hmm...

Maybe I should have looked into consulting. Although you probably need a better gpa hahaha.

Also thinking about joining the PMJS ML, just to lurk and read...

Also, a grad program that sounds beast in it's course offerings but a bit scanty on the language side

When opportunity knocks, you either answer the door, or you light up your internet connection and spank away your sorrows.

 This is from 30 Sleeps, which has some really good writing and inspirational stuff. Even talks about meeting girls, contrasting the pick-up artist methodology with a "get a life first" mode that makes a whole lot of sense.

Great articles on language learning over at Fluent in 3 Months, one very breathtaking post on comfort and tips that I need to apply to my everyday (actually resonates with the social skydiving post mentioned on 30 Sleeps), and another one that I will need to muse on, "Stop being shy!" Reminds me of all the people who introduce themselves as 人見知り over there. Entertaining thoughts of doing my first serious E->J translation since that translation class at Waseda with this.

---

Why We Procrastinate

1. Fear of success.
 Success comes with its own strings attached. Landing your dream job might involve relocating to a new city. Your promotion might alienate some of your co-workers. And dedicating yourself to the pursuit of happiness might require letting go of the people in your life that drag you down.

Definitely felt this one when it comes to job searching... and house searching... and email replying...

Procrastination is the Governor of the State of Boredom. It wants to rule you, hold you down, and keep you from reaching your potential. It feeds on your fears and encourages you to keep talking in tomorrows. But by accepting that now is never the right time, you’ll start leveraging your present circumstances for future gains. By acknowledging that you might make mistakes, even making failure a requirement, you’ll experience the benefits of imperfection. And by using action to clarify your goals, rather than ready-aim-aim-aiming, you’ll have taken the most crucial step towards living your ideal life.

-----
Reading an article from here before I go to bed.
Creating a "currently reading" list on Wordpress
Go through this blog for particle physics in Japanese
Hilarious commercial on Shuukatsu -- gotta prepare for interview in both English and Japanese though!
A couple more Japanese blogs that I wanna keep an eye on.
Collection of Japanese folk tales with interactivity! -- still gotta listen to those kids stories and pick out good ones to tell the kids! This is actually really baller!!!
Start a lang-8 account and rack up some points to trade for corrections.
Livestation apparently has around 15 Japanese tv channels!

This post from Tofugu has some interesting ideas about role-playing in language learning situations -- kind of ironic that there was just a colloquium series about this type of thing. :)

I always meant to watch this "English Teacher" series  but never got around to it. That and catching up with Wong Fu (dunno if it's worth it anymore...)

全日本コール選手権. Look this up on youtube for some interesting calls hahaha. 


Going to have to keep a better eye on the Japan Subculture Research Center and Jake Adelstein (as well as Polaris Project Japan...) 


Interesting article on development of cute writing in Japan in the 70's, and a throwback to learning to read squiggles in Classical Japanese class.... wonder what came in between and now, after them! Wonder if there's anything interesting going on at Neojaponisme...

I need to stop clicking on links...

More stuff from random blogs!

Great (p)review of Skyward Sword by the first video game blogger I've ever taken note of; apparently the academic side of gaming has exploded as well.

In what might be the most interesting iteration the Zelda series has yet seen, Skyward Sword takes a brand-new approach in characterizing Link via Zelda, who receives a tangible, compelling and nuanced characterization herself for arguably the first time in the series' history. Little has changed about the hero; he is skilled because we make him, dutiful because we press buttons, and brave because we don't stop pressing them even when there are monsters. 

You probably thought I chose the wrong major, didn't you? Well, my friend... I think that all the time as well!

But every now and then, something like Katawa Shoujo comes along. I might play the first chapter in Japanese and Chinese... and it's rekindled a desire to learn sign language. Not sure why I get so fascinated by it, seeing as I've never known a deaf or signing person; but hey -- maybe my subconscious knows something about my learning style.

This is the official site for the game, the above-mentioned video game blogger wrote a review and the Escapist has a so-far hilarious review that I will need to finish later. To quote the opening line:

To put it as bluntly and politically incorrectly as possible, this a game where you date crippled girls, spawned by 4chan.

There's also some interesting stuff about the reaction on the Japanese interwebs, although it's mostly about the use of Katawa. I learned the word for deaf-mute, too, which is apparently 聾唖. Just add a 者 to either one of those, and you get the corresponding person. Kind of weird that sign language is just 手話 then, although widely recognized (ie not home-language) sign language I would suspect is a product of the modern era, and thus the word as well. Interesting...

