CultureQuirk: Looking Back and to the Future

Another year gone by. Hope everyone had a great year, and that this coming year goes well too! I’ve been through so much in my own life and while I’ve made a lot of progress with Japanese, I hope to progress even more this year. But in this post I would just like to take a moment and look at how I’m doing in the blogging world. I started this blog at the beginning of 2010, and I can’t believe it’s already been a year!

Twitter

I wasn’t exactly sure how to manage Twitter when I first started out, and I’m still not sure how to do so now. Initially, I had a much more structured approach to my tweets, but now I mainly just make random posts that are relevant to language, culture, my blog, etc. I do have over 150 followers, which makes me happy, but I’m not necessarily focused on getting a ton more followers or anything at this point. I would still like to use Twitpic more to post photos from Japan in the hopes that it serves as interesting content, I enjoy having conversation with other Twitter users, and I’ll definitely still tweet updates on my blog and whatnot, but the rest should remain pretty random. :D

Blog

I’m fairly comfortable with how my blog is going at the moment. I would love to post more, much more, but realistically I’m not sure that can happen. I would rather update a few times a month regularly than have huge gaps between periods of frequent updates. Back when I started this blog, I posted ten entries within the first month, a couple of months later the number dropped down to two, and the frequency eventually leveled out about three times a month. In the coming year I would like to bump that up to at least four times a month, about once week, and hopefully keep that steady.

Content-wise, I think I’d like to keep most of what I do so far. Drama Reviews, Cooking Adventures, Travel posts, Lang-8 posts - I think those are keepers. I realize that the Twitter logs I keep are mostly filler posts, but at the same time there is content there and I do know some people who are interested in reading them since they don’t have a Twitter account or rarely check it. Still, not sure if it’s quite worth it to post them, but unless it becomes really bothersome, I think I might still keep them. Once I catch up to the present, I’ll probably only post at the end of each month the Tweets I made for that month.

Something I would like to put a bit more focus on is posts on learning Japanese – more tips specifically related to Japanese language, as well as on motivation in general, since self-motivation is something I’m very interested in and is clearly useful when studying a language. Maybe some culture posts as well explaining certain traditions, exploring different cuisines, etc could also pop up.

As for future, new topics… I have a couple of ideas that I’m still forming. Like I said, I’d like to make more posts about Japanese learning, but I’d also like to maybe go even more specific than that. Maybe find a way to write progress reports on my own learning, detailing what works and what doesn’t for me. Also, I think I would like to try out making mini Japanese lessons as well. More about that down below, but I’ll see how it goes ^^

I also mentioned self-motivation, and while this may seem like something too general for this blog, I want to try to write about it in a way that specifically applies to learning Japanese. I have a couple of ideas, but again, I’ll see how it goes!

Other future topics I have in mind may not be easy to implement right now. I wish I had more Japanese video games – I would love to write reviews on them. Same with manga – I haven’t read too many different series in Japanese just yet, but I would also like to review those when I can. I may write about what I do have experience with so far if I need more material to post, but these topics may just be addressed at a later time.

Any opinions on content especially would be appreciated – and if you can think of new topics you’d like to hear from me, please let me know!

Facebook

I plan to create a Facebook page very soon for CultureQuirk. Don’t necessarily have huge plans for specific Facebook-related things just yet, but it would be another way to connect for updates and whatnot (hopefully special content in the future though!) I know plenty of people who check Facebook a lot more often than they check Twitter, blogs, or even their emails. Expect the fanpage to come in the next month or so.

Youtube

This is my biggest endeavor for the new year, and I’m not sure how it will go… I would like to join the jvlogging community over at Youtube and start making videos! I’m usually pretty camera shy, so this should be pretty interesting… at the same time, I do have some experience with making videos, and I have some ideas, so hopefully it will turn out alright. Mostly I think the videos will simply accompany the blog posts I’ve already made and will continue to make, but this is where I would also like to try some of my new ideas. For example, I’m thinking of making a video or two with some Japanese lessons (and then replicate the lesson in my blog). Hopefully the extra content will be helpful! I’d also like to take all of my footage from the trip I made to Japan and edit it into travel videos to talk about my experience, although that’s going to be sooo much work~

I definitely realize how time-consuming making videos is, so Youtube is a channel where I don’t want to promise too much! I have no idea how often I would be able to update, so this is more of an experiment. But I’d still really like to try it and hope I can make some interesting vids!

