ME vs J.L.P.T. - IV test

Yesterday I did a JLPT4 test [2002] at home and I scored 144 out of 188...

Most errors were the reading part. Although I have finished Japanese for Busy People I and have most words from that book into my head, I still think I'm missing quite a few words that you'd have to know for the JLPT4 test.
7時に　いえ　＿＿　出ます。　[not ni but wo should've remembered the -O-utgoing movement, like のる]
友だちと　電話　＿＿　話しました。　[I thought を, like でんわを　する...　seems it was で]
パーティーに　中山さん　＿＿　よびました。　[what the hell is よびました... Seems I did have to learn that verb... Verbs are not my strong point :S ]
9時　＿＿　えいがが　はじまります。 [the movie starts from 9 o'clock?! WTH! I thought it was starts about 9 o'clock but that would be ごろ　not ぐらい　:'( ]

4 errors in 5 questions [the other 10 questions were better 8/10 correct]
I'll spare you the rest of the questions...
Ok, just one more: きのう、テレビ　＿＿　見ませんでした。　[normally I'd think テレビを　見る, but that wasn't among the answers.
へ　に　は　が　hmmm which one... well looking AT a TV would seem logical... Ok...logic failed, it was は, but the can't see [so it can't "didn't see"]]
Overall I think I would've past it, but I can't help feeling a bit slaughtered here...
when Japanese Conversation classes start at the end of the month I'm gonna take this test to Mana-sensei and ask her to explain some things to heal my logic...

kanji practice

Ok...
I think I can recognize the first 103 Kanji I'll need for the JLPT4 test next year.
Next thing I'm gonna have to do is memorize how to write them and the stroke order [which will be quite difficult because I'm LEFT HANDED]
Then I need to use them in the words I already know.
after that I'm all set :P

Christmas was the same as usual. Just eat things you normally don't eat... I'm soooo gonna have another cup of hot chocolate tomorrow!!

BIRTHDAY PRESENT!

YEAH!
I finally got my own birthday present by mail today :) [too late because my b-day was last saturday, but better late than never]
A package containing:
Dir en Grey - UROBOROS (ltd.)
High and Mighty Color - BEEEEEEST (ltd.)
Onmyouza - Chimimoryo
Tsuchiya Anna - Nudy Show! (ltd.)
YUI - My Short Stories (ltd.)

As you can see I'm stil a sucker for limited edition cd's :$

Yesterday I had my last lesson for Japanese III and I got my test back [a whooping 96/100!!]
Although the test had some difficult things in it [and things we never got in class], I think I did ok.
Last question was: make a sentence with ほしい　です　[hoshii desu -> want]
And what do the people of Japanese III always want?? -> 　ビール！yes! BEER!
「わたしは　ビールが　ほしい　です。」　is probably the best way to end the test.
Too bad I was with my car so I couldn't have a toast with beer :'(
Hopefully we'll be having some people continue the course...
I'm currently trying to learn some kanji because I want to take the JLPT 4 test in about a year...

My course of alfatraining also ended today and I was actually a bit sad that it was over...
It's good to have some regular events in your week, right?

Oh well, that's about it for now...

It's alive!

*blows some dust off*
god, this is going slow!
l am actually writing this for real!
I bought a pen-tablet today, to practice my Japanese.
l still haven't gotten the hang of it, but I seem to be getting faster with it already
Ok. enough writing for today [I'm soo not used to it anymore :S ]
I wanted this so I could write Kanji on my computer when I don't know which one it is and want to find it. It's one of the things I wanted to have for my Kanji studies [which have begun I guess]. The other one is just a set of good old flashcards on paper.