Oh, man! A great analytical blogger I had just found the other day, 2-D Teleidoscope closed their blog about a week ago. Found out the guy had a role in the production of Katawa. Will be looking forward to diving through the remnants.

This is from his (don't even know if it's a guy... or what their handle was, but) last comments after a really great selection of reflections on how anime has changed people's lives. There is a crazy guy living in two dimensions, but other than that there are four people who put into words their transcendence of the genre, and into something more reminiscent of Genshiken; that is, how fandom is/was a road to personal growth and human connection that lasts far beyond the bewilderingly fearsome prospect that is losing interest in something that you currently obsess over. Perhaps this is something extendable to any marginalized group, but I want to romanticize it and say that in some way it is unique to anime and manga. Certainly in some strange way, I can't say that I've felt so connected to as many strangers (that I wasn't with in person) as when I am cruising anime blogs and stumble upon ruminations of an underground series like Haibane Renmei. Or in the same source a career chemist musing on anime and Christianity, something I feel I can pass on through the gap that undeniably exists between me and friends more rooted in their faiths.

A final word, before I close the doors.

Anime can be a second reality.  It can be an escape, a reprieve, a haven away; Door Number One is the geeky stuff, Door Number Two is everything else, and ne’er the twain shall meet.  I think that’s easy enough to do.  It’s much more difficult to live in both worlds at once.

But that’s the ideal, at least for me.  Visual culture – anime, manga, visual novels, everything we enjoy – can be a lens that helps us love the here and now.  Of course, it isn’t easy.  It takes thought, and perspective, and a willingness to shed cynicism.  But we should strive for this.  It’s worth striving for.

And how wonderful reality becomes then!  Hobbies, entire lifestyles, friends, lovers, the precious understanding between one human being and another: All of these and more, right at our fingertips, all because we share a love for this stuff from Japan.

Our world, plus this, is beautiful, prismatic and complex: A perfect 2-D teleidoscope.

Thanks for reading.

In which more lessons are learnt

/a/ made me laugh about that one

If you look at it this way, all the influential women shown in history were all magical girls.
>implying women can’t do anything without being helped by magical powers
>implying all powerful women got to where they were by selling their souls

It’s like social commentary or something! Can’t wait for feminists.

POSTED BY RAINDROP | APRIL 22, 2011, 11:10 PM

REPLY TO THIS COMMENT

• 

  >implying women can’t do anything without being helped by magical powers

  ALL of humanity would still be living in caves without the incubators granting wishes, remember?

  >implying all powerful women got to where they were by selling their souls

  Mixing up cause and effect here. Beginning of episode 11, Kyuubey says queens and saviors attract misfortune, giving them more potential as a Puella Magi. They didn’t become powerful by selling their souls, they got the offer to sell their souls because they were powerful.

  >It’s like social commentary or something! Can’t wait for feminists.

  The “still living in caves” thing implies men have never made any progress in anything in history ever. So this show is actually VERY feminist.

  
  

  
  Again, this is from Madoka doesn't need a sequal to explain itself

More Take-Home Lessons from Madoka Magica

This time from The Final Message of Madoka Magica

 I feel that the final message Madoka is offering is that although there will always be negativity and tragedy in this world, even a single act of hope can seem like a miracle.

 I liked the fact that Madoka did not wish for despair to disappear, as some would suggest that she should have. It is a balance thing. In order to have hope, one must suffer or have some form of despair. To have courage, one must experience fear. To love, one must also feel hate and indifference. That is the nature of balance... Madoka is smart enough (or Buddhist enough) to know the effect that her wish can have.


I also loved how this makes Madoka the precursor to all the magical girls we know in anime — without Madoka, there would be no Sakura Kinomoto, no Pretty Cures, no Sailor Moons, etc. More than a world reset, this was in some ways a genre reset, and a pretty brilliant one at that.


----
Onto my main point, for all the theorizing about the ending from bloggers all over, genre comparisons, claims for deconstructionism, religious references, and general fandom fervor digging out every cipher and mystery in the series, everyone seems to be confused as to why Homura at the end of the series is one of the few to remember Madoka.*


I believe it is in the fourth episode that Homura herself says that, Mahou Shoujo who die in a witch's realm are forever missing persons, lost and forgotten to the rest of humanity. Madoka is adamant that she will never forget Mami, to which Homura replies that is the happiest thing a Mahou Shoujo can hope for, and that she is fiercely jealous. Madoka, in a crazy instance of foreshadowing, instantly and without hesitation extends this to Homura as well.


Homura's wish, as vaguely as I have gathered, is something along the lines of protecting Madoka. Protecting her image and her memory, I would argue, is the only thing left for Homura to do once Madoka makes her wish at the end of the series. More detail once I've actually watched the episodes.


