#280. Fresh Start

Well, it's been a very long time forthcoming, as I promised a month a post.

But even that ceased to be.

Considering I will be going on a 1 month trip across the US, I thought it might be a good time for me to actually have a new start in this.

Therefore, I might move to Wordpress to stop being a lazy faggot.

Anyway, new blog @ http://vindurinn.wordpress.com/

Not filled with anything yet, but expect something soon.

If I'm not being a faggot.

#279. Stress.

Start of the quarter.

I spent too much money recently on going out.

I spent too much money on applying to Taiwan too.

This is all building up stress on me. I swear.

First: I would probably have spent about USD 1000 on applying to Taiwan in total.

200 application fee, 200 mail fee (about to be +200 in a short while again), 600 on high school degree, 180 on official transcripts, and other fees.

Fuck, this is really depressing me.

Secondly: my dad had to buy a high school degree because universities won't admit me in without a high school degree. This goes on to what if we're found using fake degrees.

Thirdly: What if my Mandarin level is so low that I need to get into a language school thus delaying me for 6 months and wasting more money in the process.

All this while the quarter is starting and jobs are demanding and everything.

I just don't know what to do anymore. That's like less than what I would do in order to get in a university in the US.

I'm at a state of loss and desperation.

A fucking shitty time it is.

#278

End of March. I still meet my 1 blog post per month minimum quota.

First, for some reason I don't know, I have this in the dropdown list in the title. I'm not good at translating naturally to English, so forgive the fuzzy translation.

ミクの日感謝祭・初音ミクソロコンサート～こんばんは、初音ミクです。～

Miku's Thanksgiving Day・Hatsune Miku's solo concert ～ Good evening, I'm Hatsune Miku. ～

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

I mean, what, how did that get in there? I sure as hell never wrote anything like that, nor did I ever see 感謝祭 (かんしゃさい) before so that ruled me out of actually using it in the first place.

Weird. But I got the ミクの日 DVD anyway, and I haven't watched it, so this could be some kind of a godsent reminder.

I'm done with 2 of my finals. One more to go: economics.

Physics was.. meh. I needed to ask my friends for answers in the exams. Totally not fun. And totally not looking forward to physics next quarter too.

For now, short to-do list: go to Seattle, pick up official transcripts, back to BC, pick up recommendation letters, and then on Tuesday pick up another set of recommendation letters, before actually going back to the postal office to send it by Wednesday.

Also, print stuff out for applications for NCTU and NCHU.

I guess that would be it for now. Blah.

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

I haven't watched anime for like a month. The only anime I watched in this one month is just Bakemonogatari 14. Unsubbed because I was too lazy to actually get the subbed version as I downloaded the unsubbed version when it came out.

I don't know, lately I just don't have the mood to do anything anymore.

Oh, but I still want to learn Japanese so don't get me wrong in there.

#277

This post is written with pretty much nothing in mi-

Wait, no, an idea is creeping out.. I'll just use this opportunity to actually list off some things that I needed to get done before the end of the month for Taiwan.

- Ask Gaia Hawkin (speech professor) for recommendation letter

- Gather NTU/NTHU/NCHU/NCTU/FJU/THU recommendation letters. Goddamn, that's like 6 universities right there.

- Print out stuff for online application

- NTU/NTHU = 15 march

- NCHU/NCTU/FJU/THU = 31 march

- recommendation letter formats

- legalize transcripts at embassy if needed

- ask universities if they need original documents for all of them

- make study plan (different lengths, some 3 page some 1 page)

- medical report for NTHU (HIV test, signed by doctor, have seal of hospital)

- 300-500 words CV / autobiography for NCHU

- bank statement

- TOEFL

- photocopies of transcripts/cover letters

I think that's it for now.

God.

more to come

#276

Here we go again. This is apparently my 276th blog post. Looking back, it's been a long 2 years. Not really a full 2 years, I still have like 3 months before this blog is officially two years old. But still, I realized a lot of things.

I realized how sheltered I was during my middle and high school.

