So, I was at the mall last weekend, ordering something from the A&W, when this little girl and her mother line up behind me and start talking in Japanese. By some freak coincidence, I can understand about 50% of what they’re saying, and I can guess the rest from non-verbal communication.
Quite sadly, I think that’s more than all the French I’ve heard and understood in a non-academic setting. I had meant to check out the Festival d’EtA~(c), but I was working and well… I also forgot. I did really want to hear that one chanteuse, though. Ah well. There’s always next year. And French cartoons to keep me happy. I wonder if they have Teen Titans in French?
You know, if we got decent anime on our Cantonese channel, I’d watch that, too, but since we don’t (I think the stuff we get is even older than Sailor Moon >_>) I’ll have to stick with my romantic comedies. I think I enjoy those the most. The historical ones don’t really appeal to me since a lot of the vocabulary goes over my head, but the police ones are okay.
Ah, I did see Kung Fu Hustle last week, which is the first Cantonese movie I’ve watched in a really long time. That was weird. Well and truly weird, and not really typical of a Cantonese movie at all. A bit too much CG, for one thing, and I can’t remember the last time I saw such a nonsensical movie.
At least I understood most of it without the subtitles.
Okay, seriously, if you expect any kind of structure from my blog, you’re looking in the wrong place.
On the job front: I make pizzas now. XD How do I like it? Well, it’s a job. And in some ways it’s nicer than Subway because there is literally no prep work to do. Everything comes pre-cut. As I keep mentioning to people, though, all the drivers but two speak a Eastern European language (I don’t know if it’s likely that a Serbian will speak Russian :blush:) so I think we were invaded by the Russian mafia. They are all quite nice, though. Not friendly, maybe, but they don’t snap at me when I’ve done something stupid. I’m starting to remember why I don’t like food service much, though. :tongue:
On the school front: Did fine in Math 200. And now I’m freeeee! Freeeee!! Except I have to do course planning. I HATE course planning. I wish I could just take the courses I want and forget about the rest of them. (Like Math 221. Who knew you had to know matrix algebra to be a chemist?) I also still can’t decide if doing Honours and a minor in an unrelated subject will be too stressful.
On the sewing front: I made myself another bag, this time out of a huge tank top my cousin bestowed upon me (it had cute things on it.) It doesn’t fit, so naturally I cut it up and made it into a totebag which is just large enough for a (hardcover) book, a clunky cellphone, wallet, keys, and emergency umbrella. The only problem is with one of the straps, which I didn’t sew properly. I’ll probably handstitch that.
On the crafty front: Last week, the B&C execs held a mini beading party–four of us were there–so that we could make things for our fundraiser. Let’s just say that needle and thread is a lot better than fishing line. I ended up making a pair of earrings and an anklet. It was supposed to be a bracelet, but I ran out of time. We’ll probably have another one soon, as we don’t have nearly enough items. I also want to make a Raven plushie, and a few things from a Japanese craft book.
On the reading front: Just finished The Code Book (Simon Singh), a very interesting history of codes, ciphers, and concealment in general. I’d forgotten how much I loved this stuff when I was younger. I admit that some of the intricacies of Enigma still escape me, but … I sure admire cryptanalysts more than ever. Too bad you have to be a math genius to really get a handle on encryption these days. I’m also halfway through Le coeur est un muscle involontaire. I’m getting there! Even if the only times I read it are while I’m waiting for or on the bus. I’m also randomly flipping through Conway’s On Numbers and Games. I can’t sit down and read the thing from beginning to end. It would hurt my head.
On the language front: Closed captioning is the best thing ever invented. I can finally keep pace with the French channel now :tongue: Although I do sometimes notice that they skip a few words or sentences. I also need to learn Russian so that I can keep up with the mafia.
On the website front: I have PHP & MySQL for Dummies on hold from the library, because I will seriously get that CORE OF SOUL fansite up this summer. Hopefully in no more than two weeks. I’m working with someone else, so I’d better have it done. (I’m the techie. :cheerful:)
On the customer service front: Apparently I have also single-handedly brought customer service back from the dead. :biggrin: Now if only I could get that lady to write me a reference letter.
On the pseudo-celebrity-gossip front: A customer who ordered a pizza today looked exactly like Keanu Reeves. Okay, well, I thought so.
On the fangirl front: HBP! HBP! HBP! HBP! HBP! HBP!
The psychiatrist in you will enjoy this game: Parapluesch
You have to cure insane stuffed animals. Sounds hokey but it’s really cute. It’s kinda slow, though, so make sure that you set aside a good amount of time to do it. (What I mean is, don’t do it while you’re supposed to be studying for math. That’s a pretty bad idea.)
Oh, and do read the good Herr Doktor’s notes. They’re quite helpful, even if they’re full of jargon.
I haven’t cured the sheep yet :tongue:
Things are slowly getting back to normal on my computer.
I realized last night that I had lost the lyrics (in kanji!) to over half of CORE OF SOUL’s songs. This makes me sad. It makes me even more sad that I lost about ten translations. They take a long time, especially when you’re only going on a bit of knowledge.
On the other hand, my sound card is not fried as previously thought (I only had to re-install the drivers) and my video card is up and running too. I have to admit, it’s nice to have over 15 GB of free space on my hard drive again :cheerful:
My poor MSN icons though
Lesson 1: Using your computer during a lightning storm is not a good idea.