I actually already have the Youtube account made (I’ve just been using it to comment on other Jvloggers vids and whatnot) so if you’re interested in subscribing for future updates, here’s the link: http://www.youtube.com/user/CultureQuirk. Hopefully I’ll also be starting that up in the next month or so.

Website

This isn’t too big of a change, but I actually have my own domain name! From now on I’ll be promoting my blog as “culturequirk.org” (instead of "culturequirk.blogspot.com"). For now, it simply links back to this blog, but it’s a lot easier to remember and promote that way.

And there you have it! Please let me know what you think about how I’ve been doing things and my plans for the future – I would love to provide interesting and useful content for you guys! I’ll always try to improve this thing and have some high hopes this year – it is the year of the rabbit, after all!

I’m happy with how the past year’s been for this little blog. I don’t have a ton of subscribers or anything, but that doesn’t bother me – this has still been a really fun experience for me. I appreciate each and every visit and comment I get from you guys, the discussions I’ve been having on Twitter, Youtube, Lang-8, etc., and all the support I’ve been getting both online and off. I hope you’ll continue to follow me into 2011! Happy New Year everyone! あけましておめでとうございます！^o^/

Winter Wonderland~

Posting an update from Belgium! It's soooo cold here, and since I haven't visited Belgium in the winter for years, it's a bit of a shocker. Here's the scene I woke up to that first morning... 

Snooowww! I was just thinking "雪だ！ひさしぶり〜" So pretty~ These are all shots of my grandparents backyard. We really were able to enjoy a white Christmas this year :)

 

 

You can really see the sheer amount of snow - apparently they haven't had this much snow during Christmas in Belgium for yeeeaaars. There are several good inches there. Pretty to look at, but driving was super inconvenient. There was mostly ice at first, so you couldn't do much with it either. But once it fell back down again, it became a bit more malleable.

My sister loves playing in the snow (I'm a wimp and hate the cold) so she made a snowman! かわいいでしょう〜？This really made me smile.


As for the holidays themselves, they went really great. Like I said, driving around was rough, but the actual get-togethers went awesome and being able to see family was the best. And the food!
Christmas eve was a home-cooked meal. My aunt and grandmother did a lot of the cooking, with some of the stuff being bought. That's one of the great things about a lot of grocery stores over here - they make some really high-quality ready-made meals.

This is a tray of amuse-bouches. My favorite thing is something that I can't find a photo of, unfortunately - smoked salmon and a avocado and cream cheese mousse wrapped in rolls made of crepes. Definitely would like to try making them myself sometime.

And for the aperitif, champagne with edible hibiscus flowers in them for decoration. I had orange juice, so you couldn't really see the flowers, but they add a nice sweetness to the drink. I actually ate my flower. Odd texture, but it was yummy~

This entrée is foie gras with a salad. I could eat this as a meal, it was so perfect. And my aunt made it sooo pretty!

Main course: Christmas turkey! With "farce," stuffed pears, and croquettes (my favorite *_*). This is when you start getting super full but it's just too tasty to stop. It was a rare occasion after all!

And finally comes dessert: Buche de Noel. It's a cake in the shape of a yule log, and this one was raspberry flavored with vanilla cream, and decorated with chocolate and macaroons.


And then, Christmas day we went to visit the other side of the family, and it was round two! This time we went to a fancy restaurant instead. We got completely distracted and didn't take pictures of all the courses, but here are a couple of examples.

This was an interesting salad with pieces of - I think - melon, cucumber, fois gras, etc... I think this was probably my favorite course. And that toasted bread was amazing. We had two or so other courses before dessert.

I love having multiple little things to eat, especially for dessert. A chocolate cake, ice cream, and a "fondant"/crispy crepe type of thing. Maybe a bit too much chocolate for my tastes and but undeniably delicious.

So you could say that we had a successful Christmas. Good food, good people, good times. And that wasn't it for us.