I realized how hard it is to make good friends, as opposed to just acquaintances.

I realized how good my English is.

I realized how important and enjoyable learning other languages can be.

I realized how the real world works, just a little tidbit of it.

I realized that I would have to work in the future, whether I like to or not, just to support myself.

I realized how disorienting different cultures and settings can be.

I realized how hard it is to save up money.

I realized the issue of adjusting to college so suddenly from high school.

I realized the multiple kinds of people there are in the world.

To summarize, I realized a lot of things that I never did realize in high school.

It doesn't exactly help too that in high school I am almost never allowed to go here and there, do this and that.

Now that I was set free oh-so-suddenly when I came to the US, my early college life consisted of a continuance of dependence on my parents. That I had to get their approval in order to take this class, to buy things, et cetera. That does not seem to be the case from the start, but I sure did feel like it.

Now that I'm kind of left alone, it's pretty shocking when I learned that other people are given a bit more leeway in their activities during school. I never got to hang out with lots of people that aren't from the same school. I never got to know many places to eat. I never got to know some common knowledge I never heard of.

It all changes so drastically, and I'd bet it'll continue to change much more in the coming future. When I move to Taiwan, it will be a sort of a tough test for me. I don't like it, but what can I do. It just occurred to me that spending this time of my life doing fun stuff seems awfully fun. It seems that if this goes on forever, it would be the best thing ever. Going to school, studying, playing, going out with friends, figuring out how to mask your insecurities..

Soon enough I'll be thrust into the real world and I'll have to find my own way from there. The thought sounds pretty depressing.

.. Anyway, Chinese and physics homework due tomorrow. So that's it for today.

Obligatory title

This post is now my post number 275.

I am really picking up blogging again, somehow.

Some.. how.

In any case, I officially hate work. Then again, WHO DOESN'T?

It's really a stark contrast from the days of high school. I'm in college now (and I didn't even finish high school FFS), and in 3 or 4 years I will be facing this grim reality called "THE REAL WORLD". Unfortunately, it's not the MTV show knock-off. I'd love it to be, but unfortunately, no.

You know what would be the coolest thing that could happen in work?

A cool boss. A cool superior. That would be fucking awesome.

As things go now, I will most likely stop working next quarter and do fuck all until I'm done that quarter. I realize now why I feel like I have so little time. I also realize by around this time last year why I wanted to work.

See, last year, around this time, my only daily engagements everyday include: Team Fortress 2, skipping calculus 1 occasionally, going to chemistry class after that and checking my English online class, which I found really fun since I wrote down a lot of good stuff in there.

This year, around this time, my daily engagements include: Waking up at 6am everyday for physics class, waiting around in school for 2-3 hours before my workshift comes up, work (which for some reason, people that come in to get their essays checked are becoming really shitty by the second), check online classes (forgot to do this in spite of some free time, FML), osu (until 2 days ago. Good going, jackass.), and review/add new cards in for Japanese, while also trying to start Flyable Heart to get my cards for Japanese.

Oh hey, no wonder I'm so swamped. Coupled with my absolutely shitty time management, I can't manage a 9.5 hours work a week.

Sigh, I just don't know. I don' feel like working as much as I used to where I felt like I had a little bit too much free time. Certainly not now, though.

I got scolded for taking last Friday off.

fucking a. Just what I needed. Pfft.

So tomorrow my schedule is waking up at 6 am for a physics test which I understand jackshit about, and then wait for 3 hours to work for an hour. I mean, where is the fucking rationalization in that. Goddamnit.

World's not fair, you're turning emo, shut the fuck up, etc. I get the point. Might as well put a gun to my head now while you're at it by the way.

So hey, about that blog..

Yes, seems like it's now pretty much a monthly post.

And to think I used to blog almost everyday. In any case, I'll try and bring this up to speed. I solemnly will try to be more active. I will also try to babble less on languages, as that's a disease I'm slowly fighting (still surely!)

