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.

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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.

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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...

Readings!

Awesome! Japanese and Chinese attitudes towards sex, summary of a paper published last year by James Farrer. So baller, I wish I had found this earlier.Hate how this makes me start to rethink my plans so easily. (And from that study I'm starting to think that that encounter with the prostitute in high school has led to an affinity? obsession? with these types of topics....At any rate, self-reflection is good and those memories are there, for the most part.) At any rate I'd like to see this guy invited to the university...

A couple other links that I will definitely come back to.

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.

On Spice & Wolf

Starting to think that the combination of talking with my guy friends and watching Spice and Wolf is too hard on my heart... Even though at one point I had thought Holo's character was ruined for me (Season II 3rd episode?), finding myself slowly wishing for a "traveling companion"...

Or have I just stayed up too late?

This was interesting

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