#i speak intermediate japanese. maybe i can do it. maybe i can make another account - NO NO I WONT SOMEONE STOP ME

[cursedcola]

Once Skully J. Graves comes to EN servers and I get to play that event it’s all over. All over for my wallet. All over for my sanity. All over for any Night Raven patriotism in my body.

He will be all I write about for at least a month. Leona I hope your aura is strong to hold out because you’re about to lose a second throne in this life and that’s kinda embarrassing -

[abyssmail]

Caerul Design Notes,

because I’ve actually put a lot of thought into creating Caerul’s aesthetic and I’m lowkey really proud of it.  I won’t get into her actual character concept/personality/backstory/etc. since this got super long, but this is how/why I made the choices I did with regards to her name and visual design!

▶ Caerul’s color scheme started off way bluer (hence the name “Caerul,” from caeruleus/a/um - “blue”/“cerulean”/“azure”/“of the sky/sea” in Latin) and less saturated, but when I gave her a (dead) twin with a red theme, I wanted them to look more alike and made both of their hair purple (although I haven’t actually done more than sketch Roseus before... he’s got purple hair and red eyes).  Purple’s my favorite color, and unnatural hair colors don’t seem to be uncommon in Orth, so why not, right?   ¯\_(ツ)_/¯   The red elements in Caerul’s design are meant to represent her honoring Roseus!

All of the base colors I use when drawing Caerul! They all end up looking a bit darker once they’re shaded though.

▶ As well as shamelessly using one of my favorite Latin words (I’m a Classics major, okay ;;>~>), I also tried to pick a name that sounded similar to the ones that already exist in-universe.  This was actually fairly tricky, since as far as I can tell the names in Made in Abyss have a WIDE variety of influences.  Some of them seem passably Japanese-sounding (Riko, Jiruo, Kiyui, Nanachi) disclaimer I bring dishonor to my ancestors and know 0 Japanese so this is just about vibez, others seem Western-ish (Reg, Nat, Lyza, Prushka).  Some are fairly whimsical (Shiggy, Maruruk, Mitty) while others are more mysterious and fantastic (Any of the White Whistles besides maybe Lyza).  The only common thread I could really settle on was a general fantasy feeling to all of the names.  I tried to capture that nebulous vibe with Caerul’s name, although with something so vague and subjective it’s pretty much impossible to say if I was entirely successful.  I named her siblings afterward with other Latin color words and ended up with a RGB theme lol.

▸ By the way, “Caerul” is pronounced “KAI-rool.”  It rhymes with “Hyrule.”  The ae diphthong makes an “eye” sound in Latin #TheMoreYouKnow

▸ “Caducalae” is a portmanteau of “caducae alae,” literally “falling/doomed/futile wings” in Latin (again), playing off how pointless it is to be able to fly when the Curse of the Abyss is a thing.  Originally, they weren’t supposed to work at all outside of the Abyss, but I decided that was boring for crossovers/other verses so I scrapped it.  I’m not too happy with the name since it doesn’t fit the naming scheme of the canon relics (there is no precedent at all for gratuitous Latin in Made in Abyss, which is a good thing because it’s overused in fantasy, but Latin was the only thing I was good at in high school sooooo... ^^;), but I didn’t like any of my other ideas that much, either.  “Wings of Futility” feels more canon, but it’s also kinda depressing :/

▶ I’ve mentioned before that Caerul’s build is based off of mine for art reference purposes (it’s convenient to just look in the mirror while making the pose I want =w=)b), but another reason she’s so short is that I didn’t have to make the caducalae quite as big since she’s smaller, so she can actually go indoors if she’s careful.

▶ Long hair isn’t super practical with mechanical wings with lots of bits for it to get caught in, but Caerul idolizes Lyza, so I left her hair as long as I could reasonably get away with.

