#(i actually went out of my way to improve my jp language skills to get invested in some of my blorbos)

[akakusomarusora]

shoutout to all my self-shippers who like characters who aren't super popular. who self-ship from series that many would consider niche, particularly those with a very small or even non-existent english-speaking fanbase. you guys are the coolest people ever

[sohmariku]

i know this is a little out of the blue but i was wondering, ive never seen someone with a bachelors degree in japanese (im not very academic lol) but i was wondering if you could tell me more? is it in japanese language or culture specifically maybe? and how did you start on your journey of learning jp? sorry for the weird random question im just really curious! thank u for all the subtitles and everything you do for western tkrb community!

Hey Anon,

I'll happily tell you more about my degree and how I started my journey to learn Japanese.

Though I attended high school at a "pre-university education" level, I'm not very academic at all. And for the longest time I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. (It really drove the career advisors crazy.) So, I graduated without a plan for my future.

The only thing I had been interested in during that time was anime/manga/2.5D and this had given me the desire to learn Japanese. Unfortunately I don't have a head for learning new languages and very short attention span, so I never actually got to learning more than a few words. (Mind you, I hadn't even taught myself the basic Hiragana/Katakana character sets.) Then, as I was enjoying my well-deserved vacation I woke up one morning thinking: "Can I study Japanese in university?" One google search later I knew I could. Long story short, I just signed up without doing too much research and went for it.

The courses turned out to be 50% language and 50% culture. While classes for the 1st year were mostly set, we did get more room in the next two years to focus on a specific field.

For all three years of my bachelor's degree, language was basically split in Reading, Grammar, Conversation and Kanji classes. 

Reading and Grammar wasn't that hard. It's mostly learning new vocabulary and remembering grammar structures. Considering I have no head for languages, it went pretty well actually. It wasn't quite as hard as I expected. It certainly was challenging at times, but doable. I did have a rough start though, because the expected me the know the basic character sets the day we started... which I of course didn’t. It took me a week to get a good enough grasp of Hiragana and Katakana.

Learning Kanji was a bit more challenging. In the beginning it was relatively easy, but in the second or third year they tried to teach us about 200 new combinations a week! Learning the readings wasn't that bad, but learning how to write them was Hell! I really couldn't keep up (and cheated my way through the exams). At this moment I can read and understand a lot of Kanji, but I can't actually write them from the top of my head.

Conversation was just one big disaster for me. We didn't talk quite as much during these classes as we should, so my conversation skills never actually improved much. Somehow I managed to pass my exams, but don't ask me how. (Teachers took pity on me... one did at the very least.) Even now my Japanese conversation skills are really bad. I can understand people when they talk to me (mostly), but I won't be able to give a proper reply.

YEAR 1 In my first year, culture classes included "Pre-modern History", "Modern History", "Japanimation", "Japanese Culture". I chose "Introduction to Japanese Religion" as an elective. I can’t really remember what the other choices were.

YEAR 2 In my second year the only mandatory “non-language” class was "Classical Japanese language". (Which is still sorta a language course.) Then, as my electives I chose "Anthropology", "Japanese Religion", "Youth, Family and Inter-generational Relations in Japan" and "Art & Material culture". FYI, my university also offered History, Literature or Economics/Politics focused courses.

(Art & Material culture was absolutely the best course ever! Classes were in the local museum and most of the time we just sat around a table, holding and feeling Japanese artifacts while our teacher told about them! At the end I wrote a paper about the function of snow in Japanese prints... It was awesome!)

We also had to take two courses from a different field of study, but still somewhat related, so I went with "Art and Literature of China" and "Korean Culture". 

This year I also randomly followed the first year's course "Japanese stories", but never took the tests. I simply attended for fun. It wasn’t offered when I was a first year student.

YEAR 3 The third year we only had electives, I took courses called "Scientific texts" and "Gender Dynamics". 

Half of the year was filled by our minor, so I actually had little Japan-related courses. The ones I did have just took up a lot of time.

----

Well, that’s all I can think of right now. Not sure how much detail you wants. If you have any other questions or would like me to elaborate on anything, just let me know. ^o^ I’ll be happy to oblige.

[a-howl-at-that-moon]

My September Song

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Reader

Words: 2449

Warnings: maybe language, fluff

Summary: the idea popped into my head while listening to “September Song” by JP Cooper...