Not much has happened since the last time I wrote in my blog...
I guess I'm starting my final graduation project on december 22 [this will be my final chance]
I have almost completed my course of Alfatraining [utulizing your alpha waves to relax and to improve your own character]
I have almost completed my Japanese III course [YEAH! Book 1 is finally done! On to book 2 :P ]

I downloaded a pile of albums, anime and drama but nothing seems important enough to mention right here ;)

にほんご３

きょうの　ブログは　にほんごです！
にほんごの　クラスに　きました。
にほんごの　さんきゅうは　はちにん　です。
ごにん　わ　しんじん　です。
なつやすみに　まいにち　べんきょうを　しましたから　たくさん　おぼえてました。
たのしかった　です。　：）

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

today's blog is japanese!
I went to Japanese class.
Japanese III has 8 people.
5 of them were new (they're from an older group)
Because I studied during summer vacation, I remembered a lot.
I had a good time. :)

Reading this... GOD my Japanese is soooo basic ;'(
At least I'm useful as a walking dictionary [じしょ] because I'm doing words every day :S

Japanese III and Music

A couple of days ago I got a phonecall from my Japanese teacher.
Japanese III is officially cancelled due to lack of interest [5
students -> actually 7] but we're having it privately so it's still
on! :D



Two days later i got the official letter from the Volkuniversiteit, saying it was cancelled :P



So I've been trying to keep my vocabulary up this whole summer and I
think I still remember about 85% of the words [that's good I guess...]



That was everything I wanted to share on this sunday afternoon ;)



OH! no it wasn't :O



Tsuchiya Anna's (new) single "Virgin Cat" was actually labelled R&B [SHOCK!]

re-labeled it to J-Pop ASAP ;)

#2 on the single "Imitation Night" is actually better than "Virgin Cat"



And, as evy-nee-chan said, Olivia's new mini-album "Trinka Trinka" is nice :P

MORE JAPANESE

[mood : drinking
last song: Ayumi-sama - Mirrorcle World -> amazing mix :P
last anime: Rosaria + Vampire #11
last J-drama: H2 #10]

7 days have past since my last post and I can add 5 complete J-drama's and 2 anime series to the "seen section"
J-drama:

• 1 litre of tears　「１ リトル の なみだ」
• attention please - ROFL
  
• hotelier 「ホタリア」
  
• h2
• My Boss My Hero
  

Anime:

• rental magica 「レンタル マギカ」
  
• rosario + vampire　「ロザリオ＋バンパイア」 - fanservice A+++
  

and that's for 1 week :O
Ok... I know I have too much free time ;)
And no I don't talk Japanese all day long [although it would be better for my Japanese]
I still try to remember Japanese phrases when I'm talking in myself [yes I talk to myself a lot], but I've stopped talking in Japanese to other people who can't understand it.
Imagine that it's time for coffee and you ask "koohii no jikan desu ka"...
The frowns on people's faces says it all... :S
If someone is willing to talk or write in Japanese to me, I'm totally up for that, but I'm not gonna be bothering other people with anymore :D

My test for Japanese II is next Tuesday 「かようびに テストが あります」
I still want to do an introductionary text in Japanese, but it wouldn't be of any use if nobody here can read it... :$

　

DRAMA

Let me say sorry for not writing in here all this time [ not that anyone cares, but still to keep up apearances ;) ]
So what have I been doing all this time?
Well as you'd expect, not much :$
Continued my Japanese lessons in Utrecht, continued my Iaido lessons in Rotterdam, lots of anime and finally some more J-DRAMA!
I seem to be pushing myself to cry in some situations...
After seeing like 15 different J-Drama's I came to to conclusion there are 2 things that will probably make me EMO: injustice and sacrifice.
I guess I already had a feeling about those [remember when aragorn tossed gimmly in LoTR2?]
This time it was a J-Drama called ""たいよう の うた" or song of the sun. The story was about a girl with an incurable disease called XP [where the body does not have any defense against UV rays and exposure to the sun is therefore almost deadly]
Just seeing her condition getting worse through the series just got through to me. Of course it's a scenario thats created by some writer, but there are people with this disease in the world. If you have the time, watch it. If you can't find it or don't want to search for it, give me a message. This was one of the better drama's I've seen so far.

I guess getting through to your emo side is good every once in a while...

Japanese II!