▶ I heavily referenced the canon Made in Abyss character designs for Caerul’s clothing so she would fit into the world, but made some alterations to make everything more personal to her and accommodate for her wings.  In general, I lightened everything up, since she takes a bunch of short, quick trips rather than lengthy expeditions.  Her gloves, for instance, are loosely inspired by the ones we see many delvers wearing in the manga/anime, but are less heavy-duty and are convertible mittens/fingerless gloves for better dexterity with handling letters and such.  

The best close up of the gloves I could find was actually a screenshot of the aftermath Reg & Riko’s orb piercer encounter, but I didn’t want to have to tag this for gore, so you get Lyza ^^; There’s a filter over Caerul here so you can see the glove better which is why she looks kinda washed out :/

▶ Her coat is heavily influenced by Jiruo’s, since he’s the only Moon Whistle we’ve seen in canon.  

yeah, uhhhh, sorry to yoink your style my dude ^^;

▸ Caerul’s has a different color palette, a simpler lapel border, an extra set of outer pockets, and three separate panels in the back that button around her wings so she can put it on! I haven’t drawn it, but her shirt works similarly.  

This is my favorite detail about her design tbh... it’s just really satisfying what a logical solution it is for some reason???  the original doodle is off rotting somewhere in my Modern European History notes, but I tried to recreate it just as sloppily here =w=)b

▶ Caerul’s corset isn’t just a painful fashion choice - it’s actually meant to be a(n admittedly heavily stylized) brace for her back against the weight of her wings.  

▶ Since Caerul can’t wear a backpack with the wings, I had to get creative with storage options for her.  In addition to an undetermined number of pockets on the inside of her coat, I gave her these two pouches on her thighs to carry more stuff.  

I wonder how buff your quads could get carrying a significant amount of weight there...

▸ Messenger bags don’t seem super practical for delving, so I didn’t design a specific one for her to carry all the time, but Caerul does use them on occasion.  Even with that, though, she still has far less carrying capacity than the average delver, which is a problem she has to deal with when carrying out her duties!

▶ The wings/caducalae were by far the most difficult part of designing Caerul, and it took several redesigns over 2+ years before I was finally happy with them.  Their first design was deliberately far simpler in the interest of having to draw them a zillion times, but they ended up clunky and unwieldy looking: 

chonky o~O

▸ The final design is MUCH more of a pain to draw (in fact, a lot of the time I cheat and just copy and paste them from drawings I’ve already done), but I think it looks much sleeker and more “functional”.  

I also got better at making my diagrams look slightly more authentic ;0

▸ I knew I wanted jetpack-style thrusters to be a component of the wings to somewhat justify the shit I wanted Caerul to be able to pull with them (especially to eliminate the need for accounting for the damage landing suddenly could do to her ankles), but incorporating them proved to be one of the biggest problems of the design.  At one point, they were going to have a whole separate attachment point on her back, but I finally just made them an offshoot of the first “joint,” as you can see in the final design.  

A really messy intermediate caducalae sketch.  The weird double pentagon shape was meant to be the part of the relic actually fused to Caerul’s back, but I scrapped that too when I scrapped the separate limbs for the thrusters.

▸ Speaking of the joints, they’re all balls so they can rotate all over and I don’t have to fuss too much about how they move.  Likewise, the frame is metal, but I treat it like it’s kind of flexible, so Caerul can “flex” the wings open and closed.  These wings are hard enough to draw period okay I’m giving myself every excuse to be inconsistent af on purpose.

▸ The caducalae have some “bonus” features that I’ve sketched out, but that Caerul hasn’t unlocked yet, and won’t for a while.  

owo what’s this?

▸ For the wings, I think my biggest inspirations were some of the mechier Cardfight!! Vanguard dragon units (although I don’t remember which cards specifically) and the energy wings on the ninth-generation knightmares in Code Geass R2.

I’ve made a lot of OCs, and since I don’t like to use faceclaims, I’ve done a fair amount of character designing.  I don’t think I’ve ever spent as much time or had as much fun with any of them as I have with Caerul, though!  OCs aren’t always super well accepted in fandom roleplay, but the Made in Abyss community has been super welcoming and I’ve had a blast.  Thanks for listening to me gush about Caerul if you got this far, and thank you to everyone who’s interacted with her!  