*I read somewhere that her brother apparently remembers her too, and her mother has a vague sense of "if I had a daughter..."; parallel world theories aside,^ 


^I'm not quite ready to call whether Homura's time travelling resulted in parallel worlds or merely rewound time. If the former is true then, barring a cross-dimension spanning level of omnipotence granted Madoka, the series is only truly "solved" [ie Madoka's wish only comes true] in one branching of the universe. Such branching, however, could possibly resolve the seeming paradox that is the breadth of power granted Madoka by Kyuubei.), 


Omake From TV Tropes:

Fun fact: priority one for someone with an interest in extending the life of the universe would be shutting off all the stars, which throw away vast amounts of energy just to light up dust and dead rock.

Pretty fascinating

So apparently "novices seek out positive feedback, while experts seek out negative feedback."

Pretty fascinating. So what will I do? Learn, speak, read, and write like a boss.

--------------


Also, from this thread on multilingual living, on raising a multilingual family. It's at once distressing and comforting:

It's just TIRING being the only representative of a subculture you know and constantly having to explain everything, implicitly defend your choice and then still have people walk away having made snap judgements as far as a child's linguistic abilities are concerned, especially when they only speak one of the languages he does (aside from a few phrases). I feel like I need to move to a place where everyone is multilingual, raising their kids multilingual, so that I can relax a bit and feel normal!

------------

This is awesome. A guide to the Ryukyuan langauges, if I ever get around to them!

--------------

And finally, a link for study abroad studies! Apparently Nao knows this kid? From the Nihon Gyappu Iyaa Suishin Kikou Kyoukai!!!! OMG (although second impression suggests yahari it was started by a gaijin?)!! This, the girl's blogspot, JCI (has an STL chapter), and AISEC, as well as HPAIR and resources from SILS.... this seems like it's actually coming together, although passion for it is another question. Looks like it's time to start another blog

FYI, Emotional pathway towards this last statement, in kaomoji:

(`･ω･´)ゞ ヽ(*・ω・)ﾉ  ヽ(*´Д｀*)ﾉ  ヽ( ´¬`)ノ

Found out about a Spice and Wolf reference (cameo? by Holo~) in the first episode of Durarara. Don't know why that makes me as happy as it does.

Hoping that tomorrow I will make some progress on my analysis of the show; doesn't seem like there's too much going on in that way at all right now, although that could be just due to my own lack of googling skills. Perhaps it's time to enlist a true otaku?

Stayed up til 4 again, no progress on any other fronts. Gotta do something about this.

Link dump. Will need to export bookmarks soon as well... Need more self-control!

http://www.chinahush.com/2012/01/10/han-han-my-2011/#more-9865
http://www.ministryoftofu.com/2011/01/overseas-chinese-students-reactions-tiger-mom-parenting-controversy/
http://www.chinahush.com/2012/01/02/street-children-there-is-no-place-worse-than-home/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2012/01/chinas-cultural-assault-from-within/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2012/01/confucius-institute-getting-the-grant-or-dancing-with-the-devil/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2012/01/serial-killers-in-china/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2012/01/chuanzi-becoming-what-you-criticize/
http://jp.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2011/09/07/%E6%9A%B4%E5%8A%9B%E5%9B%A3%E6%8E%92%E9%99%A4%E3%81%AE%E3%83%A2%E3%83%87%E3%83%AB%E3%82%B1%E3%83%BC%E3%82%B9%E2%94%80%E6%9D%A1%E4%BE%8B%E6%96%BD%E8%A1%8C%E3%82%92%E6%9D%A5%E6%9C%88%E3%81%AB%E6%8E%A7/
http://www.keishicho.metro.tokyo.jp/sotai/image/gaiyou.pdf

Not even sure why I clicked on a lot of what I clicked on...orz

Hyperpolyglots and other stuff spurred by Michael Erard

Hyperpolyglots are more likely to be introverted than extroverted, which may come as a surprise to some. Hale’s son always said that, in his father’s case, languages were a cloak for a shy man.

I found a list of suspected hyperpolyglots, and they’re all male, which might be because the gift of multi-multi-linguism is found in “extreme male brains.” (The same is said of autism.) But elsewhere, I found this one Hungarian translator, a woman, who learned to speak 16 languages during the Cold War. You can read almost as many theories about extraordinary linguists as there are languages, but here’s one more: Some people try a lot harder than others.

