To Say Nothing of the Squirrel

On Pain Of Pain

douglas@triggs.org — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 15:22:53 GMT

Somebody made me do it, not saying who.

A meme. Yay.

1. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE?
I get my middle name from my grandfather, and my last name from my parents. Other than that, no.

2. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED?
Does sniffling from watching TV count? Probably sometime watching Buffy again, then (I'm incredibly easy when it comes to the whole watery eyes thing). Otherwise, er, sometime around the run-up to the trial after my dad's death, probably. And even then, I'm not the full-on sobbing type, probably haven't done that since I was still in the single digits.

3. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HAND WRITING?
Yeah. It's very neat -- of course, I always print, I never write cursive in any language.

4. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT?
Bacon? No, corned beef, actually.

5. DO YOU HAVE KIDS?
I'm pretty sure I don't. Pretty sure.

6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON, WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU?
Depends what other person I was.

7. DO YOU USE SARCASM?
Of course not, I'd rather die in a fire.

8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS?
No.

9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP?
No.

10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL?
Peanut Butter Crunch (with the Captain).

11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF?
Less than I used to.

13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM?
That peanut butter and jelly flavor ice cream Ben & Jerry's made for a short time. I miss it.

14. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE?
Uh, depends on the person.

15. RED OR PINK?
Red. Pink is wrong.

16. WHAT IS YOUR LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF?
I'm really way too good at being mean.

17. [THIS QUESTION INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK.]

18. DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO COMPLETE THIS LIST?
Don't care. Possibly not even less.

19. WHAT COLOR PANTS AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING?
If I was wearing pants (which I'm not, I'm in my room) they'd be my black jeans, or at least they were today. If I was wearing shoes (which I'm not, I'm indoors, and in Japan), they'd be my black Nikes, or at least they were today.

21. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW?
Rush - Anthem [rotating through the stuff I haven't listened to in a while. This one was last listened to in early January of 2008].

22 IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE?
Black.

23. FAVORITE SMELLS?
Garlic, maybe. Food, certainly.

24. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE?
Friend Evan, I think. Don't spend much time on the phone in Japan.

26. FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH?
Football. American style.

27. HAIR COLOR?
Brownish blonde.

28. EYE COLOR?
Brown.

29. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS?
No.

30. FAVORITE FOOD?
Wendy's hamburgers.

31. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS?
Neither.

32. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED?
District 9.

33. WHAT COLOR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING?
Sage with big orange picture thingies. It's my Arches National Park Shirt.

34. SUMMER OR WINTER?
Winter.

35. HUGS OR KISSES?
Hugs. Kisses are messy.

36. [THIS QUESTION WAS REMOVED WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE. OR JUST PLAIN MISSING IN ACTION.]

37. MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND?
Who cares?

38. LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND?
Who cares?

39. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW?
An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese [Revised Edition].

40. WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD?
Not using one right now. The one in my bag is a Rice University logo pad, and that's the one I would use if I was using a mouse, which I'm not.

41. WHAT DID YOU WATCH ON TV LAST NIGHT?
Nothing, but Buffy on DVD.

42. FAVORITE SOUND(S)?
A cat purring.

43. ROLLING STONES OR BEATLES?
Rolling Stones at their best. Beatles more on average.

44. WHERE IS THE FARTHEST YOU HAVE BEEN FROM HOME?
Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport or so.

45. DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT?
Gaydar that's approximately five percent more accurate than random chance.

46 WHERE WERE YOU BORN?
United States of America

47. WHOSE ANSWERS ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO GETTING BACK?
Don't care.

48. HOW DID YOU MEET YOUR SPOUSE/SIGNIFICANT OTHER?
In Tokyo. Oh, how? By poking random things on the internet.

The OCD among you can already tell me which three numbers were missing. Can't you?

World Cup Draw

douglas@triggs.org — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 07:20:53 GMT

Disturbingly easy draw for USA... England (okay, challenging, but also the first game against a notoriously slow starting Cup team that they don't even have to beat to advance), Slovenia (probably the weakest European team to advance) and Algeria (same for Africa).

Not only that, they don't play any of the four top teams until the semis, no matter what (Brazil, Spain, Netherlands, Italy). And, they've had success in South Africa (that surprising upset of Spain this year in the Federations Cup). And...