The original sketch of Caerul from back in 2017.  How far we’ve come :’D

[horncity18-blog]

How anime works?

Have you ever wondered how anime is made? For many of us, anime production is all light up and mirror. The distance amongst the conceptual art and the accomplished masterpiece is the period of the 12-week season. Typically the truth is, until you chat Japanese, the production approach that governs Japanese animation is shrouded in secret. Trying to find away more will lead you to a good number of terms like as crucial animator, advanced beginner animator, movement representative, tv show director, artwork home in addition to character developer. How anime is made within Asia is very various from how you may well consider; Often , it's a new significantly more material (read: chaotic) process you might assume. The fine art of toon Animation generation is a messy adventure. Disorderly preparation, strict deadlines, deadlines and even rampant inefficiencies are generally operate hazards that any individual working in a small together with freshly created environment will be conscious of. The spirit is usually a labor involving love and the talent of many folks, while well as the endurance of a select few. Immediately after all, it is single that requires many, numerous steps. The achievements of even a new single show is not a little task, and a incorrect stage can have serious outcomes for the whole development. Dig more deeply together with you will find development programs and color-coded check-lists which have been nightmares. kiss anime watch So many spreadsheets, so many validations. anime generation Another common day at this office for the production director. Image by Sentai Filmworks. I will do my personal better to provide a good guide of the process, describing often the main steps as well as the major celebrities. In this respect, I actually hope to show how complicated it is usually to create a respectable anime, not to point out some sort of great one particular, as your love for typically the setting revives. Above most, we sorry in improvement for any errors or even defects; I am by way of no means an authority around anime production. This production process (ie development difficulties) preproduction This is often the preparing and financing step. Often the anime production business (for example, Aniplex, Bandai Vision, Kadokawa Shoten, Pony Gosier, Sony, Toho, Viz Media) is responsible for personnel, transmission in addition to syndication expenses. In essence, they will pay studios to do it, the tv screen stations in order to broadcast this and in order to the licensee to send out it nationally in addition to around the globe. Above all, this accumulates profits from revenue. At times, several production companies happen to be involved with some sort of single cartoons. This broadcasters (for illustration, A-1 Pictures, Bones, N. M. Staff, Kyoto Animation, Madhouse, Production I. Gary, Studio Ghibli, Trigger) are usually the ones that function, pay and create the particular anime itself. If this anime can be an original idea, the facilities will sometimes help with the expenses. Group assembly The overseer is usually the creative director and it is generally responsible for the particular program. When this will come to staffing, every facility works differently. Quite a few have got full-time animators, colorists, writers and production offices, when others will have the fully committed team of key persons from each department as well as a large network connected with outsourced helpers. Then there will be the reports that outsource the entire work for you to freelancers. storyboard

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The representative also has the final word around all creative decisions. They can be directly responsible for the particular circumstances and the closing approval of each one episode. This director from the episode. This specific is self informative. Found in substance, they are typically the film fans of a certain event. The particular episode overseer works directly with the particular overseer on most artistic and logistical judgements regarding the assigned episode. Receive the correct Black Anime figures The script supervisor The particular writer himself (say what? ). Your job, involving course, is usually to make often the characters speak. The representative may present this circumstances, but the script director is responsible for publishing the talk and narratives that guide the episode. Fundamentally, the piece of software supervisor produces the character types, settings, and plot to our lives.

[sugirandom]

365 days of writing: day 46

Day 46:  RPing woes

               My computer is acting strange this morning at least in terms of the appearance so I might try to run an anti-virus program just to make sure nothing’s up. I don’t really have that kind of time this morning though so I just have to hope that it’s something that can wait until Friday otherwise I’ll have to just switch to using my laptop which is a shame because I really like my desktop. Hopefully I’ll figure out what the issue is, maybe it just needs an update or something. I’m trying the update now to see if that fixes the issue.