Just one small bit of language before I try and depart from the subject entirely:

I think I feel like I put a little too much emphasis on actually learning the language that it looks to become a chore instead of a little useful hobby. I'm probably going to ease up until I have sufficient vocabulary to actually try and immerse myself in the language. No good if you only know the words "I love you" and try to watch A Beautiful Mind without subs. That resulted in a burnout and leaves me not reviewing for a couple of days. Remember kids, burnouts are NEVER good.

Hey, in other news, I uninstalled osu from my computer. It's taking up way too much of my time that I actually don't care shit about school subjects or language reviews. I missed an online quiz that's worth 13% of my final grade, and I pretty much decided that was that. Any more than that and everything will turn to crap quickly (as if it hasn't already).

Yeah, well, everything goes. I'll just reinstall it when MY LIFE IS OKAY. Right now it's literal shit spewed with crap and some loose urine.

That might be a little bit too graphic. But that's okay! Because I'm at least definitely trying to go back to English for a little bit.

I went ahead and got my documents legalized and everything to go to Taiwan. So what's left would be my study plan, high school transcripts, uhh.. what else..

Bank statement, and.. maybe that's it? Eh. I'll check.

NTU closes on March 15, other 2 closes on March 31, other 2 closes on April 31. Most of my friends are stressing a few days ago over their applications, so I guess I'll just do that albeit a month late.

Also, I don't know why I haven't moved to wordpress yet. Wait, no, not "don't know why". It's more like pure unadulterated sloth and laziness. Again. As if I don't get that everytime.

In a completely unrelated note, I just now noticed that my writing style's a bit.. I don't know how to express this exactly, but maybe you can see how I'm rambling about. Weird thing is that, once, one of my friends who didn't really talk to me much IRL but did in MSN noted that I talk really similarly as I do online. So that's one thing that you might want to note. Well, that is, if you perceive my writing to have a certain tone to it that sounds pretty similar to me. Cause, you know, I don't know. People may have different perceptions of tone and sounds that my writing doesn't sound like me IRL anymore. Anyhow, that's- yeah. Let's leave that, it's getting awkward.

I'm not sure whether to clean up my blog list or not. So many people not blogging (like at all) that I don't know man. I don't know anymore. Well, I still blog at least once a month, so I'll just let some of those that has 2 months in go and erase the hell out of the others.

No, I'm not a sadist.

I will absolutely be writing more and more as I pretty much uninstalled osu that really ate my time literally and figuratively. Wait, literally? No, that was a lame joke. Wait, no, that wasn't even a joke. In any case, now you know I'm a bad joke-teller, 悪かったな。

So I'm just gonna put up some links of the blog out, I guess. That'll do for a bit.

Hoping a rush of blogging comes through

I really need it now. Because I need to be in the mood of writing.

So that I can get my personal statements done and dusted. I need to write more. Christ.

Well, so what's happening?

Not a lot. I'm now becoming a civilized person, considering how I am waking up at 6 am (or 6 30 am) everyday because of a 7 30 morning class. Another class is online, and the other one is a hybrid between normal class and online class. So, yeah, not a lot of class hours. Then again, I've got a 10-hour-a-week work now, so that might be a little bit troublesome. Enduring my mental pain of seeing bad essays and trying to find a way to correct it is a bit hard. Well.

Anyway, personal statements and letters of recommendations and cover letters and everything. Letters of recommendations would be really hard to come by, I have no idea who to ask them from. More thankfully than not, they're due like March.

Deadlines for universities I want to get into are mostly around March 30 and April 30. But NTU is such a big uni they can say "screw the rules let's make it March 15" and so I'm left with one hard-ass uni to get into that wants my stuff by March 15. Goddamn it.

Let's see what's going on in life lately. Not much. Mostly getting into osu more and more (Why. Just.. why.) and trying to grasp the Japanese language with my eyes closed. Metaphorically, of course. I constantly imagine that my suckiness in Japanese right now is pretty normal, as I've only studied it for about 3 months now. That would mean like a person being pretty new in English and already trying to read news articles and watch House or CSI without subs and shit.