Note: English isn’t my first language!

“Dean, there's another car right over there.” The older Winchester looked in the direction his brother was pointing. And in fact, a black 1968 Chevrolet Biscayne was parked in front of the house. “What the hell?”, Dean whispered. “I don't know, maybe another hunter on this case?” “Whatever”, Dean said, though he threw an appreciative glance at the car. “Let's figure this out.” They both climbed out of the Impala, with a machete in their hand. Dean took the lead and opened the wrought iron portal of the mansion. They were in Lafayette, Louisiana. They had read in a newspaper that two men had been found, their throats torn up. They hit the road, rented a cheap motel room, dressed as FBI agents; just like before. A normal supernatural thing in a whole crappy supernatural world. “You take the front, I'll take the back.” Sam nodded, held his machete in his hand while Dean started to walk towards the back of the old house. He found a condemned window and took the wood off of it. He entered the mansion and turned on his flash-light. Everything was quiet. The room appeared to be a messy dusty living-room. He noticed blood stains on almost every furniture. He heard a noise coming from the other side of the wall and turned off the flash-light; the floor creaked under his feet as he held his breath and tightened his grip around the machete while walking closer to the wall. He blinked and a blade tackled his throat; he even felt a slight cut on his skin before he made eye contact with whoever the hell was holding the blade. “Dean Winchester?” “Y/N Y/L/N?!” “Dean?!” “Holy hell...” “Is that really you?” “Of course it's me.” “Oh my...” “Can you please remove your blade?” “Oh, yes, sorry about that. What are you doing here?” “What am I doing here? You mean what are you doing here?” “I'm...” Her last words were covered by a loud noise upstairs. “Sammy!” He ran upstairs, his machete in front of him. Sam was fighting three vampires who looked happy to see fresh blood walking towards them. One of them threw the young Winchester against the wall. Dean barely heard Y/N. She ran in front of him and sliced a vampire's head. Dean stayed still for one second until his brain began to work again. “Don't ever touch my brother you son of a bitch!” He knocked a vampire out on the floor and cut his head off; blood spurted on his jacket. He looked around him. Y/N was struggling with the last vampire. He had shoved her against the wall. Dean heard her scream. The vampire had his teeth inches from her throat. He ran behind the vamp and sliced his head with one skillful movement. Y/N fell on her knees, her hand on her throat, coughing and breathing heavily. He put a hand on her shoulder. “You okay? Did he bite you?” She shook her head and grabbed her blade before standing up slowly. “He didn't. How's your brother?” They both turned around to see Sam, who was sitting on the floor and seemed a little dizzy. Dean walked to him and helped him stand up. “Come on, let's get out of here.” Sam nodded and wrapped his arm around Dean's shoulders before leaning his eyes on Y/N. He frowned but recognized her right away. “Y/N?” She smiled and came closer to him. “Hi Sammy.” “What are you doing here?” “Yeah, that's the question I asked before we had to smash those sons of bitches”, Dean added with a little smile. “Well, I'm a hunter”, she answered proudly. “I'm new in the business, actually. But I'm improving”, she added. “Yeah, that's what we saw”, Dean muttered under his breath, winning a glance from Y/N. She didn't say anything though, and followed the brothers outside. Dean could feel her behind him; see her again brought back to life old feelings. “I need to talk to her”, he whispered to Sam. “Obviously you do. I'll wait in the car.” “Thanks.” “You owe me.” “Shut up.” Sam chuckled and moved away from Dean's embrace. “Apart from the circumstances, it was nice to see you again, Y/N.” “You too Sammy”, she said. “Take care.” “You too”, he replied as he waved her goodbye. She watched Sam walk away and climb in the front seat. “This is such a nice car”, she said as she pointed the Impala. “I remember it.” “You do?”, he said as he came closer to her. She nodded, a wistful smile on her lips. Silence filled the space between the two of them. She slowly went to her car and turned around when she noticed Dean wasn't following her. She gave him a questioning gaze; he smiled and moved to her. “Your car is a nice one too.” “It was my uncle's”, she explained. “What happened to him?” They stopped walking when they reached her car; she looked at him during a few seconds. “He died three years ago. One of his last will was to give me his car.” “I'm sorry.” “Thanks”, she breathed. “He did well, by the way. She looks great”, he added as he patted the Chevrolet. Y/N leaned on the car and Dean rested his arm on its roof. “I remember, you know. Back in high school.” “Is that so?” “I never apologised for leaving like I did.” “Yeah, well, there's been... water under the bridge. You were already a hunter, right?” “Yeah”, he breathed. She nodded. “Well it doesn't mean I wasn't mad at you afterwards, but it does explain a lot.” “You were mad at me?”, he asked, faking the surprise. “Of course I was! I was in love with you and you disappeared! I really thought you left because of me”, she laughed. “Seriously?” “What?” “You were in love with me?” “It was pretty obvious, wasn't it?” “Well... not for me.” She rolled her eyes. Dean remembered the two of them in high school, getting close really fast when he arrived and spending a lot of time together; he grew feelings for her, but never in a million years had he thought she was feeling the same thing, convinced she only saw him as a friend. “I guess I should've been more explicit”, she breathed. “I was in love with you too, just so you know”, Dean said. She looked up at him. “You didn't change, Dean Winchester, did you?” He shrugged. “Maybe I did.” They looked at each other for a moment. “Dean?” “Yes?” “Sam's waiting for you.” Dean shook his head. “Yeah, sure. Listen I... I would like to see you again, is there any...” “I would like that too”, she cut him. “Here”, she said as she handed him her phone. “Give me your number, I'll call so you'll have mine.” “That's smart”, he joked as he did so. She took her phone back, laughing. “I am, aren't I. Seriously, Dean?”, she asked as she saw what he had written. “A little heart after your name?” “Come on, you won't erase it.” She seemed to hesitate but she rose on her tiptoes and pecked a kiss on his cheek. “Maybe I won’t.” Dean couldn't say whether she was joking or serious. She unlocked the car and opened the driver's door. “See you soon, then.” “I'll wait for your call.” She smiled at him one last time and climbed in the car. Dean stayed still until the car was out of sight, and walked back to the Impala.