               Anyway, I’m going back to work today and then I have to go again tomorrow. I’m not the happiest since I don’t like the warehouse work very much in terms of the noise level but I’m going to try to make the best of it and hopefully I’ll either get more used to it or things will quiet down in the near future.  I am at least glad I packed some Japanese worksheets to study during my break and they’re Kanji writing practice so they don’t take tons of concentration to do. I wouldn’t bring grammar or reading comprehension to study at work since it’s too loud there to focus on things like that. My hope is to make sure I’ve memorized all the Kanji I’m supposed to know before the intermediate level at the Japanese language school I’m planning to go to. They’re going to give me a placement test and the last one didn’t go so well so I’m hoping my luck is better this time I don’t get stuck in the wrong level like I did last time.

               That was the only thing that really sucked about Kansai Gaidai. They gave me a placement test without giving me clear instructions on how to take it so I did poorly and they put me in a level that was too low for my knowledge level so I only got one semester of new material despite being there for a year’s worth of classes. I was so upset because I met friends who were actually in the correct level and they learned so much more than me. The school didn’t care that I felt I belonged in the higher level because I guess their test is flawless and also I was nervous speaking Japanese. Just because I’m nervous doesn’t mean I can’t do it! Oh well, I just hope this time I won’t have the same issue. I’ll study hard before I go so hopefully that won’t happen again and if it does I’ll demand they fix it.                

               In other news I do think I need to put my foot down more on my RP blog. I don’t really want to say no to this one RPer who has a lot of ideas but they come up with so many and I’m not really keen on all of them. For example they messaged me today saying they want me to do a twin AU with another Erwin RP blog and my first reaction was a moan. I’m sorry but if I haven’t interacted with them before it makes me very uncomfortable to just jump into RPs with them. I mean just because they’ve RPed with someone before doesn’t mean I’d be comfortable doing it. I think I’ve been to lenient because I feel like they think I’ll just RP whatever they come up with. I really worry about coming across as rude but it was this sort of thing that made me dread RPing on the account so I guess I just gotta have the strength to say no and hopefully they’ll understand.  

[ybyg]

久しぶりでしょうね？ Let's catch up.

I haven't been diligently studying Japanese due to... just life. Some unavoidable things happened and I had to live through the nightmare. It's all right now. I think. I'm here to update you about how miserable it's been trying to catch up with what I've missed and maybe talk about the time I spoke to JO1's Sho who can speak English and I wanted to make an effort to speak to him in Japanese but failed (without sounding like a twat who's showing off).

Continue reading under the cut.

Note: I barely edited it, so if it sounds out of place, or my Japanese sounds awkward... tough luck, I'm probably not going to edit it.

1. Wanikani update

レベル１０に入ってでした。正直は、まだレベル9ですね。This thing levels up as soon as you learn everything there is on the level you formerly in, without taking into account if you have complete at least a round of revision on the last thing that you've learned (they call it 'review' on WK).

The SRS thing is proven to be the best method to recall phrases and kanji. I'm paying for Wanikani (okay, the thing is good. I like it) and have Anki installed and haven't reviewed anything since I created my decks. But it works alright. I may have the worst memory/information-retaining brain and it might've taken me forever to recall what 予 is (it's beforehand, apparently), but I can still remember the ones I've learned the longest; basically from levels 1-4. (I'm learning 予 in the latest level, that is level 9. I'm still suffering turbulence here.)

I haven't seen my stats. Let's have a look, shall we?

I live by the words 'it could've been worse.'

My percentages used to be at least in the 90% across the board, but I just jumped straight into reviewing and clearing over 900 radicals, kanji, and vocabulary without revising, hence why I've done terribly and now it's bringing my stats down.

Radicals I can't believe I fucked up my radicals. They were supposed to be the easiest. I have no words.

If you need a single tip to start learning kanji, you can start by learning its components, and that is the radicals. It'd be easier for you to create stories for mnemonics. Other than that, try Heisig's Remembering the Kanji.

