The future and a sweater.

   There is only 1 month of school left for me. I cannot believe it is over already. This is going to be a long month. Things that I know I will have to involve reading 2 whole novels, writing a 6-8 page paper, and 3 short papers, plus finals. That is not me leaving things till the last min, that is the assignments are on the syllabus but just I just don't have details yet. Im going to start one of the books this week, probably tomorrow. Im also reading this book called "Does Accent Matter?" by John Honey. It was referenced in an essay i read yesterday for class and it got me into learning about Received Pronunciation (think British Oxford English accent). I also need to go get permission tomorrow so that I can register for 23 credits for the spring. Im not really crazy, but I will be taking 16 credits of regular classes, then I will be Teacher Assisting which I get 3 credits for, but does not really count towards my degree per say, and then there is an Classical Indian (South Asian) Dance class offered that I really want to take but again would not count for anything I need, so I want to take that as pass/no credit but I need to overload my credits to do all this. 23 credits sounds impressive though I suppose.

   I am also in the middle of a internal debate with myself about whether or not I should apply to do the summer program in Mishima, Japan this summer. I was all gung-ho about it but then was thinking maybe not. I dont know. I want to go but i'm not sure. I dont want to apply and be accepted and then not go, and apply for the next year. If I take summer classes this summer and dont go I can graduate in May '10. Which brought up the topic of grad school with Matt. I really want to go to school in CA, to maybe UC Berkeley or Stanford for my MA and PHD. But Matt did not seem very receptive/happy about that move. Mainly because of his bands here. Which I can understand but I feel like he should be a bit more supportive of this. Maybe the band will move to CA with us if we go. I just feel like if I am going to continue with Asian Studies the schools in CA have more to offer me than here. Plus I need a change of pace/scenery.

    I feel like I finally have a moment to relax a bit! I started my job at the hospital last week, which involved working more hours than I will normally and two very early days. Plus Friday and Saturday which are going to be my regular days to work. Its going to kill most of my weekend. Sunday Matt and I slept a bit late and then we needed to clean out the gardens for the season. Then laundry, laying in bed and dinner at his parents. I spent almost 4 hours there studying Japanese. My neck actually hurts from reading for so long straight. All my nails are chewed off down to nothing and they really hurt. Grrr.

   Tomorrow is the first night of the knitting club I started at school. I hope a lot of people show up. I will probably get to teach some new people but I decided to start a new knitting project anyway! I really love ravelry and how easy it is to find patterns. I wanted to make a sweater with yarn I already have. So I started this sweater that I found. It will be all green when its done. I hope it comes out lovely. 

Vote 2008!

I voted today! I really hope you did too! (Otherwise you can't complain for the next 4 years!) 6:30 am I walked in and out. Less than 10 min. It was the easiest thing I did all day! And I got free Starbucks for it too! I won't get into politics but I cant wait to find out who wins tonight!

On Learning Japanese

This semester I started learning Japanese! Its very exciting, and is acctually an easy language to learn. I know I know what your thinking about that. But linguisticly speaking Japanese is an easy language compared to well, English. Ive also been studing SLA or second language acqusition too and it has been particually helpful in learning Japanese. So while Japanese may not seem like an easy language to learn there are some things to consider to making it easier!

1. Tell your English to shut up while you are activley learning Japanese. Your knowledge of English interefers with what you are learning in japanese. Exaample, when learning sentace structure.
English is SVO (Subject Verb Object): Lauri(S) bought(V) beer(O).
Japanese is SOV (Subject Object Verb): Lauri(S) beer(O) bought(V).
It seems ass backwards but there will be alot of things that go against what you know about langauge. Just deal! (Japanese uses this SOV structure to force politeness of the listener. By placing the verb at the end the listerner MUST listen to the whole sentance to get the meaning. If you dont hear that verb you would be wondering what I did with that beer. Did I buy it, drink it, steal it? Cleaver huh?)
2. Don't try to translate word for word into English. It doesnt work that way. There are many markers and particles that have no translation. There are also many interejection words that dont translate well either. Some like じゃ (jya) can be used a bunch of different ways and in a bunch of different contexts. These are things you need to learn to feel out the usage on. Also Japanese has about 40 odd sounds, so this creates many homonyms. Pretty much everything seems to have several meanings.
3. Embrace ambiguity. This is soooo important. It pretty much sums up the previous two things. Just be realxed and chill when learning another language (Especially English to Japanese) Just go with the flow and accept the unknown to you. You will figure it out and it will all come into context. Plus when you are relaxed and less anxious you have an easier time learning. You will get more out of your class sessions and the imput around you. Linguistically this is called and affective filter.
4. Practice/Absorb!! not just by yourself, if you can find a language buddy who speaks your language all the better, you will get more imput and learn more that way. Also watching movies in Japanese helps big time with figuring out the ambiguities of the language. Cruncyroll.com has a lot of good Japanese dramas to watch with English subtitles. You will hear words in different native voices and pronunciations which is good for you.