My mom's birthday is on December 26th, so it's always kind of hard to celebrate it. This year we dedicated the Buche de Noel to her and sang and everything on Christmas eve, but on the 26th my dad went and bought these adorable pastries to celebrate as well. The chocolate ones have meringue, and the snowmen have both raspberry and vanilla mousse, with an outer shell of white chocolate.

And now to go starve myself... heh, just kidding, but these were definitely special meals for special occasions! Hope everyone is enjoying the holidays!

Tweet Log 12 (August)

Continuing my story through tweets... start at the beginning here.

Go back to part 11.
Go forward to part 13.

*~*~*

Had ZERO internet for the past few days, didn't expect that! So much to blog about, such bad connections XD

Blog Post: Epic Journey of Summer 2010! Part 2 (Belgium) http://bit.ly/a2kOwi

In the end, I had to post it without some of the pictures, but I'll fix that when I get back home. At least I'm getting some material out :)

Arashi's new album is out!! I just listened through the entire thing right now ^^;; Sooo happy about it~~~

Also, I'll be heading back to the US tomorrow. I'll have to put the blog posts up when I get back due to the problems with the pictures...

Back in the US! So much to doo~ Need to catch up with blog posts! I'll try to get those out asap :)

First things first, fixed the pics from the last Belgian trip update! http://bit.ly/9M57Zo

Urk. I just updated Anki and my kanji deck just... disappeared. o.o ?!?!?!?

Ok.. I lost the progress I'd made, but I think my deck's ok now.... phew! XD

I've been kind of under the weather, so it's been hard to get anything done... Bear with me >.<

So I've calculated I need to do ~30 new cards a day if I want to finish my goal of getting through Heisig's 1st book before school starts...

We'll see if I can do it, but either way, I'm almost there! :D

Blog Post: Epic Journey of Summer 2010! Part 3 (Holland) http://bit.ly/9gUF9B Lots of pictures in this one ^o^

アムステルダム | Lang-8 http://lang-8.com/21498/journals/584068 #lang8

Never made so much food before! off to another avatar party~ XD http://twitpic.com/2dru8n

Blog Post: Tweet Log 8 (March/April) http://bit.ly/cwZn1z

Uploaded a sorta filler-blog since I've been so busy and unable to post new travel stuff! Hope to change that within the next couple days :D

I've been doing pretty well at keeping up my pace of 30 new kanji a day... we'll see if I can keep it up till the finish line though o.o

Just finished lesson 48 in Heisig's. Only six more! :D

I tend to try to sing (or at least lipsync vigorously lol) to Japanese songs I love when I run on the treadmill. Bit more of a workout XD

I tend to try to sing (or at least lipsync vigorously lol) to Japanese songs I love when I run on the treadmill. Bit more of a workout XD

Sorry for the hiatus, folks! I've been moving into a new apartment and school starts in a couple of days, so I've been busy - bear with me!

Blog Post: Epic Journey of Summer 2010! Part 4 (Holland) http://bit.ly/95PxXi

Phew, new blog post, and also plans of starting my daily twitpics again. Slowly getting back into the swing of things!

Reached kanji 2000! Gah, so clooose, hope to get done within the next few days XD

Just finished lesson 56! One more lesson! Maybe I could even finish today! :D

I officially finished Heisig's first book!!!! やった〜〜〜〜〜〜!!!! Partaaaaay ^o^

So I might have reached my kanji goal about... four days late, but honestly I don't mind. I just feel great about finishing the book!

Now I need to actually properly learn everything and keep reviewing. But I won't have any new kanji cards for a while :)

Back to an attempt at daily Japan pics! Here's a pretty doll we saw in a train station. http://twitpic.com/2k3xuh

Urk... been too busy to do anything fun with an Arashi birthday as an excuse... but had some cheese cake today... Happy Birthday Jun! XD

Motivation ideas: Jigsaw puzzles

I’m dealing with finals for school right now and am trying a new way to keep myself motivated. Maybe this would work for you too!

I try to find different ways to turn tasks into a game to keep things fun and help with motivation. This includes checklists and bar graphs, like I mentioned in another post. An awesome app for the iPhone is EpicWin (check them out!) But I’ve also added a further element to the fun.