Kanji I am aware I could've done better at this, but kanji itself is just confusing. It's sometimes easy to predict some of the words, like ち that's used for earth or soil (地) and pond (池)--and not to mention the difference is just the radicals soil and tsunami--but I deduced that some aspects of nature fall under the ち umbrella.

And then there are devils like 他 and 地. Ugh. I'm going to leave it here.

Vocabulary

I know what the word 交じる stands for, and then you have 交わる which is thrown into the mix just to confuse me, and that just pisses me off every damn time.

I honestly know the meaning better than the pronunciation... which is dumb because if I were to speak in Japanese, I'm supposed to say the words majiru or majiwaru, not to be mixed or to intersect.

One thing about WK: you might understand the meaning differently. For example, they may offer the word substitution, but I would think of another word, replacement. Unless you input the word 'replacement' into the system, it would still be wrong in your reviews, and you're expected to remember substitution instead. And as an ESL, well, sometimes I'm just expected to drill the word substitution into my brain. I barely use the word daily anyway. So, you're expected to do extra work in order to learn, which is not a bad thing, but it can be annoying sometimes.

To recap, I don't do terribly despite not doing WK for a few months, but I could've done better. It's still in the okay territory, but I'll do my best to improve my reading skills and expand my lexicon.

What's next? I still have to clear up 92 lessons which include the level 9 that I've yet to cover and the entirety of level 10. On top of that, the tens and hundreds of reviews need to be cleared out daily... it's still going to be a rigorous routine when it comes to this one.

2. Grammar (and Reading)

In order not to spend my own money on learning materials, I persuaded my mum to get me みんなの日本語 (MNN); both workbook and notes for Level 1, and I chipped in with my Kinokuniya discount card. Yes, I am 26, but my finances haven't been the greatest as of late, so if anyone needs to hire a writer/social media manager, please send me a DM.

I digressed. Anyway, I've reached the 4th chapter, and it's been great so far! The workbook is completely in Japanese, and as someone who can read hiragana, and to some extent, katakana, it's definitely a great book that helps me improve my reading skills. I wish WK and MNN were at least streamlined because the kanji on WK has the tendency to be more scattered due to the complexity of certain kanji despite them being N5-N4 kanji.

[I edited out a paragraph on Kanji levels and complexities but would like to highlight the inconsistencies in the kanji levels that's shared on the Internet, including in WK. I suppose you will never find the one true answer as to which level does 傘 (umbrella) belongs to: is it N5 per stated in Jisho, or is it N1 as stated in WK? I guess you will never know...)

I prefer MNN over Genki as Genki explains points in English and annotates translation/furigana as bright as day underneath the Japanese texts. As a high-functioning English/romaji reader, my brain isn't doing the hard word; it's just reading the English and romaji. MNN forces me to read in Japanese and makes me translate the sentences on my own, so I am actively learning from the activity. Whilst it has a separate book that explains the chapters in English, I find it very helpful for me to immerse myself in Japanese then flip through the English version of the book just to see how well I understand the lesson. I would suggest Genki for absolute beginners and MNN for those who are in the lower-intermediate level.

I've been reading JO1's mails and articles related to them with varying degree of successes. The shorter ones are simpler and more manageable, but reading longer ones make me quit halfway. I should be reading more so it'd be easier for me to recognise the ones I've yet to learn and strengthening those I've learned.

3. Active learning (Speaking, Listening and Writing)

I've tried to speak in Japanese to myself, and it's mostly え、なんだろう今。。。、ヤッバ、マジ？、いいですね！、ほんまに？ and the latter being 'really?' in Kansai dialect (関西弁), thanks to half of the members of JO1. Since I'm learning 'textbook', formal Japanese, I'm still finding it extremely difficult to communicate in vernacular/colloquial Japanese. Not that I'm familiar with 敬語 (keigo/honorific language) either, just trying to fit the よ, ね, です, します, ません et cetera have racked my brain and I'm at the precipice of trying not to lose my mind. Perhaps, if I tried harder, I'd be able to use it comfortably. But for now, please let me suffer from my stupidity.