-From a Fashion Magazine website

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nataly-kelly

http://www.themorningnews.org/article/chicken

http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/14/acceleglove-teaches-you-sign-language-we-go-hands-in-video/

http://www.lailabiali.com/

10.   You do not see things as they are; you see them as you are. Interpret your own experiences. All experiences are neutral. They have no meaning. You give them meaning by the way you choose to interpret them. If you are a priest, you see evidence of God everywhere. If you are an atheist, you see the absence of God everywhere. IBM observed that no one in the world had a personal computer. IBM interpreted this to mean there was no market. College dropouts, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, looked at the same absence of personal computers and saw a massive opportunity. Once Thomas Edison was approached by an assistant while working on the filament for the light bulb. The assistant asked Edison why he didn't give up. "After all," he said, "you have failed 5000 times." Edison looked at him and told him that he didn't understand what the assistant meant by failure, because, Edison said, "I have discovered 5000 things that don't work." You construct your own reality by how you choose to interpret your experiences.

11.   Always approach a problem on its own terms. Do not trust your first perspective of a problem as it will be too biased toward your usual way of thinking. Always look at your problem from multiple perspectives. Always remember that genius is finding a perspective no one else has taken. Look for different ways to look at the problem. Write the problem statement several times using different words. Take another role, for example, how would someone else see it, how would Jay Leno, Pablo Picasso, George Patton see it? Draw a picture of the problem, make a model, or mold a sculpture. Take a walk and look for things that metaphorically represent the problem and force connections between those things and the problem (How is a broken store window like my communications problem with my students?) Ask your friends and strangers how they see the problem. Ask a child. How would a ten year old solve it? Ask a grandparent. Imagine you are the problem. When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. 

12.   Learn to think unconventionally. Creative geniuses do not think analytically and logically. Conventional, logical, analytical thinkers are exclusive thinkers which means they exclude all information that is not related to the problem. They look for ways to eliminate possibilities. Creative geniuses are inclusive thinkers which mean they look for ways to include everything, including things that are dissimilar and totally unrelated. Generating associations and connections between unrelated or dissimilar subjects is how they provoke different thinking patterns in their brain.  These new patterns lead to new connections which give them a different way to focus on the information and different ways to interpret what they are focusing on. This is how original and truly novel ideas are created. Albert Einstein once famously remarked "Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand."

And, finally, Creativity is paradoxical. To create, a person must have knowledge but forget the knowledge, must see unexpected connections in things but not have a mental disorder, must work hard but spend time doing nothing as information incubates, must create many ideas yet most of them are useless, must look at the same thing as everyone else, yet see something different, must desire success but embrace failure, must be persistent but not stubborn, and must listen to experts but know how to disregard them.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201112/are-you-the-right-mate?page=2

Also, this is just really really really cool! "Polyglot Dragon"
http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2011/11/6187393

Forgot a few things

Fascinating article on international marriage from the economist; particularly the Japanese women marrying down in terms of country-level, from urban to rural, etc. Maybe there's something in studying this type of relationship/sexuality/internationalism stuff? Toriaezu there's links to a few research bodies in the article itself, and I should ask Trish and Prof Lee about it as well.

博士号を取るとはどういうことか - Japanese translation of a very interesting and sadly true-to-life info graphic. Continue to long for life in simpler times, where it seems it was so much easier to discover new things. Also wonder if anyone else has drawn graphs of non-traditional methods of learning (street smarts, etc) as a response to this.

Not sure what this is about but apparently it's shocking and/or interesting.

Best advice I've had in a while

People are shocked when I tell them I'm lazy. I don't try to change the fact that I'm lazy; I exploit it. I try to make sure that the laziest thing I can do at any moment is what I should be doing.

http://matt.might.net/articles/productivity-tips-hints-hacks-tricks-for-grad-students-academics/