Salt Lake City, Utah - Two weeks later.

“I started to think we’d never be able to catch up.” “You missed me, didn’t you?”, Dean teased as the two of them sat at a table in the corner of the bar. “Just as much as you missed me”, she teased back. “How have you been for these two weeks?” Dean waited for the waitress to move away with their order to talk. “We kept hunting. We killed two ghosts, one werewolf and… stuff.” “Two Wendigos”, she replied. Dean raised his eyebrows, impressed. “There you go”, the waitress said as she put the drinks on the table, laying her eyes on Dean a little longer than necessary before she left. “So”, Dean asked, not paying attention at all, “a hunter? Why?” She leaned towards him. “Remember my uncle?” Dean nodded, listening to her carefully. “I was the only one in the family to whom he wanted to talk to. He was always… strange, like he lived alone in his house, no real friends nor relationships. But still, I loved him.” “Yeah, I knew someone like that”, Dean breathed, more for himself than for her. Y/N stopped talking for a few seconds, her eyes locked with Dean’s. She took a sip of her beer. “When he passed away”, she continued, “he gave me his car. Before I took her away from his house, I cleaned her. And I found a diary in the glove box.” “A hunter diary?”, he guessed. She nodded. “I also found all his weapons in his bedroom. Guns, machetes, holy water, powder, bullets.” She smiled. “You know at the beginning I really thought he was crazy. I mean, vampires, werewolves, demons? Come on. But then, I began to look in the newspapers, I found weird cases. So I trained, I failed, I trained and failed again, and I... I killed my first monster six months after my uncle’s death.” Dean noticed tears started to fill her eyes. He gently put his hand over hers on the table. “He must be proud of you.” “I hope he is”, she whispered. She cleared her throat, wiped the couple of tears on her cheeks and looked up at Dean. “So”, she added as she removed her hand from his embrace, “it’s your turn now, isn’t it?” “I guess, yeah. Here’s the thing: our mother died when we were kids, Sammy was just a baby. Killed by a monster. Our father wanted payback. He raised us and trained us so we became hunters.” He paused and finished his beer. “We got our payback, our father died, and here we are.” She looked at him worriedly. “I’m sorry Dean.” “Me too”, he answered. “How about we order something else?”, he added suddenly, standing up and walking to the bar. He ran a hand over his face as he waited for the drinks. He didn’t like to open himself to people, he felt too vulnerable and that was a feeling he didn’t want to feel at all. He was more the kind of person to bury all of this deep down, to look someone in the eye and to lie, swearing he’s okay. It was easier to convince yourself that you were okay if people thought you actually were. “Here.” “Thanks.” He caught her gaze on him. “Don’t look at me like that.” “Like what?” “Like if you had pity on me.” “I don’t”, she shrugged. “You went through crap most of the people, and that includes me, wouldn’t have been able to face. You don’t look like some fragile guy to me.” “I’m not.” “I know.” They looked at each other. Dean couldn't describe how he felt, here, facing her. Seeing Y/N again brought back old feelings straight to his heart, feelings he thought he’d never experience again. But now he didn’t know how to act. What if he was the only one to feel… whatever the hell it was? What if she felt the same? What was happening to him? “Dean?” He shook his head. “What?” She laughed. God he missed her laughter. “You were gone far away from here.” “Oh, uh… sorry.” She raised her glass. He squinted his eyes. “Come on”, she smiled. “To the future!” He raised his glass as well and gave her a wink. He could