Since I wanted to 'try harder', I'm currently going through Making Out in Japanese (it sounds crude, but so far it's been very mild and helpful)

I haven't been writing in Japanese, which is horrible, because what's the use of reading when you can't write. I tried making my own flashcards which ended up taking too much time so I turned to digitalised SRS instead, which can be both annoying and unhelpful sometimes. I'm not a fan of learning through the screen as it takes too much space on the table and plays a part as my focus destroyer. But I can't complain as these devices do make things infinite times easier for me.

For the past couple of weeks, I've interacted with more Japanese JAMs (that's what JO1 decided to christen their fans) and have made the effort to type in Japanese, albeit broken Japanese. I employed my brain, Jisho and the untrusting Papago and Google Translate (the translation sites merely help me check if my sentences make any sense). I bet they're reading my tweets and messages thinking, 'What the fuck is this person on about?' Well, I don't know either.

And here comes the horrible part.

I won yonton (용통 in Korean, basically a video call) and had the chance to speak to the JO1's leader. Which is awesome, yes? I had a week to prepare and that particular week leading up to the event had given me multiple heart attacks. Some dramas happened, an interview happened... and I had only a few days left to prepare. Towards the end of the week, I decided I was going to do 自己紹介 (self-introduction) in Japanese. I know enough to say *キラです。クアラルンプール出身です。マレーシアJAM です, though that sounds super awkward. What I did on the day was the exact opposite.

Well, it's a known fact that the leader speaks English. Heck, it's an open secret that we know he went to a school that had an English department, whatever that means. As the owner of this brain who've spent approximately weeks and hundreds of hours on Japanese, I think know enough to say those words. But what did I do?

I spoke to him in English.

Of course, like everything, it takes a while to set in. That evening, it occurred to me that not only I had spoken to him in English, I also didn't let him speak. I didn't let him finish his sentence.

To be fair, it was only for 30 seconds. I don't need him to speak, and I wanted to, for once, assert my dominance. (The running joke here is that he plays the character of a freaking flirt, and as a lesbian whose compulsory heterosexual crush is him, I have the inclination to get the man to sit down and shut up for once. I guess I did?)

It's not me if there's no faux pas. Anyways...

Today's the 290th day since I started using WK, basically the beginning of my journey to relearn Japanese. Will I be able to communicate at least on a conversational level by the time I'm 30? We will see.

If you're reading this and needs recommendations on resources that are free, hit me up!

またね。

[flyingcookierambles]

a ramble about my class scheduling issues bluh

so basically im a very very indecisive slow person. a ramble about college class scheduling and a hole that i dug myself into and then out of. somehow.

 my academic advisor at my college gave me some advice to take this intro to programming class so i could use databases and stuff bc i told her i want to do lab work. now, the problem is that this class was at the same time as my japanese class, which is a language that im super interested about learning (cuz im a weeb and brought light novels that i cant read to try an support the authors after reading the fan translations i just wanna get my moneys worth lol my family has friends in jpn and id just like to read their facebook posts lol). 

i asked my friends about it and my one friend, an accounting major, said that she will be taking the class too. my other friend, also an accounting major, said that she previously took it and that the teacher was really nice and knew what she was doing but wasn’t that good at explaining things. given my previous high school experience learning java (which this college class will teach), where my class was basically a bunch of dudes and i was this like shy freshman girl who didnt really know anyone + the teacher was an unhelpful and rude dudebro, i was like, hey ill take a well meaning nice female teacher any day.

at this point, i was also talking to my friends and other japanese class classmates about this problem, that i would have to give up the class i wanted. now, my advisor used to work at another nearby college that is highly regarded as a school for basically geniuses + it also had a japanese language class. and many more. because it is like 100% cooler than my school and also bigger.   