A jigsaw puzzle. What I did was print out a picture (this time around, it was one of Teppei Koike – I mean he does have one of the best motivational videos ever…). I flipped the picture over, drew dividing lines on the back, and cut the picture into pieces. The number of pieces equals the number of tasks I need to finish (for this case, the number of readings I need to do for a final exam). I put these aside, and every time I finish a task, I award myself one of the pieces of the puzzle at random. The puzzle itself isn’t that difficult, but this way, instead of just writing check marks or filling in a progress bar, I’m actually piecing together a picture, which is much more gratifying.

I’m surprised by just how much this has been helping me. It might be the fact that I personally love jigsaw puzzles, so this may not work for everyone. I definitely plan to use this kind of thing next semester for my new courses, and this can also be used for things like Japanese study (or just about anything!). 

I love coming up with fun activities like this to track progress on various tasks, and over the break I’d like to develop some kind of new fun system for next semester’s classes. I really like the jigsaw puzzle thing, but I also love things like treasure hunts and whatnot, and I’m trying to think of ways to incorporate that. I feel like I’m turning into a kid again, but hey, fun gets things done!

I realize that the methods used to accomplish tasks probably shouldn’t take more time/effort than the tasks themselves… I’m trying not to go overboard, but just come up with new ideas every once in a while and implement them in the most efficient way possible. If you guys have any fun ways to keep yourself motivated, let me know!

Drama Review: Tokyo Dogs

I watched this one on a whim almost right after it started airing in Japan, and I was immediately hooked. (Hate it when I do that, then I have to actually wait for the next episode :p) This drama primarily revolves around a great combination of both action and comedy, and just a small bit of romance. This isn’t a cutesy, sappy romantic show, but it’s not a serious and epic one either. It’s a fun, laid-back, yet exciting show that I can only describe as entertaining.

The plot is fairly unique and intriguing. It begins in New York, following Kudo Maruo, a small-time police officer on a dangerous mission of capturing a criminal mastermind, Jinno. The leader of the Japanese division is the haughty Takakura Sou, who takes himself and the mission extremely seriously since Jinno is his arch nemesis and had killed his father. The mission in New York fails, with the only clue being a young girl with amnesia named Matsunaga Yuki that mysteriously appears on the site. The police division is sent back to Japan after the failure, to Sou’s frustration. The mission to find Jinno thus continues in Japan, and a chaotic situation arises: Maruo and Sou are assigned as partners to watch over Yuki. The clash of personalities is the main comedic aspect of this show. Maruo is loud and rambunctious, has a very short temper, and is generally fairly unprofessional; Sou is cool and collected, always remaining professional even in the most ridiculous situations, although he can also be very abrasive and harsh.

I generally really enjoy Oguri Shun and Mizushima Hiro, the two main actors in this drama, and while their characters this time around may have been over-the-top, I still loved watching them. I just thought the interaction between them was so damn funny. Once they start arguing, they somehow quickly yet progressively go from fighting about something like a mistake Maruo made with a gun, to whether fish tastes good with bread. It’s ridiculous and – I think – hilarious. All the scenes where Sou’s mother calls in the middle of a tense situation also made me laugh. Thus the writing was very good, but the execution was great as well. The fighting/action scenes were decent, and the acting styles, while maybe a bit too much, worked well with the overall feel of the show. The overarching plot intrigued me – while originally I was just watching it for the comedic aspect, I ended up getting really sucked into the story. The side plots weren’t annoyingly unnecessary but actually worked well together and always helped in character development and advancement of the main plot. I also like that the romance parts, while present, don’t take over the show. Yuki is a very important character, but the focus still remains on the progression of Sou and Maruo. In the end, though, I don’t really come back to this show for the story, but for the comedy and action; the decent plot is just a plus.