All of this will work when learning any language really.

Kawaii Pencil Case!

At school, everyone has really cute little pencil cases! Even the guys. Tired of pens falling out of my bag, pencils breaking in  there, and the digging to the bottom, I decided to make a cute one!

I used some polka dot fabric that was left over from a skirt I made, and 1 sheet of pink felt for the lining and the cute little heart applique. It also has a lovely zipper that I put it and it does not eat the fabric! I'm so excited!!

Urchin!

Bonus to being home sick is extra knitting time. I started this hat about 5 times in different yarns. Finally I decided to use this Jolt from skacel, that I had kicking about in my horribly large stash of yarns. Its a thick, thin deal. The pattern called for 7mm needles. What the heck are 7mm's?  10.5 Us are 6.5mm, and 11US are 8mm so what are 7mm? I have no idea, so I used the 10.5's I should have used the 11's the hat would have been a bit bigger and I would have liked that. It is supposed to be a beret, but I can't really pull off the Beret effect with this hat. So it works well as a short-ish beenie. This will mostly not keep my ears warm. But I suppose a beret would not either. I think I may knit another with thicker yarn on 13's so I can get that nice floppy beret look, which drove me to knit this in the first place any ways. Go Knit it! Its really fast with those nice short rows in the there. Beenie? Or Beret?

Urchin Beret Pattern

Cruddy crud.

I'm sick. I feel like garbage. I cant stop coughing and choking on snot. I cant sleep because when I lay down I end up choking. Yuck. Hopefully in the next few days I will be better. I acctually stayed home from school for 2 days.

Even though I was sick I went out on Friday night. Matt played with the Aggrolites. It was absolutely amazing. They played in a small little venue called the Vibe Lounge in rockville centre. Amazing. I love that band. I love them even more live. I was so sick but felt great for an hour! Then shit for the whole weekend. 

I got a job at the hospital gift shop and I'm starting next week. I really didnt want to work while going to school, but I really need to. Things are super tight otherwise. And Matty's last minute root canal cost us over $600 after our insurance paid them. That threw us off finacially for a bit. Booooo! Yea, so now we will have a little extra money. Hooray!

Training for a Half Marathon! Day 1

For a while now Kate has been encouraging me to train to run a marathon with her. I finally agreed to a half marathon to start.
13 miles. 13 Miles of non stop running. 13 miles, for real? Yes. While I am notorious for planning to do things and never doing them, Im thinking the more people I tell that I am doing this, and the more people asking about it the more obligated I feel to finish what I started. (Case and point with my trip to Japan!)

I started yesterday. I ran, or i tried. I lasted about 5 min before I wanted to die. Then I just walked fast. After we ran (walked) around Kate's neighborhood, we went to the gym in her building. I did the elliptical for 25 min. and then on the treadmill, I would walk for 1 minute, and run for 1 minute, alternating. Then we did all the arm machines. I really *despise* the gym, although I felt less hatred for it yesterday. Kate says once I get past my distaste for running I will crave it. After our gym adventures, Kate made us salad for dinner. The other good thing about this is im already much more motivated to not each garbage.

Here is the schedule that I am starting off with. I need to be able to run 3 miles to start using the half marathon schedule.
This is a non offensive plan for when you are starting out never really running before. I changed the order of the days a bit to work with my schedule better.  Here it is. 

                                                    Sat     Mon   Tue       Wed   Thur     Sun   Fri

I will be doing my long run days on Fridays, because I get home from class around 12:30, so I can run in the middle of the day and relax after with out anyone around. I also believe that it will help keep me in check for the weekend, eating and drinking wise. If I want to go a little bit over board, Saturday is usually the day that happens. While Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday are kind of optional on this chart, I am making Saturdays manditory. Tuesday and Thursday will vary, with school work and things. Hooray! Go Me!