「Super Supporters」カテゴリーアーカイブ

Nostalgia for Someone Else’s Childhood

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I never grew up in Japan. I didn’t go to elementary, middle, or high school here. But two Japanese shows have given me an intense nostalgia for the childhood I definitely didn’t have: Kei-On! and Kimi to Boku.

Kei-On! is about the Light Music Club at a girls’ high school. Kimi to Boku (You and Me) is about a group of high school boys. They’re both slice-of-life anime, dealing with nothing more epic nor dramatic than the somewhat fantastical but still comparatively normal lives of teenagers. Maybe it’s that, even having gone to school in a foreign country, some of our experiences are shared. I got sniffly at Kei-On’s graduation episode because I remembered graduating from high school, being excited and terrified and on the cusp of this massive transition I was both thrilled to finally reach and wasn’t sure I wanted. Or that, even if I didn’t go to high school with my long-time childhood friends, I still have people like that in my life, and the closeness and unspoken understandings of thoughts, feelings, quirks, and warts and all between the friends in Kimi to Boku makes me think of the people who are like that with me.

Whether or not you have particular memories of school in Japan, or just want to spend a heartwarming half hour or two in someone else’s high school days, I highly recommend both Kei-On and Kimi to Boku. Enjoy!

When life throws you lemons, make lemonade!

March 24th- “Mom, if my eye doesn’t get better by Friday, I’ll see a doctor.”

March 30th- “Take these eye drops and antibiotic. Come back in a week” says the ophthalmologist.

April 1st- “Mom, I saw the doctor on Friday, and he said I needed surgery…April Fools!!”

April 6th- “You may need surgery” says the ophthalmologist.

April 13th- “You need surgery” says the ophthalmologist.

That’s how it all started. As of today, April 13th, I am scheduled to have surgery on my eyelid on May 7th, which was the same day I was supposed to spend the last day of my four day vacation in Thailand, which I have now canceled and subsequently lost approximately $300 due to cancellation fees.

Some say bad timing. But really?

Fortunately, I have two types of health insurance which will cover all of my medical expenses. The day of my surgery is my day off, so I will not lose too much time off work. Best part, the infection in my eye is not cancer- reason enough to celebrate!

Despite the weekly trips to the doctor, seeing my eye get worse then better then worse again and even canceling my long awaited vacation to Thailand, I feel so happy and grateful that I get to experience all of this- without fear! So when life throws you lemons, make a delicious pitcher of lemonade and drink it slowly and delicately savoring every drop.

Ask for Long Life at Kinomiya

Kinomiya Shrine in Atami, a few hours south of Tokyo, is home to a 2,000 year old camphor tree. It must be doing something right to live so long, so the Japanese have built up a shrine around it where people can go to pray for good health and long life.

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I went to ask for a little help, myself, when I was in Atami last month. Did it work? Give me 100 years and I’ll get back to you.

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Do you need to see a doctor?

On Saturday, March 24th, I went to work as usual at 7:30am. The day was long but nothing unusual until around 3:00pm my left eye began to itch. When I checked the mirror, my eyelid was red and swollen. I didn’t think much about it until three days later my eye was in the same condition. I tried eye drops and hot compresses to reduce the swelling, but another three days later my eye was the same.

On Friday, March 30th, I decided to go to an eye clinic and much to my surprise the process from check in to picking up my medication was quick (about an hour and a half) and affordable (11,000 yen including medication). I did not make an appointment. I did not even have to show my alien registration card (I had it though). The nurse checked my vision, then I saw the doctor. He wrote a prescription for three medications that I picked up at a pharmacy directly next to the clinic.

Although I speak Japanese, I am not fluent and going to a clinic where at least some English is spoken was a priority. I found the clinic I went to on the Tokyo Metropolitan Health and Medical Information Center website. It has a database of clinics and hospitals in Tokyo where English and other languages are spoken.

If you’re wondering, my eye was not the result of hay fever. I had a bacterial infection. So, if you have the unfortunate experience of suddenly having a health problem, do not fear! Check the website and see a doctor.