...Well, expectations are high. And that's not good. Here's hoping, though.

Japan wasn't quite so lucky, but missed getting stuck in a particularly tough group.

[ETA: Nate Silver gives team USA a 48% chance of advancing.]

作文２

douglas@triggs.org — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 09:33:36 GMT

Second essay from class; the first was really craptacular morass of ungrammatical kanji soup, so not posting that one. This one's passable, maybe. It got turned in about a week and a half ago, so no corrections are necessary; I'll get those from the teachers, and at this point I don't even really have time to look at it anymore before moving on to the next thing -- so they really aren't useful.

Everything in this is more or less true, although many of the implications are not (for one, I don't ski, or even snowboarded in several years). I'm getting a little more verbose in Japanese these days.

デンバーの山

日本に移る前にアメリカのデンバーに住んでいました。出身地ではありませんが、十年間そこに住んでいたし、それにアメリカの中で一番好きな町です。今そこに住んでいないのに、デンバーの自宅をまだ持っています。

デンバーは山で有名ですが、本当に平野にあります。しかしデンバーのすぐな西にはロッキー山脈があります。山の景色のほかには、雨があまり降らないので天気がいつもよくて、地元のビールがすごく美味しいですが、デンバーの一番いい点は、山の隣にあることです。

確かにロッキー山脈にはきれいな景色がたくさんあります。ロッキーマウンテン国立公園がデンバーから近いですが、いい州立公園もあります。両方ともおすすめです。特にロックスボローという州立公園がおすすめです。一年中できることがたくさんあります。夏にハイキングと山登りができますが、特に冬にはスキーができます。

コロラド州はスキー場で有名です。そしてデンバーはたくさんいいスキー場に行けて便利です。ベイルやアスペンなどは一番有名ですが、デンバーからスキートレーンという列車で行けるので、ウィンターパークが一番好きです。デンバーに住む多くの人はスキーが好きです。実はデンバーに住む多くの人はスキーが好きなのでデンバーに移りました。スキーが好きなら、二、三時間で有名ないいスキー場に行けるので、住むいいところです。

デンバーに来るのがおすすめです。一年中することも見ることもあるので、季節はいつでもいいですが、特にスキーが好きなら冬にデンバーに来てください。

Is It Just Me

douglas@triggs.org — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 08:06:35 GMT

Or is the SFF.net mailserver (among other things) toast?

[Kinda would like to figure out what's up with his mail, but doesn't really have time to deal with it.]

[ETA: massive hardware failure, apparently all is now well.]

Intermediate Level です！

douglas@triggs.org — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 04:18:28 GMT

The death march continues! Kanji midterm last Friday, grammar midterm this Tuesday, oral (interview) midterm yesterday, listening midterm next Monday. You'd think, you know, maybe we'd get a break after our grammar test, but no, two vocabulary quizzes the next day. Then an essay and reading evaluation the next day (to go with the oral midterm). And two quizzes today. One of the guys was saying, hey, why don't we celebrate and go for monjayaki after midterms? But after our last midterm Monday, we have a major grammar test on Tuesday, then a major kanji test on Wednesday... Then I have track practice (like I normally do three times a week) eating up Thursday evening...

Feh

douglas@triggs.org — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:42:00 GMT

Grammar midterm today (one other already down -- kanji -- three more to go -- grammar, interview, and listening). Doing well enough so far (if a B is well enough, but soon I'll know if I have a shot at an A or should be worried about a C), but brain is in a fog -- very tired, and it feels like my ability to absorb new information has been slowing down significantly for the last couple of weeks. Really need a break, but still four weeks to go.

Ah, well.

Random Pictures

douglas@triggs.org — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 08:12:44 GMT

Some more random pictures from Japan (mostly Meiji Jingu, but a few other random iPhone pictures, too).

The Sake barrels at Meiji Jingu:

Also... Japan, oh, don't ever change:

[Click through for the rest of the pictures; first one puts you at the first new picture -- new pictures continue to the right -- other one puts you at the last new picture.]

Track Pictures

douglas@triggs.org — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 09:29:23 GMT

Some more track pictures, from a meet two weeks ago (11/3). Probably not my best, in some ways better than before, sometimes worse, but overall decent, I guess.