-----------------

A girl once gave me a wonderful birthday present. Shocked, confused and feeling most of all undeserving, I exchanged promises to hang out more after break and parted ways. I later changed the goal of my travels to finding the perfect something to express my feelings of thanks -- my birthday being when it is and the stubborn lack of close friends during college, I rarely receive any personal (read:non-facebook) acknowledgement, and have only once had a surprise party (A going away party by Waseda-gumi I will never forget. Watch the douga every now and then to cheer up, remember the fukai kizuna we forged) -- and eventually settled on a cd I sampled in a huge Korean bookstore within an even bigger mall. Travel and the break itself came and went, and I found myself ready. Ready to give her my gift, let her know how much her time and effort and that small gift meant to me, how much strength it had given me. Time went by, my resolve weakened. I wanted to give it to her, yet still I hung onto it, could not bear to part with it. I think much of it was due to my weakness, confusion and reluctance. Partly because it was probably the first such open display of affection I had ever received (or at least remember[ed?]), she was Singaporean and I was still recovering from trauma (not that it's fully fixed now or anything) and second guessing both my evaluation of her motives/feelings and my own attraction towards her (I once half-joked that I only liked Singaporeans, when another smartass tried to confirm/assert that I like asian girls; I like to think it's initially a combination of the laid back-ness [no pun intended], internationalism[?], foodie-ism and accent that seems to be shared among the island's people). Partly because, well, just a plain fear of rejection. After that initial promise we never really hung out, didn't talk much and I sure didn't give her that present. I still listen to it, now and then. It's good. So good, I feel regret for still having it, listening to it, enjoying it. Maybe even guilt, and the feeling that yet another bridge was not burned, only left to wither and might well have already crumbled.

(A work in progress, to be streamlined and fb-statused later)

(Also while checking old fb messages can be shocking, it also reveals that we did make some plans (to go to a concert) and communicate, and probably even met up, during/possibly after the break; memory is definitely selective, definitely fallible, definitely playing up to what we want to believe in or say. Gotta work on harnessing this power...)

-----------------

As my advisor used to tell me, "Whenever I felt depressed in grad school--when I worried I wasn't going to finish my Ph.D.--I looked at the people dumber than me finishing theirs, and I would think to myself, if that idiot can get a Ph.D., dammit, so can I.

http://matt.might.net/articles/successful-phd-students/

Ahhhh

This girl.

http://jhskim.tumblr.com/post/11779811563

Really struck me. That was unexpected.

On another note,
I Zhuan dao na ye le from youtube videos, where there's links to this girl's twitter, tumbler, facebook, and the name of the university she goes to is out in the open... someone needs to rehaul their internet privacy! Although it doesn't seem like too many people are watching her channel anyway though?

Lonely...

I am starting to think, maybe, you know, I should join a forum. Join a forum, instead of remaining on the periphery, only taking in knowledge rather than contributing, doing something akin to facebook stalking only with people I don't and cannot get to know;

and maybe mom was right, I should find or be paying some educated in Japanese person to converse with and raise/maintain my ability level (and on that note seeking out Chinese more actively as well). I was extremely disappointed at what may be the only 見本 available on the internet for the OPI Superior ranking, but watching that argument about the Japanese prime minister's acceptance of donations from Korean nationals was at times disheartening [although I did 改めて実感 the feeling that emotion/rudeness/etc in Japanese comes through mostly in not the words you choose, but in the tone, etc that you choose them, much more so than English and, it would seem, the complete opposite of Korean, where there are apparently so many curse words?, I did not understand most of the background of the trial, what the 参議院 is or it's questioning processes (why did the guy keep sitting down... even when he started giving one word answers... and wasn't the accuser dude hella rude!?!?! And was accuser #2 regarded as passionate or just a loser? hmmm), or why the trial/witch-hunt itself is even important, and was lost at the dialogue itself many times...].

Still angry at that bastard and his ideas of a politically correct "gap year"; social etiquette be damned,! if you don't want to hear what I'm up to then don't ask. Too bad for you if I don't fit neatly into your self-consolation terminology.

Although I do wonder if I was a little to blame, having this lack of human contact (see above desire to join a message board or online community, or the ダラーズ) which lead to 油断 on my part towards the outsider (a concept which still troubles me to this day, those words by shakku).

Starting to wonder if I should just give up on the idea of grad school and get a job for now (it's that or ace the GRE in the next two weeks, ask for references by tomorrow AND have a clear idea of what I want to do...). Oscillating between knowing exactly what I want to do with my life and taking comfort in the fact that when I get tired of searching for it I can always sell my soul to the government/military. A far cry from my original "dog of the military" days, and a bit disillusioned at my own reality in opposition with that Ed brought: soul-selling with a purpose, for something otherwise unattainable, was supposed to have been the norm, no, the absolute, for all those voluntarily in the military. I am at once disappointed, laughing at some sort of naivety held within, and amazed at the influence which a favorite work can have upon a person.

Gotta write to 7-chan,

\and others\

[edit:] 蛋疼 this apparently describes a lot for me these days, haha. Thanks, chinasmack :)

This was interesting

http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/the-best-questions-for-first-dates/

stuff to look into

http://emptynestdiary.wordpress.com/2011/11/14/not-rape-but-not-right/

http://projectseen.wordpress.com/

http://www.npr.org/blogs/inside/2011/11/14/142303990/introducing-the-infinite-player?sc=fb&cc=fp