Why 3 months? Well, before that I was only learning it half-heartedly, so I decided my starting point would be the 22nd of September, 2009: the day I started the Remembering the Kanji book.

You know what, here's another tidbit of a language update for you.

A few months of hearing Japanese music, listening to Japanese media, partially reading (more like sighting, I still can't read shit) has actually made me able to at least discern what words are being said. Though to be honest, I still don't know all those words, so they all sound like words I don't know yet. It's like you hear the word "On the other hand.." in a TV show and you go like "What the hell? Other hand? What's that supposed to mean?!" You know how it's pronounced, but you know jackshit about what it means.

It's a pretty long path to be honest; learning languages. You need to dedicate some time to it, and actually commit to learning it, as opposed to just go "Well this language might be fun, let's take it!" Give or take another few months and then, "Fuck this language, it's too goddamn hard!" Can't do that, man. You need to go something like, "Well, if I know this, I'll be able to know more later!"

It might be hypocritical of me to say that, but I really, really want to get Japanese under my belt. It's for a silly reason. Probably the silliest reason I can ever think of wanting to learn a language. "Watching anime and reading manga and playing visual novels without having to wait for subs is pretty cool."

Well, now that I've dedicated 3 months for this, I can't turn back.　絶対にいけないだから。So I'll just have to burst my way through and get through this.

Whoo. This has been a pretty long post. It's been a while since I've done this. Well, hopefully this train of thought will continue for a few weeks before it shifts to: "I gotta do my personal statement, stat!"

And so, I make my bow out.

Touhouverse

I am now pretty much into Touhou. Even if I may not know all of the characters (yet), I know I will later. An immense number of characters, well-developed too (character-wise, btw) in a game of 2D side-scrolling shooter danmaku hell?

Yes.

Although it pretty much takes a while to get to know them if you don't play the games (I do, but I stumble every time and pretty much gave up), it's.. kind of worth it? Maybe? Well, of course, not worth it as a hobby, but..

You know, looking back I shouldn't have said worth it. It's not going to repay you back for the amount of time you spend on it (much like browsing). HOWEVER. The music aspect of Touhou is excellent, especially as there are a lot of fan remixes of Touhou music.

Name it, you've got it: Trance, Rock, Prog Metal, Folk, Classical, and even just Pop.

Of course, non-mainstream ones may not be there (or I may not have discovered them yet)

but god they're awesome.

Trying new stuff

I recently finished Remembering the Kanji. The time I finished was 17 December, 2009. It was almost 3 months from the date I started, which was about 22 September, 2009.

I am now slowly going through the grammar and everything on Tae Kim's blog: www.guidetojapanese.org

Now, once that's done, it's time for me to actually learn some real vocabulary.

Until now, I have considered my starting date of learning Japanese as around May 2009, but it was some half-assed effort with some half-assed will. I had a real basic (REALLY BASIC) premise of Japanese but I pretty much overestimated myself because I have learned a bit of Chinese and I'm not a baka western gaijin. But that time has passed.

I would now probably consider the time I started learning Japanese as the time I set out on my journey with Remembering the Kanji, which is from late September.

Let's see, what else is going on in my life..

Oh yes. My fucked up sleep schedule. I now sleep around 3am or more. HOWEVER, I WILL TRY TO PUT A STOP TO THAT. How?

http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/05/how-to-become-an-early-riser/

Basically, I'll try to wake up at 6am every single morning. At least, that's what I'm aspiring to do. First step is probably tire myself out until tomorrow so I can make some headway on sleeping until 6am. That website's full of great advices, and excellent stuff all around. I'll read more of them tomorrow.

In any case, well, for now, I guess I'll bide some time until this evening. Somehow. I'm starting to feel like I'm wasting my college life.

What actually partially relieves me is just that part of that time wasted is for learning Japanese, so I guess it's a bit of a trade-off.

I forgot something else I wanted to blog about.

I'll just leave these in for now.

DECEMBER POSTO

This December post, once again, features my progress on Remembering The Kanji. I know all of you are bored stiff already, but fuck you guys, this is my blog.