Lang-8 Review

In my last two posts, I wrote about working at Starbucks and resources for studying Japanese. Super supporter, Jordan, wrote about her experience with Anki so I have decided to give a review about my experience with Lang-8.

THE PROS

1) It’s free!
Some of the best things in life are free and one of them is Lang-8.  The site is victim to annoying ads, but for $5/month you can upgrade to a premium membership and make those ads disappear.

2) Corrections by native speakers
If you’re like me, you want to know if a Japanese person can actually understand you. Lang-8 makes it possible for you to get corrections from native Japanese speakers of all ages and all dialects. You can also get corrections from people who are also studying Japanese like you!

3) Journal entires are relevant
I hate drills! When will I EVER say “Mr. Suzuki is going on a business trip to London next month”??!?! Suzuki who? I don’t care about him. I care about me and talking about things that are relevant to my life. Things like yoga, hiking, Yoshinoya, the stye on my left eye (It’s true).

CONS

1) Lang-8 is a writing not speaking site
I took my first Japanese class when I was 13.  I have instant recognition of hiragana and katakana, I can conjugate most verbs with ease and I know practically every basic and intermediate grammar pattern. Nonetheless I can not speak well. While Lang-8 can help reinforce grammar, it can not help with speaking.  My suggestion is to record journal entries over and over, play them back and then actually recite the entry to a native Japanese speaker.

2) There is no chat feature
SharedTalk is a site I discovered when I first moved to Tokyo. SharedTalk provides real time chat messaging and talking, and emailing through an anonymous source. Chat messages offer a pseudo-conversation feel in a private manner. I don’t know if I’ll go back to SharedTalk for live chatting or open up an anonymous Skype account for random chatting, but conversation practice, real or through chat, is necessary in becoming fluent in Japanese.

Some of the other unique features of Lang-8 are:
There is a pop up dictionary. It’s similar to Rikaichan on GoogleChrome that allows you to hover over a word written in kanji then see the hiragana and definition.

PDF printout
As a premium member, you can print out any public journal entry as a PDF. Printing is not green but it is still a good option for those who want to take their studies to the library, park or family gathering.

At the moment, I use Lang-8 as my Japanese blog and social networking site. I typically write about events as they happen in my life. Sometimes I ask questions about Japanese customs. I’ve found information about where to buy things or where to visit from other users. I’ve made friends! It’s really cool. I usually get about six users to correct every entry I write. After reading their corrections, I rewrite my entry using the correct grammar and vocabulary. I write on average three times a week.

That’s all for now. Hope some of you check out the site and sign up!

Cheap Eats at Ameyayokocho

Ameyayokocho is a narrow shopping street between Okachimachi and Ueno Stations. Takeshita is famous for trendy clothes, Asakusa’s little streets are famous for temple tchotchkes and Japanese touristy goods, and Ameyayokocho apparently is famous for being cheap. The shops that line the street sell nuts and dried fruit, fish, produce, and hot food, and all at awfully affordable prices for the notoriously expensive Tokyo.

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My friend told me that on weekends it’s packed, and that week before New Year’s, when everyone is trying to cook up days worth of food for the long holiday? Forget about it.

We went on a weekday in the middle of the day, so it was positively pleasant. Vendors also sold shoes, sunglasses, umbrellas, bags, and American-style t-shirts and other clothes. I left with a new umbrella and bags upon bags of dried fruit and nuts.

…but I’ve already eaten everything, so I’ll be back, Ameyayokocho. Just you wait.

Plum Blossoms and Study Prayers at Yushima Temple

Sakura season is almost on us, but the plum blossoms are already here. Last weekend a friend and I went to Yushima Temple, near Okachimachi Station and Ueno, to see the blooming plum trees. When we arrived, I also noticed those walls where one hangs little wood placards with wishes for the gods to fulfill was almost overflowing. My friend told me that not only is Yushima temple famous for plum blossoms, it’s the temple of a “Study God.” We read some of the placards, and it looked like grateful students were thanking the god for their successful school admissions.

