the word for day.
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^.^
Posted by Amber on April 30th, 2010
Filed under: School


Today, I think, I can classify as a good day. Perhaps even a great day. Physio was boring as usual, but somehow today I didn’t nearly fall asleep. And I found out today was the last day the guy professor is going to be lecturing, we finally get the female one back for the last couple of lectures. And then…well, I thought Japanese Pop Culture was going to suck, because the professor was there. But he just sat and let his TA lead the class, which wasn’t much but just giving a brief overview of the movie we’re actually watching all the way through, Summer Wars, and then relating it to stuff we’ve learned in class. I think the only reason he actually did that was because the professor was there, but I don’t really care. And we’re going to be watching it on Monday too! I never thought we’d get through an entire movie in that class.
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Woes of [not] studying
Posted by Amber on April 25th, 2010
Filed under: School


I’m so close to being done. I have my last regular o-chem exam this Friday, and then my final physio lab practical this Wednesday, and final for o-chem lab this Thursday. Then the Japanese oral final sometime next week, and the week after that four finals in three days. Then I’m done for the year here at least. I need to have that last minute drive to study like crazy, especially for o-chem because I need to do get at least a high C on this last test to have any chance of passing the class. I tried to study, I did two hours today, and two hours yesterday. I was going to do more, but I just couldn’t find the motivation. The thing is, I studied for two hours straight today and then was going to watch Scrapped Princess until 4 then go back to studying, but at a bit before four I only had two more episodes to go, so I decided to finish watching the series. And then I saw Working! was out subbed, so I watched that. Pretty much I never got to studying again. I’ll probably start again at 9, but it’ll probably be physio instead of o-chem. But on a good note I finally got to and finished Scrapped Princess all over the weekend. It was actually quite good. I think there’s something about fantasy shounen that I like, because, although I haven’t really watched too many series within that genre, the ones I have I have enjoyed quite a bit.
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なに?
Posted by Amber on April 13th, 2010
Filed under: General


My roommate talks quite loud when she’s talking to her sister, and she’s talking about the AIMS testing. And talking about how her sister and cousin had the same prompt or something, and then she said “They’re the same nationwide.” Yeah, there’s kind of an issue with that statement. AIMS isn’t a nationwide thing, it’s something that Arizona is forced to do because the government wanted to let slightly fewer dumbasses out of school with a high school diploma.
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So much time, yet so little
Posted by Amber on March 21st, 2010
Filed under: General


Finally, break is over. I shouldn’t be saying that, yet I am. Normally I wouldn’t want break to end, but these last few days have been…I’ll say tiring, to say the least. Family decided to go to California from Wednesday to Saturday. And what better way to start it off than getting two hours of sleep, departing by car to San Diego at 2 in the morning, then getting to the zoo and walking all over the damn thing multiple times with just those two hours of sleep and an apple fritter for energy, all the while as the temperature is slowly rising so that by the afternoon you feel as if you have heat stroke, even though it isn’t all that hot? And then getting to the hotel that is actually a lot crappier than expected, hanging around there for a few hours (no sleeping involved, just watching other people sleep) then going to dinner and then finally a few hours after dinner going to bed? Dinner wasn’t actually that bad. We couldn’t find anything good to order in, so we decided (and by we I mean my mother, father and I. My brother was being too lazy to get up and go to eat with us) to try Applebee’s, since the GPS said it was close. Well we didn’t end up going to Applebee’s. I’m not actually sure where it was, I didn’t see it. We did however end up going to Mimi’s Cafe, which wasn’t all too bad. I was having trouble deciding what I wanted, but I eventually just got some chicken sandwich. I forget what it was called, but it was big. And since my mom got the special where you get an appetizer, entree and dessert she gave me her apple crisp, which I ate even though I was nearly stuffed. I definitely was when I finished. And although I wanted to go to bed then I needed to let my food digest some. Despite the crappiness of the day the zoo was rather nice. We were there a bit before it opened so we were one of the first in. So did the sky ride thing, I forget what it’s called at the moment, and then we walked around once to the other side of the zoo by the ride. And somehow we managed to get completely to the beginning again from the far side while looking for the pandas, which were on the far side where we had initially been after the sky ride thing. So we walked back that way, and saw the pandas, then ate lunch. It was pretty yummy. The only problem with the zoo I had (other than the huge hills it was built on, but can’t blame nature) was that there were no llamas. Yes, you read correctly. No llamas. I couldn’t believe it. I love llamas, but they had none. They had something that is a descendant of ancient llamas, but no actual llamas.
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The horror of oral exams
Posted by Amber on March 1st, 2010
Filed under: School