That being said, this show isn’t perfect, and it’s not for everyone. While I found Sou and Maruo’s arguments to be hilarious, others might find them annoying. Despite all of the action in this show, it’s not one that you can really take very seriously. Also, many of the characters are sooo over-the-top, especially Maruo. I don’t know if they’re over-acting, or if the script just really calls for them to do that, but it can be too much at times (and I generally have a pretty high tolerance for that kind of thing…). The pacing of the show is also not the best. At the beginning, everything happens so quickly. Not only are story elements flying by, but the conversations between many of the characters tend to be quick and choppy, so you have to keep up if you want to understand everything. The story can get a little convoluted and confusing at times, although I didn’t really find that to be too much of an issue. Because the show relied so much on humor and action scenes rather than a particularly amazing story, I also found it to be a little bit forgettable. It’s been a little while since I’ve seen it, and I honestly don’t remember all the details of the ending. The ending itself was alright, but nothing really spectacular. (And by the way, as a side note, Hiro's look, with the goatee and everything, was not my favorite XD)

Ultimately, everything about this show depends on your tastes. Most people I’ve talked to find this drama really entertaining, though, and I personally really enjoyed it. I would encourage you to at least try watching the first episode, as you can really get a good feel for it (it’s not one of those shows that you have to be patient and stick through until the end – you’ll know right away whether you like it or not). This is basically a comical, yet action-packed, really fun show that I definitely think is worth a try!

Tweet Log 11 (July)

Continuing my story through tweets... start at the beginning here.

Go back to part 10.
Go forward to part 12.

*~*~*

Came back home to this! My mom got me a ton of authentic Japanese manga that her friend was giving away!!! ^0^ http://twitpic.com/21nii2

A natural hotspring! Not very big, but still very warm and was a fun site :D http://twitpic.com/227c2m

Things have been slow since I'm pretty busy - nearing the end of my summer school session and moving out of my apartment this weekend!

I do plan to get a blog out in the next few days though ;D

An artsy glass house in the middle of the mountains. Not many tourists get to see this kind of stuff O.o http://twitpic.com/23h123

Blog Post: Cooking Adventures - Okonomiyaki http://bit.ly/9RK45L

Added a "Tweets" section to my blog - not sure whether to show tweets like that or just put up a "follow me!" button.. http://bit.ly/b65j6u

Another shot of the glass house in the mountains. So mysterious... http://twitpic.com/253e57

I'll be leaving for Belgium on Monday! Busy busy, but I plan to get in a couple of blog entries before then! One of them in a few minutes...

Blog Post: Lang-8 Part 2 http://bit.ly/9KrNpB

So determined to get through RTK by the end of the summer! *SRSing away*

A structure inside some train station that I found kinda interesting XD http://twitpic.com/25zcx2

I've been watching so many Disney movies in Japanese on Youtube lately! :D http://bit.ly/cn590s

At the airport! Heading out to Belgium. Not sure how much I'll be able to tweet but hopefully I will have Internet. Shuppaaaatsu!

Made it to Belgium safely and I sorta have internet! I'll have to see whether I'm able to update the blog...

French keyboards are pretty different from Americans one - I have to get used to them again!

Blog Post: Epic Journey of Summer 2010! Part 1 (Belgium) http://bit.ly/bbZqci

Today, July 21st, is the Belgian Independence Day! Woo~

Finished the entire series of よつばと！I'll definitely be going through it again in the future, such a fun and cute series ^^

ベルギー | Lang-8 http://lang-8.com/21498/journals/563700 #lang8

Finding it a lot harder than I thought it would be to do any kind of work over here :/ Having fun with the family, but little time to myself

Also, have a depressing amount of homework to do. Meeting my kanji goal might not happen. I'll do my best though >.<

Working on a new blog, but having an issue with the pictures (curse you bad internet!) This may take a while.. I might post it w/o pics..

Smart.fm: Japanese Core 2000

So I know I've briefly discussed Smart.fm before in my Japanese Learning Methods post a while back. I still think it's an awesome tool, but in the past few months I had been focusing on other methods of learning. Now I'm coming back and wanted to have more of a discussion of my current Japanese learning methods.

So here's some background on my personal learning situation. A year ago, I was taking a Japanese class in college (my fifth semester) and was still in the earlier stages of the first volume of Remember the Kanji (which I talk about in my discussion of kanji). At that point, while I still felt like I had so much to learn, I also felt pretty "well-rounded." My listening and speaking skills, as well as my reading and writing skills, were all at around the same level, with maybe my listening skills being just above the rest of my other skills since I was already watching a lot of doramas and variety shows.