but anyways, my teacher said that she would ask her former coworkers about who teaches the japanese class so i could go there and take an assessment test and maybe cross register. so i was like cool and so i went and it turns out that of course the other college for basically geniuses had a different more vigorous curriculum so i wasnt like super good at the assessment. 

anyways i ended up like totally embarrassing myself in front of this dude. i could read some things + there was some furigana but i knew most of the kanji that came up in the sample text that the teacher of the other school had me read, but my class really didnt focus much on katakana so i looked like an idiot when trying to sound out the word festival. the teacher did tell me tho that my learning was strange (knowing kanji/previously took chinese for ~5 years, but didnt know the words to drive a car or katakana) so i was maybe between what their version of beginner 1 and beginner 2 was. now, i wasn’t exactly expecting to pass this test when i came in to his office but i was just really disappointed in myself i guess and embarrassed and stuff?

plus the big problem was that i kinda told most of my friends about this assessment meeting, including the teacher of my school’s intermediate class that i would have to give up. logically i would just tell them that i simply didnt pass and would have to give up the class to take the programming class. however, the programming class was full. all 40 seats. so i decided to hold onto my class schedule position in the language class but then i realized oh wait i told people about the programming class too...

so it’d be like awkward to show up to the language class when the school year starts and everyone is just like hey i thought you went to that programming class. and id be like it was full because i didnt immediately drop this class when i should have back in april because im an indecisive person.

i just kinda sat on it for the past three months of summer, hoping that when the school year starts i can just email the teacher and ask if she’s accepting one more person. honestly tho the seat limit is probs more about the amount of computers in the library computer lab but it wont hurt to try right? but also then it was july (now august) and i was like super hesitant to email this teacher because its summer and its been like three months since school ended. 

so i kinda resigned myself to my fate of having to go to school in late august and being like “yoooo im here bc im an idiot with 0 confidence to sign up for things.”

but then

yesterday i decided to just check the school site for the schedules and classes this upcoming year and i saw that the seat availability had gone from 40/40 to 39/40. i quickly signed up. im so glad now i dont have to look like an idiot when i go back! still kinda like totally bummed that i have to give up learning intermediate japanese tho. i want my $25 moneys worth of the books i brought lol

but also i guess its like totally a miracle that this happened. i guess someone decided to leave after hearing the teacher wasn’t good at explaining or that the class is a bit hard (ah i really volunteered for more suffering than usual huh).

i also wonder if i can take intermediate chinese twice since the people in the chinese beginner class were so interested that they decided to make intermediate chinese a thing againnn! basically during freshman year first semester i took intermediate chinese bc i took chinese in high school for 4 years. it was p fun and my older classmates were nice. altho the class empathized speaking more than in my high school class + the teacher was from taiwan and used traditional characters + my older classmates apparently went to taiwan during the summer together with the other chinese teacher. so it was a bit hard to compete with them. but my classmate said i was p good with recognizing hanzi so thats like the only thing im good at i guess lol. i still kinda want to improve my speaking altho honestly the 4 tones are kinda hard when youre like literally kinda deaf. (curse you genetics. curse you cochlea.) i feel tho that like having classmates this time that i 1) actually know 2) are actually my age and not college seniors 3) also are working on their tones bc they just got into chinese too would be i guess a bit more encouraging. also, its mai-laoshi! shes seems like super nice. the other teacher was actually from another school and i feel like she didnt like me as much since i couldnt speak very well.

hmm but like..really..taking the same class twice..i wonder if such a thing is ok?

not only that but also even if i do join the chinese class i would basically be learning the same thing over again (altho also i kinda forget it so maybe ill be on the same level as my classmates lol). but then like if next semester i dont have the same time conflicts then i would have to choose between taking intermediate chinese part 2 or intermediate japanese part 2 (the intermediate teacher said that if i self study to keep up with my classmates she’d let me in next semester (even tho im bad at self study i kinda want to try this lol)). aararhahofnagkhtirekagnhieoghoeoag hiaeohgieahgiah

what a dilemma.