swear he saw her blush. “To the future.” About one hour later, they left the bar, Dean as lost as when they came in. “That was… nice”, she said as they were walking to the parking. “’Nice’? That’s the only thing that comes to you after you spent the evening with me?” She nudged his shoulder. “Don’t pretend to be cooler than you are Winchester”, she teased. They stopped in front of their cars, parked next to each other. She ran a hand through her hair. “So… is it that awkward moment where we have to say goodbye but we actually don’t know how to say it?” “You want to say goodbye?”, he breathed. “I don’t know”, she answered. He took a step forward; they were really, really close, now. “Maybe we don’t have to say it.” She tilted her head, watching him. “What do you have in mind?” Dean chuckled when he heard the question. There was nothing but her in his world right now. He couldn’t help but think they were meant to find each other after all these years. What were the chances? He wanted her to know how much she – still – meant to him. And if she wasn’t feeling the same, well… at least she’d know. Taking one last step forward, he put his hand on her cheek. He waited, leaving her enough time to pull away, and as she didn’t, closed his eyes and kissed her forehead. He felt her grab the hem of his jacket. He stayed still for a few seconds before he pulled away. She was looking at him with a light in her eyes, a light that he couldn’t read. Rubbing the back of his neck with his hand, he awkwardly smiled to her and took a few steps back. He stumbled on something invisible, smiled even more awkwardly and finally walked to his Impala without looking at her. He was about to climb in the front seat when someone gripped his wrist. He barely got the time to realise what the hell was going on that Y/N turned him to her and crashed her lips on his, cupping his face with her hands to hold him in place. He didn’t react right away, but he did react. Wrapping his arms around her waist, he pulled her as close to him as possible and kissed her back. His tongue brushed her lower lip and she opened her mouth, moaning to the feeling of their tongues dancing together. “Should’ve done this sooner”, she breathed, eyes closed. “Y/N…” She looked up at him. “I love you.” Her eyes were so bright, now. Resting her forehead against his, she answered in a whisper that sounded so loud to his ears. “Me too, D. I love you.” And they never had to say goodbye. Ever.

[raystart]

Jenny Arden: Look for Dark Horses and Misfits

As Airbnb’s user experience design manager, Jenny Arden is tasked with the job of helping create a seamless experience for all Airbnb hosts, and that includes her mom, a self-employed writer living in Ashland, Oregon, an artsy hamlet at the southern end of the Rogue Valley, just north of the California border. “She adores meeting people and providing pastries and great coffee for them,” says Arden, adding, “Baby boomers renting out a small room are actually a key demographic for us.”

And Jenny’s mother has actually offered her daughter some advice on how to improve the host experience. “My mom has a warm personality, and she gives me feedback on how the platform can help match her with people who want that graciousness,” says Arden. “To get the value of her particular style of hosting is to be into coffee, pastries, and exchanging travel stories.”

Further personalizing the stay experience is central to Airbnb’s ongoing mission to connect people to places. It’s also tricky: How do you best match 160 million visitors to four million homes hosted by 2.5 million people in 191 cities? It’s a Rubik’s Cube puzzle, and Arden leads a team that aims to better support the growing number of hosts in a way that allows them to run their homestays as small business owners.