There was a lightning storm last night—a pretty intense one, in fact. I had just finished watching CSI (in case you’re wondering, I don’t watch that on a regular basis) and I decided to do a few things online. About ten minutes later, my computer froze. Yikes. (Apologies to anyone I was talking to on MSN at the time.) So I pressed “RESET,” hoping for the best, and I see this message:
Invalid system disk
Press any key to continue
“Aiyah~!” I think. Needless to say, the next hour and the better part of this morning have been devoted to hunting down disks, installing programs, and fervently wishing things would work.
Lesson 2: When you need to find installation disks, it will be next to impossible.
There are two drawers in my computer desk. I know I keep the one for Internet on the left-hand side. Lo and behold, it’s not there. Aigh. I find it half an hour later in a box in the right-hand side. What was I thinking?
Lesson 3: Backup often.
I think I lost 10 GB of music last night. I am not a happy camper. Luckily, I backed up all my music about three weeks ago, so I’m only missing the most recent downloads (including F.I.R.’s new album! I hadn’t even listened to it yet.) I can’t think of much site work that can’t be recovered (thank goodness I upload as soon as I finish working on something.)
So far, I’ve re-installed:
Windows XP
Office XP with Frontpage
Adobe Photoshop 7.0
Norton Systemworks
For some reason, sound is not working (I hope my sound card isn’t fried! Not that I could tell anyway) and I haven’t re-installed the printer drivers yet. Or the router, for that matter. *sigh*
Progress report at 12:33 pm: I am working on re-downloading Unlimited, but I’ve installed AVG antivirus (should I go for Sophos instead?) and ZoneAlarm’s free firewall. Oh, and I have Firefox back. I am most incensed, however, that I have lost all my bookmarks. I must have had at least 50 different webpages for language learning and tools. Arrrrgh.
Progress report at 3:01 pm: I think my sound card is fried. Darn. I want to open the case and double check that. Lesson 4: Never buy a computer with an integrated sound card. Or, if you do, don’t leave the computer on during a thunderstorm.
I’ve spent bits of the last several days playing an educational video game (yes! shocking! :shock:). I know that educational video games are generally designed for children under the age of 10, but I can’t say no to a game of Carmen Sandiego.
Or Slime Forest Adventure (SFA), for that matter.
SFA is a very simple old school RPG. You live in a hut with your brother and you grow potatoes (a plot point which has very little to do with anything.) Your brother sends you to the village to sell the potatoes, where you hear that your princess is missing.
Obviously, the plot isn’t the strong point of this game. Much more interesting is that in order to kill the slimes, you have to type in the pronunciation or meaning of a Japanese kana or kanji. It’s designed to sharpen your recognition skills. It does its job well; the drills don’t seem that tedious and some of the slimes are pretty cute. (There’s one with a little hat! :cheerful:)
Gameplay is simple. There aren’t many commands to memorize (“Oh no! I forgot how to do the hero’s super-awesome killer combo attack!”); instead, you memorize kana and kanji. In fact, when a new kanji is introduced, the game will give you a mnemonic.
The graphics outside of battle are–to be honest–pathetic. But you’re not here for eye candy, now are you? In battles, they’re a lot better than you might expect.
I have a few gripes about the game, though:
1. It’s not designed for the beginner. The game is best played if you already have a working knowledge of kana. (You don’t need to know any kanji; the game walks you through all of them.) It doesn’t introduce the kana at all, and it could get frustrating while you’re being killed by slimes and trying to match squiggles with sounds.
2. There is a preponderance of obselete and obscure kana. I don’t even know if the ones for “wi” and “we” are used anymore; I think they’ve been replaced by “i” and “e.”
3. There is little direction. The game tells you how to fight, but I couldn’t figure out how to save (sleep–preferably at the inn) for the longest time.
4. The game has never heard of synonyms. For example, it will not accept “round” for “circular.” In addition, Japanese often has several readings for the same kanji, and it’s not always possible to guess which one the game wants.
5. The game has specific romanization rules. “acchi” is not acceptable for “a~?,a~??a~??”. Only “atchi” will do.
That being said, the wacky mnemonics make up for it. I actually find myself recognizing a few more characters in Chinese subtitles because of this game. :happy:
Apparently, I write like a man.
Analyses of my blog entries from The Gender Genie consistently identify my writing as a man’s. His algorithim is supposed to be 80% accurate, but from the looks of the stats, it’s closer to 60%.
I just plugged my extended essay in there–over 4000 of my, and sometimes Orwell and Burgess’s words–and I got male. Again.
Actually, reading some of the links, it’s not that surprising: none of the stuff I inputted was that personal (certainly not the essay!) and I have a hard time believing that ‘the’ is inherently male. >_>
I think I may end up going back to Subway this summer That would be slightly depressing, but at least I would have a job. No one has called me back yet, and my first round of resume-dropping was Friday. Pity, and one manager even said that their sister store in the mall was kind of desperate for people… but apparently not desperate enough that they’d hire me.
Worst realization today? Even employers like Subway like to see experience. I ask you, how much lower on the job ladder can you get than fast food? BLAH! And how will I ever get a job in non-clothing retail (which admittedly narrows my choices a lot) at this rate?
On the other hand, let it never be said that the CIBC branch on campus has bad service. The lineup was so long they started handing out cookies and apologizing profusely. :happy: They were chocolate chip cookies, too.
And now for some quizzes, because those things make me happy. My mood needs picking up because I’m -sniff- starting MATH 200 tomorrow. I looked at the outline and I panicked. A lot of it looks vaguely familiar and scary.