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My finals for the last term are already done, but I’ll have to pay a visit to Yushima next term…

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Japanese Language Study with Anki

I’m not that good about studying Japanese. Studying for school, sure: there are short-term, immediate consequences to not doing my work, not to mention public ridicule from professors and classmates if I clearly don’t know what I’m talking about or what’s going on. But with no (immediate) consequences and no (guaranteed) public ridicule if I don’t learn my five kanji for the day, Japanese always seems to fall to the bottom of my to-do.

Then I try to read a website, or an advertisement, or I have to ask my friend for the umpteenth time what a word means, or I know what I want to say in English but argh how do I say it in Japanese… and motivation returns. Life is hard living in a foreign country and only sort of knowing what’s going on, or what’s written on something, or what someone just said (and what to say back). There’s a lot of being confused and looking dumb.

Still, it needs to be easy for me to study: not easy in the subject matter, but easy in the method. If I have to read worksheet instructions or fumble around trying to find the right flashcards I lose my motivation in about half a second. Not to mention there’s no immediacy to gathering all these physical study materials: I have some already, but if I decide I need to learn something else I have to go to amazon.co.jp or the bookstore and poke around and obsessively read reviews to make sure what I’m looking at is a good product and on and on. Being a poor and mildly OCD is not a good combo.

And lo, in that void of a quick, convenient, well-priced (and isn’t free the best price of all) study tool comes: Anki. Anki is actually a generic flashcard application, but it allows for shared flashcard decks. So after downloading and installing the program, I can search through Anki’s massive database of flashcards and find that many people before me have created Japanese-language flashcards. No need to laboriously input data myself. There are flashcards for all the kanji for JLPT 1, 2, 3, and 4 (these designations are outdated now that the JLPT is organized by N1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, but it’s not as if the kanji I need to be fluent have changed), flashcard packs of 6000+ Japanese sentences, hiragana and katakana for beginners, grammar, and many more. Better still, Anki has an iPhone app. At $25 it’s more than a little pricey, but if you consider that the desktop client and all the flashcards that come with it are free, it more than evens out.

And finally, if you’re a particular studier who wants things just so like I do, you can edit the flash card packs you download. I didn’t like how the kanji flashcards gave me the kanji and the reading then asked for the meaning; I wanted them to give me the kanji and ask for the reading and meaning. With a quick template edit, I changed all 1000+ flashcards so I could have just that.

Studying has been a lot easier – or at least a lot easier to guilt myself into doing – since I started using Anki. With the iPhone app I can do my reviews on the train, syncing my progress so the desktop app knows I did my work when I get home. I can’t say I’m as diligent as I need to be, but I’m headed in the right direction.

So all that said… anyone want a box of White Rabbit kanji flashcards for JLPT 3-4? They’re starting to gather dust.

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No pictures for this one, but let me know if you’d like me to break it up by adding a screenshot or something.

next week

next week, 久し振り i do not have to do the lessons, maybe i can have more fun with the people around.
i really thought about doing something that is more creative, but mostly, i just end up hanging around with the people around me, cause they are entertaining to a certain level. just like my roommate, i never imagine she can be so 自然に似合う with me.
but i do miss him every single day.
she also hear sooo much about him from me.

i love SMS … なんか繋がってる感じ

ever since not being with you, there is no one i want to take photos of …
sometimes i even think, there is no need to take cameras with me anymore. but i still take it with me most of the time, afraid there be some “emergency” situation.
friday night, i was soooo tired of the situation at work and got to drink with someone, lucky when i went to the lounge i already see someone i know. so i ended up drinking with them.
saturday night, i was preparing the pancake for roommate and i saw craig and he invited me, but i did not say anything. then later, when i had the mood to drink, because of some non-welcomed person, the party separated into 2 groups. i would like to stay with my good male friend, and he was showing me the SIRI app, it was so cute ^^. he told me to talk on the iphone and the iphone really respond!

but later the other party invited so i had to go to the other one cause i know that group a little longer. but the whole time i was SMS back and forth with him it was interesting.
i love SMS … なんか繋がってる感じ
and there are history i can always look back and think about the sweet words …
but i guess those history means nothing when someone just does not love you anymore …

i want to be someone that would return my SMS right away every time i message him.
no matter how many years have passed.
because most of the time, when a person said, he could not mail because he was busy, because he was blah blah blah, it was all just excuse …