“Our guests, on average, use our platform maybe a couple times a year when they’re planning a trip and traveling, whereas our hosts, on average, open up our app several times a day,” says Arden. “Just the frequency alone changes the entire nature of the experience and what you have to design for.” Adding another level of intrigue is that about 90 percent of the host experience is offline – the product is the stay, the business goal is a great experience, and the technology is simply the enabler.

Ninety Nine U spoke with Arden about how Airbnb is designing for the superhost, what her team is learning offline that they are applying online, and how the line between design and business is so blurry these days she can’t even see it anymore.

Jenny Arden photographed in San Francisco for this interview.

One idea that has been born in the Airbnb community is that of the “professional host.” How has this come to be?

The big shift I’m seeing is that it’s not like one day you’re an amateur host and the next day you’re a professional host. It’s a gradation; there’s a spectrum. Some will enter into a market where you can have multiple homes, and they may choose to host for many people, and that gets into our co-hosting initiatives, where you can actually host on behalf of someone else. Interestingly enough, on LinkedIn there are 60 people whose title is “superhost” – they put that as their actual job title. I’m thinking about how professional tools can support those people to be killer superhosts and go from just the one-on-one [host experience] to thinking about scale.

One key digital tool in particular for a superhost is the easy-to-use calendar. Your team went through about 40 different prototypes of the host calendar before you got it right. What issues were you working through there?

When I talked to my team about that particular project, I kicked it off by saying, “If you nail the calendar, you won this entire project.” Other things are important, yes: reservation management, communication. But quite honestly, designing for a messaging system is easy, and it’s been done before. Coming up with a really robust calendar for hosting – that’s a new challenge.

Why was it so difficult?

The reason is because every single person thinks about their day differently and structures it in a different way. The construct of a calendar is pretty finite, like days and weeks. How you use a daily view, a weekly view, or a monthly view: That’s what changes. So what we ended up doing is, rather than saying there’s one solution, we created four different views to support what we found were the major buckets in the ways that people were using the calendar.

When hosts are looking at a monthly or yearly view, what they’re really trying to figure out is, Have I booked up my place? They want to make sure they have no availability. Maybe they see one week and no one’s booked it. Maybe they’ll drop the price a little bit, just for that one week, to get a booking in there. They’re optimizing and they’re trying to run their business, making sure they’re getting all the bookings they can.

On the weekly view, hosts are coordinating with the people that help them host, like their cleaner. They’re coordinating. Then on the daily view, hosts are looking at what’s happening today, who they need to greet, errands they have to do.

With the majority of the hosting experience being done offline, what’s one thing you’ve recently seen in how people host in the physical world that you have applied to the digital platform?

We’ve launched a new check-in feature, which is the result of a workaround we saw people doing. Our hosts were using a new mobile app feature that launched in November where users had the ability to send photos through messaging. What people were doing was essentially taking a bunch of photos in sequence to make a check in guide: Look for this store; look for that flowerpot; the keys are under there. Here’s the lockbox; punch this code. And they were drawing the code on top of the image. So we decided to make a photo-based template so hosts can show guests how to check-in to their Airbnb. This completely transforms communication between a host and a guest because it’s standardized. Every time you stay in an Airbnb now, you can look for the check-in guide and it’ll walk you through how you get into this place.

This seems like such a benefit for international travel, where language could be a barrier.

Absolutely. This was coming from our Asian markets, in particular. There are some parts of Asia where their addresses are not like how they are in the U.S., where we have specific pins on a map. In some Asian countries they have areas or blocks only, and the guest has to figure it out. Visual instructions are the only solution, so a picture guide was really the only way for those particular hosts to translate exactly where their Airbnb is located.

Your team designs for host problems that need to be solved. Why does this work fall into the bucket of design versus more traditional customer service?

Because I’m part of the functions that create, that build, I have the power to actually make it happen. It’s one thing to listen, and those supportive roles are absolutely critical to success. I can’t do my job without them. But my job is to execute, and to choose and decide and ensure that the most important and meaningful features will be built. Even as designers we have our bias. We’re still always going to be skewed by our own perceptions, travel experiences, and history. A great customer experience partnership will be that sense of truth. They’ll keep you in check and make sure you’re actually doing the right thing.