[mood : psychiatristic
last song: Nanase Aikawa - LIE LIE LIE
last anime: D.Gray-Man #67
last J-drama: it's been a while :$ ]

Today Japanese II finally started again!
Only 10 people out of Japanese I have continued... SHAME ON THE REST OF YOU! :O
Anyway we had a review of the things we learned in Japanese I [try fitting 10 chapters, which took 12x3 hours, into 3 hours :O ]
I don't have to say that it was really exhausting, now do I?
It was good to see some of the people again though :)
We have the greatest class-atmosphere ever :)

See you next week people :P

2007/2008

[mood : historic!
last song: Nami Tamaki - Promise
last anime: Reideen #7
last J-drama: Fukigen Iyana Gene #7]

It has been quite a while since I last post. I'll try to give some nice things to read :)

December 13th was my birthday. Nothing special happened but I got some messages from people so I was happy enough. I didn't get much presents, but I did get some money [that's a normal birthday gift here, I guess]
My parents did want to pay for a part of the Iaito that I still have to order. It should be around 600 euro and it's a non-sharp katana [wouldn't want me losing any limbs or my head, now would we]

I went to eat at a Japanese restaurant with my fellow Japanese-Course students on December 18th and it was really great :) Only thing that wasn't so great was that the train I got on took waaaaaay to long to get me where I wanted to go. But hey, what can you expect of a train in the middle of the night...

On December 20th I bought a new computer. When I told the store clerk I wanted that pc, he asked me if I wanted to fly. Might be because it's a quad core [4 cpu's] and some other nice stuff. I also bought a widescreen with that so I now have a completely new set ready for a couple more years!

Christmas was the same as usual [2 days of eating]. Only nice thing was that my sister and her little daughter came from Spain to spend the winter holidays in Holland.

A few days after Christmas I finally got my package from Hong Kong containing 4 Gundams :D
You have to build them yourself and they're all done now that I'm writing this!

On 31st of December I went to the house of a gaming buddy [or Guild Wars Guildy if you prefer] to celebrate the new year
Lot of drinking and I met most of the active people I game with everyday online :P

If I remember correctly I had 3 things planned for the year 2007:
1) take a beginners course Iaido and see if I like it [DONE]
I'm still doing Iaido and I'm going to continue with it.
2) take the first course of Japanese [DONE]
the second course starts at the end of January and I already enrolled.
3) finish school [FAILED]
somehow everything that is school related fails. I must be a hopeless person...

And now we are in 2008. This year I'll try to
1) finish school
and please let me finish it for crying out loud!
2) go to Graspop and Wacken
It actally was on the to-do list for 2007 but thing went wrong and stuff. Graspop is TRADITION
3) get 30 GW titles
currently at 20 and a bit so it should be possible in 1 year
4) get more Japanese things :P

Yesterday I finally got my callendars!
I bought two because I didn't want to choose. So now my room has the lovely smile of Maki Horikita and the coolness of Naruto. Strange thing was that the package was sent December 5th, so it actually took more than a month to get here.
OSOI NE!

And finally today I received my Japanese CD's that were sent last week [shipment seems to have returned to normal]

Nami Tamaki - Winter Balades [a single... I actually thought she released a Christmas album]
Yui - From me to you [YUI is cool :P ]
Hight and Mighty Color - Singles Collection [I normally don't buy singles collections, but I'm collecting HaMC]

Feel free to comment on everything or scold me for not blogging sooner
I'll try to update more if my reader(s) [do I actually have more than 1?] request it

Time to sleep...
Oyasumi Nasai!

Wii :D

[mood : excited
last song: Merii - Japanese Modernist
last anime: D.Gray-Man #33
last J-drama: Gokusen #12 FINAL]

Today I got my package containing the Wii Zapper with Link's Crossbow training, so it's just in time for Sinterklaas [ which is today also ;) ]
The game is not all that special, but that zapper is really cool! Now I can finally play Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles with a gun! :P
I have been trying to unlock stuff by playing on hard mode, but ATM I only have the first 2 missions cleared with an S ranking...

Yesterday I had my last normal Japanese lesson for this course. Next week will be a review followed by a test, while the week after that we'll be having dinner in a Japanese restaurant in Utrecht. I think I'll try and learn as much words as possible, but I'm not really worried about the test...