I am now up to kanji #1573. That means in 2 weeks I managed to churned out more than 500 kanji (mostly because of staying at home and forcing my way through kanji during thanksgiving). So then, my guess of the time I'll be done with RTK1 will be around.. the middle of December. Maybe around 15 December or so.

Wait, what? That's like a week from now!

Okay, maybe not. Maybe around 20 December or something. Before Christmas. Now that is plausible because my finals will be done on 9 December, and I'll have my hikky time then. >_>

It sucks not having anyone I can really hang out with or keep in contact with. But oh well. All for the good of understanding moonspeak!

Alright, time for a change.

I've been babbling on about kanji lately, but I never talk about anime and such lately.

Well, let's see.

I don't watch animu as much as I did during summer anymore.

Well maybe in a sense I do, as there's a shitload of series that I follow now, but I don't really watch as much now because I feel guilty when I'm watching with the subtitles on. That maybe because my mindset is now geared towards actually understanding animu without subs. This desire is much larger than the desire to watch manga without scanlations, and as a result I went through around 50 chapters of One Piece yesterday (still 400 left to go to catch up. Sigh). On another note though, I did download raws for Onidere and Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu, so hopefully 30 chapters and 6 volumes will be enough for now (It will be, I have troubles even finishing the first chapter of Onidere).

So basically, yeah. Not much animu. I've only watched like 2 episodes of animu this week alone. Railgun 9 and Seitokai 7. I'll prolly try and catch up to Seitokai and Railgun, before actually using my winter break to catch up shows I haven't finished in the summer and in the fall. And that's a lot.

Hayate no Gotoku!! (3 eps left)
GA (might drop this, watched 2/12)
Kampfer
Kimi ni Todoke
Kobato
Needless
Nyan Koi
Seitokai no Ichizon
Saki
Haruhi
Railgun
FMA: Brotherhood (lol, 13/30something)

those are what I've watched that needs closure from these 2 seasons.

What I plan to watch but didn't have time or mood to:

11eyes
Sora no Otoshimono (high on priority list)
others I forgot


Before that though, I'm so not looking forward to physics finals.

Lord knows what questions he'll dish out now.

A week of kanji (among other things)

And this is after a 5-day weekend.

400/5 = 80 kanji per day.

SEE? I SHOULD TOTALLY BE A NEET NOW!

state of mind

i've been easily irritated recently

like really easily

idk how it came to that as I usually am really easygoing in the sense of "Oh, it happened. Well, that's nothing to be fussed with."

Not lately though.

I'm not sure what really happened, but yeah. My best bet would be that I'll be having PMS soon.

Setting that tidbit aside, I've finally figured out what went wrong so that I didn't get paid for like one and a half month. To make it up, I'll have a massive payday like 1 week and a half from now. Projected pay would be around.. 250 bucks. Well, that's much lower than I expected, but at least that's some money right there.

Anyway.. I'm now in for some osu!. http://osu.ppy.sh/

Go play it! If you do, add me as a friend. Name there: intermu.

no progress

My schoolwork is kind of falling behind, my kanji study is also kind of falling behind (have only done around 25 this week alone), and I feel like doing nothing already, while finals is still like another month. Physics is a bitch as always, maths is fine since I have someone to cheat (lol), public speaking is certified, guaranteed A since the teacher is so nice.

I have been playing Sengoku Rance and osu (not Ohio or Oklahoma State U, but http://osu.ppy.sh/) and L4D and TF2 (the usual deal). I also have been watching my animu on a (not-so-consistent) basis, but you know, I feel this physics thing is really dragging me down.

Work is still okay now that I've reduced the hours (because shit schedule is shit), but it's still kind of a drag, and I haven't been paid for like 1.5 months now?

College is crap. I want to get the hell away from uni now. Well, not possible, but you know, at least AWAY from engineering. I'm much more comfortable with writing stuff up. Or just maybe deal with numbers with no extremely DEEP concept that I need to understand and apply to real life situation (see: physics)

tl;dr

fuck physics