In terms of hiring, what do you look for outside of the requisite design skills?

I may not be the norm in recruiting here, but I definitely look for dark horses and people who are misfits. I look for quirkiness – maybe they had an off-the-beaten path trajectory for how they got here. Everyone has to meet a particular bar, so I’m looking at what’s above that, and that’s usually purpose, and the number one prerequisite: heart toward people who are trying to make a living out of home sharing. Designers that are good at system designs, those who think horizontally and can see how one thing they do can percolate across the entire company – those designers can weed through the mess of feedback from all different sources; take that chaos and find that golden nugget idea, the actual problem, and execute without getting distracted.

On a career note, you worked for JP Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs early on, then at Google on self-driving cars, and now Airbnb. What is the thread that has connected these jobs in different sectors?

What I get excited about is creating tools for people so they have a better day. That’s a commonality between all of these industries, and, particularly with my career, what I’ve focused on. The second area is ambiguity. Every one of these companies and industries has had an intense amount of ambiguity. Earlier on in my career in banking, if I had ambiguity I would get super stressed. I would sit there and I’d say, “I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing” and I’d get really scared and frustrated. Now when I see ambiguity, I’m excited, because it means we’re doing something that no one has done before and we don’t have the solution yet. And that’s an opportunity for us to be inventive. I look for those moments more than for the moments of clarity.

You have a graphic design degree from Rhode Island School of Design, a degree in physics from Brown University, and you completed a business program for creatives at Harvard. How have those three disciplines fit in to what you do?

I’m definitely left brain, right brain. I found early on that art was not going to satiate me intellectually and science was not going to satiate me emotionally. I needed both. This led me to find user experience design before that term was even invented. I also broke every rule you can think of in college when it comes to academic careers. I was that first person ever to do a double major between RISD and Brown University at the same time. Now it’s an actual program, but you should’ve seen the look on Academic Affairs’ face when they discovered this was my plan. They asked me, “What are you doing? These are not the same schools.” My response was, “I know; I just don’t care.” I see what I want to do, and that is the path I will take.

Careerwise, I have not done all the right things. I haven’t climbed ladders. I haven’t done the politics that a lot of people find themselves falling into and hating because there is nothing in my personality that will support that.

How important is it for a designer to have a business brain?

As you become more senior, it’s a requirement. In fact, the lines are so blurry I can’t even say business and design are two separate things anymore. What you’re looking for when you’re creating a great business model is a need for it to even exist in the first place. You can monetize lots of things, but if no one will want to put money toward that. And what design does is find the reason why someone should put money toward that. So a lot of people think of design as just being the front end, the execution of a plan. But what it really is is finding the human need for it in the first place.

Do you consider yourself a designer, or have you evolved more into a business executive with a design perspective?

It’s funny that I still see myself a designer because I literally – as many people at my level will say – haven’t opened a design [software] program in a year and a half. As you get more senior, execution is not your primary task. Your job is to push for stronger ideas as quickly as possible. So it’s a combination of those two – pushing, pushing, pushing, and focus, focus, focus.

If I were to put a label on myself, I am a hard-core entrepreneur. It will always be in me. At Airbnb I feel like I’m at the forefront of a new business model and a leading technology, and a company that’s making a lot of change. I’ve always seen myself as a founder, someone that’s diving into the unknown, doing something that’s new and scary.

Airbnb was founded by designers, as were Pinterest and Kickstarter, and there is some talk in Silicon Valley that we’re entering the era of the designer-founder. What’s your take?

These days I find that almost every single person I hire says they want to be a founder. They want to own their own company one day, which maybe is part of our process in finding the people who are very ambitious and very A-type. But in that, I’m starting to realize that the next generation of designers are not design practitioners in the true sense that we were seeing five, ten years ago – people who were going through traditional graphic design programs. What we’re seeing now are designers who are thinking business. They’re thinking, “How can I take something that matters to me, that I actually experience pain or excitement about firsthand, and use my skills as a designer to create a business for that?” That is a major shift among designers ages 22 to 30 these days.

Let’s end with where we started: What’s the best food your mom serves at her Airbnb?

Her cranberry nut bread with Irish butter – she’s Irish.

  This interview was originally published in 99U’s special issue for Adobe XD.