Then, last semester, I took a semester off from my Japanese course, since my other classes didn't really permit it. It didn't really bother me, and thankfully my skills didn't really drop or anything. I had managed to keep up with my Japanese decently enough, but my focus definitely changed during that semester. I wasn't practicing speaking too much and was focusing on kanji. I started reading Japanese manga, so I was getting much better at reading, but I never took any time to learn new grammar points or vocab, only naturally picking up a couple of things every once in a while. It was all about Remember the Kanji at that point. Well, by the end of the summer, I had finally finished the book! And then the fall semester had started, and I'm taking a Japanese class again.

Finishing RTK has definitely made a difference in the learning process. I'm not an expert on the kanji yet by any means - I'm still reviewing them everyday, and the backlog's pretty hefty. But whenever I see a new word, I'll have an idea as to what it means, or at least feel like I've seen it before, which does wonders for remembering it. So I'd just like to take this moment to reiterate how ingenious Heisig's concepts are and urge you to check it out if you haven't yet!

Anyway, while I am still doing my kanji reps now, my focus for the past couple of months has shifted once more. I'm learning new grammar and vocab through my class now, but the biggest difference has to be in my speaking practice. I realized during my semester off that, even if I don't always feel like I learn enough from my class alone, it still forces me to listen and speak Japanese for a solid fifty minutes, three times a week. I am thankful for that class for giving me that small opportunity to practice speaking. Something else that's made a difference is the fact that I've joined an organization that matches you up with a language partner, and now I'm meeting up with two Japanese friends once a week and can practice speaking with them.

I've already felt a difference from the past couple of months. It's not that I've necessarily learned all that much that allows me to speak more, but I'm really starting to just feel comfortable and less afraid to make mistakes when I speak. I'm often told that my Japanese sounds "natural," even if it's not perfect. I really feel like I'm overcoming a hurdle with my speaking skills here, and that feels great - I'm so much less shy, which really does wonders.

So now I feel like I have a good base - a couple of thousand kanji to help with my writing, the necessary confidence and naturalness to help with my speaking, not to mention a basic understanding of grammar to help me with both. And now I'm really wanting to take the next step, which is: vocab.

I honestly just feel so limited when it comes to vocabulary. I can hold a basic conversation now, which makes me happy, but I want to take it to that next level, and now I have the tools to do so. I don't think it will be as dramatic change of focus as my last two stages (in fact, I feel like I'm still in the midst of the stage where I'm improving my speaking skills). But it's something I want to slowly edge into and add to the rest of my Japanese learning.

So the point of this long-winded post? (If you've stuck around this long, I do appreciate it!) I'm getting back into smart.fm and am resuming my progress on Japanese Core 2000. Now, it's true that my original plans a long time ago would be to follow the AJATT way of doing sentence practice once I'm done with kanji. I'm not abandoning that, and I do plan to write my own sentences later on. But I'm still reviewing my kanji cards on Anki, and I think that creating another deck right now from scratch may not be the best choice. I had already been studying Japanese by the time I stumbled onto AJATT, so I haven't really been able to follow the "standard" order of things. I don't feel like I necessarily *need* sentences right now, since I have a decent understanding of basic grammar, and what I'm really craving right now is more vocabulary.

I've actually already started the core 2000 a long time ago, and I realize that there are a lot of words I already know, but I'm not too worried about it. The fact that all of the flashcards are already made for me helps so much. Besides, each word comes with their own example sentence, and I know that the goal is to aim for 10,000 sentences, but 2000 is okay for a first step, right? Also, I think having something outside of Anki will be nice. It's a change of setting (I find smart.fm to be much prettier than Anki is heh), and because I haven't bought the iphone app for Anki (yet?) but I have the free smart.fm one, I can focus on my kanji reps when I'm at the computer, and do my vocab reps when I'm out and about.

I'll see how things work out! Has anyone else done the core 2000 set? What methods do *you* use to learn Japanese in general? I'd love to hear from you guys :)