Japanese oral went horribly. Everyone who was coming out of the room said they did horrible, although I don’t know if that’s actually true. The professors certainly made it intimidating enough. All of the desks were back against the wall, so it was pretty much a huge room with a table and chair in the front, the female professor on the side watching and the male professor sitting at the table giving the exam. I felt so prepared beforehand, or at least I didn’t think I would stumble as much as I did. But how I did stumble. When I got in there and sat down I lost all my confidence, and my mind went almost completely blank. The professor didn’t ask many questions, I was required to keep the conversation going for the most part, but after the basic introduction I kind of lost everything. I couldn’t even remember how to ask what time they were going home, or what time they went to class. There was so much silence going on, and a couple questions that he did ask I completely guessed on the answers. He asked something about sleeping, but I’m not completely sure what, just understood nemasuka. The test ran longer than it was supposed to as well. Each person was supposed to take five minutes, it ended being around ten, I think I might have actually gone a bit over. How I do hate oral exams. Understanding stuff written down and answering it isn’t normally a problem, but speaking it and having a conversation is difficult for me. If I didn’t speak English my entire life I’d probably stumble a crapload when I tried to speak it (which sometimes I do because I get nervous speaking.)

But on a good note, I only have one class tomorrow, and it’s my late start day.

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Awesome weekend
Posted by Amber on February 28th, 2010
Filed under: General


Seriously, if I didn’t have a test and oral exam tomorrow, and a hard super important test and practical on Wednesday, this weekend could have been enjoyed to the greatest extent. Yesterday started off a bit blah, because my parents ended up getting here an hour later than they expected, and then we ended up driving around the city for 45 minutes because my dad insisted on using the MapQuest directions he printed off, but we couldn’t find the road we were looking for. Eventually my mom just went on the Freeway. And we got there a bit late, but eventually we made it to the Renaissance Festival, with enough time to walk back to the jousting arena for the fist joust. Our knight was cool, his colors were awesome. Although I couldn’t get over the master of arm’s horse. Last year it was a big beautiful black horse, but this year it was white. What I loved about it though was that whenever she was just kind of in place and not riding around, her horse would dance around. It was awesome. And then, unlike the other years, when the queen/king came out the horse bowed. After that we hurried our way back to the entrance, because I wanted to see the gypsy violinist. I felt bad because we were the only ones who were actually there the entire time listening to her and not just sitting there to eat lunch (although we were eating lunch, I had a broccoli cheese soup bread bowl). I actually ended up buying one of her CD’s, I liked the music. And then there was a quick walk over to Three Guys and a Bunch of Drums. I’m pretty sure it was a new show this year, but if it wasn’t I don’t know why I’ve never gone to see it before. HILARIOUS. It was so funny, although they did some awesome stuff with the drums (and triangles) too. Then…it was walking around for a bit, buying a dragon candle and then back to jousting for the second joust. And we watched that, and then…I don’t think we watched another show, just walked around some (went to look at the hawks in the cages), went to the petting zoo and then back to jousting. And then we went home. The weather was absolutely perfect. I was worried it was going to rain and my parents would wimp out, but it didn’t. Until the last jousting it was cloudy all day and nice and cool, which was awesome. Even this time of the year it gets WAY to warm there with the sun out.
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Wow, I kind of feel like a good student
Posted by Amber on February 21st, 2010
Filed under: School


Seriously, I actually studied today. And it totally isn’t the day before the test. Now, I really REALLY had to force myself, because I really don’t like physio, but I somehow managed to get in about four hours worth of studying on physio alone today. And I actually understood what I was going over, which also means that in those lectures where I was still half asleep the information did actually make it to my brain, it just didn’t register completely with my conscious self. Although I didn’t get as far as I wanted. I wanted to get up through the notes before the axial skeleton, but I was one set short. Why? Because I got on to watch a couple episodes of Rosario + Vampire Capu2 and I ended up finishing the entire thing today. After I finished the first season yesterday. And so my notes have been left untouched for like the past five or so hours. But I did do all my Japanese homework that’s due tomorrow, so I don’t have to worry about rushing to finish that tomorrow. However, I didn’t get to any o-chem. I wanted to work on the worksheet and then go over the quiz to see if I could find the answers I got wrong on my own and correct them, but that didn’t happen. And I wanted to go in tomorrow to get help from the preceptor. I still could, but I’d probably look really stupid, because some of the problems I got wrong were probably easy, but I tried it before he had finished lecturing on all of chapter 4, thus I was missing some information. I also need to try chapter 9 quiz, probably tomorrow, even though we haven’t gotten any info for chapter 9 yet. I know I’m going to need help from preceptors though, and if I wait until I get all the info it’ll be too late to get help before the quizzes close. And then studying for my Japanese chapter 3 test on Thursday. I…I’m not sure about it, I really am getting things, but at my own pace. Seriously, if I had the money I’d just like go to Japan for a year and I’d probably get a decent hold of the language. That would actually be really cool to do, maybe I’ll consider it once I’m fluent enough in the language I could survive without looking like some American idiot.

Kay, late now. Need to go to bed very soon. And need to see if the guy who gets me stuff from Japan can get me Stereopony’s CDs. But that shall wait, because I need to make a list of everything. I’d guess it’s starting to get time of the year when yukata would probably be easier to find.

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