Naraka 19

I just finished watching a movie called Naraka 19 [dei yuk dai sup gau tsang]
and although I usually watch either Japanese movies or some Korean ones, this one was Chinese. Oh well, subtitles work miracles. Chinese is still a weird sounding language and Japanese has a much better sound anyway :D

The movie was about the 18 gates of hell. It's supposed to be in the Chinese culture and they have a gate for every sin. I really thought there were just seven sins [gluttony, greed, lust, wrath, envy, sloth, pride]
Anyway it was a nice movie, nothing special but entertaining enough to watch.

I also got a package today. It contained Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles for my Wii [which is to be released on November 30th]. I'm not complaining, but as usual I couldn't help myself so I played it for hours and hours and hours. I kinda had something else to do, but I'll fix that tomorrow [hopefully]

As for my comment on last post's comment [sounds weird]: I know there are several places here in Holland to study Japanese. I do mine in Utrecht which is like an hour by car, but I think there were also courses in Den Haag. I just chose Utrecht because I heard some positive reactions and I like Utrecht better than Den Haag anyway... If you don't have the time [or just want to do it on your own pace] try self-study. I did that about 1 year ago and I'm amazed the words that come popping back up now that I'm learning Japanese again. Somewhere in my mind I guess some of them were still there...

Some things

Today we met our new teacher for Japanese 2. He will be taking over because Kibuchi-san would have had 4 classes next term and that was a bit too much for her I guess. [so WE were sacrificed :O ]
Anyway, Japanese is going fine at the moment [good thing that SOME things ARE going fine, ne]

I seem to have [at least] one curious reader [!] and I just wanted to say that I have no problem explaining my story, but it would be a bit much to put it on here. I also said that the hobbies post was the last one for a while [until I have more stuff to write about that]. And yes I DO have a car [kuruma ga motte imasu! -> sorry just came back from Japanese course]. It's a blue Suzuki Swift with a cute Naruto doll inside :P

Something else I want to mention is a movie called Suicide Circle. I recently gave that movie to a friend of mine and he found it disgusting. Sure it is a bit gory, but I remember I was in a half-shock-state all morning [gory movies first thing in the morning is a no-go] and really made me think... Unfortunately I can't say anything about it, cause that would spoil the movie. If somebody decides to watch it, I wanna have a chat with them [and if they can't find the movie I'll share mine]

That is all... おやすみ　なさい　[oyasumi nasai -> good night]

Update

It's been a while since my last post and since the whole universe is dying to know what I've been up to [nobody really cares], here goes...

Last weekend I finished watching Stargate SG1 [had season 10, eps 9-20] and now it's actually OVER! I can't believe this crappy ending! OK, very noble of Teal'c to sacrifice himself and become 50 years older [he wasn't human anyway so he gets to be 150 or so] but why did it have to be an open ending?! Yes, the Ori were obviously stopped, but Adria ascended to a higher plane of existance for crying out loud! Doesn't she have enough power now to make some new armies?! I would've liked some more info on that...

For the last couple of days I've been farming Globs of Ectoplasm in Guild Wars. They're one of the most valuable [and "easily farmable"] rare crafting materials which I can just sell for 8-10K each and since I need money to get Angelica her titles, this is a good way :)

The Greenhouse that my parents are rebuilding is nearing completion, so I don't have to help anymore with moving tons of bricks [physical labor is not for me ;) ]

When it is finished, I will finally be able to put my own car in the garage and their caravan will move to the greenhouse :)

I was going through some websites yesterday and I decided to find out if I can start with Iaido soon... I think there will be a demo in April.
AND I read that somewhere in september it will be able to follow a course of Japanese again, so I'm gonna do that too, I think... For now I'm just going through my Japanese book again and try to get as many words in my head as possible

Things @ School are still the same... I still have to find a spot... Now, I probably would find one if I really started searching, but for some reason I still can't put myself to it :(

I really really really have to get off this school [preferably with a graduation]