So. Running:

[As usual, new pictures to the right.]

What I've Been Up To In Japan

douglas@triggs.org — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:37:45 GMT

...In convenient videoblog form.

Well, not my videoblog, it's jariten's, so I didn't have to do any work. But it will do, oh yes, it will do.

Yeah, there's Barbie Girl.

Meh.

douglas@triggs.org — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 04:26:13 GMT

Today's minor annoyance... On a much easier kanji test (where I'm fairly sure I got all the actual usage stuff right), I probably only got a low A instead of having a (good) shot at a perfect score -- all due to poor time management on my part. I really needed to spend (probably significantly less than) another hour studying, because I forgot some of the readings (where I'm generally rock-solid -- it's been keeping my grade up all this time).

Ah, well. If it isn't a (much) better result than the first time, at least it's encouraging -- Last time I got a high B when I knew every single word on the test, I just had trouble actually parsing the sentences they were supposed to go in... Keeping "contrast" and "compare" straight is hard enough in English (well, it was once, not anymore so much), but in Japanese it's just plain evil.

Better

douglas@triggs.org — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 12:19:55 GMT

...On several fronts (thanks, guys). Still can't run very far, but what I can run I run a whole lot better (and faster). People in track club have been commenting on that. Still suck at Japanese, but I suck a whole lot more comprehensibly -- I occasionally have gotten comments about that. I'm still frustrated, of course, I still feel deeply uncomfortable speaking Japanese (that is, I have trouble at the beginning of conversations, or in brief exchanges, then I kind of relax into it. Occasionally I even start spurting copious amounts of nonsense at high speed, and sometimes people even seem to understand it. But other times I just get derailed and can't seem to make any sense at all, when I'm lacking vocabulary or grammar or whatever).

Writing continues to get easier, but it was always kind of easy. It's mistake-filled writing, naturally, but now my mistakes are more complicated.

I'm still exhausted, and I'm still getting a B (only question is high or low -- it's pegged right in the middle right now), but I'm more resigned to the whole thing. At any rate, the one thing I'm not complaining about it the Sophia program, which is pushing me, and hard, and is chock-full of excellent teachers. Recent poor test results aside, I suspect I'm actually learning something. I guess I'm fairly happy with it so far, and I know should give the process more time. I'm just tired, and I still think it's just slightly too fast for me, I do get lost occasionally. And somehow I need to find a way to relax -- just not yet, I have another test tomorrow. And next Tuesday. And midterms starting at the end of that week and, and, and... Yeah, it sounded good in theory.

One thing though, I seem to be attacking Japanese with vocabulary. It's not exactly helping to produce natural-sounding Japanese (oh, god, no), but it does seem to be helping with the comprehension, putting me in approximately the opposite position from where I started. I do need to start attacking the model sentences, but, well... I'm trying to get ahead on vocabulary (where my current efforts have ironically left me behind; I just finished creating electronic flashcards for the entire semester's vocabulary plus a bit -- we only recently started the current kanji book and don't finish it this semester).

Hrm

douglas@triggs.org — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 04:38:05 GMT

I think I was worrying about the wrong thing. At least I didn't get a D. Barely.

I don't think I'm really keeping up anymore.

ETA: that said... Eh. I had a bad day (an exceptionally bad day, there was more), but... I'm learning stuff, but I'm still worried. And I can feel the burnout coming, I really am having trouble maintaining the pace and you don't want to know how much time I already commit to this. I'm doing just fine on everything that I can do with brute memorization (yay?), and I get almost as much spoken practice as I can handle before my brain shuts down, but it's really exhausting. And the trends are bad.

More Stuff

douglas@triggs.org — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 14:32:34 GMT

What does it say that I (usually) dread going to track practice, but (practically always) am really glad I went? There's an obvious disconnect there.

Class is less good. Once again, I was the last person to finish the test, which worries me. I don't know how I did, though. (Also, why do they always push the difficulty up a few notches right when I think I've got things under control? Got completely thrown for a loop by the kanji stuff Friday.) I'm kinda worried about this semester again, but at least now I'm just worried that I won't do that well (instead of failing completely).

Also, there was an M5 earthquake during the test, which was interesting.

Anyway, some new iPhone pictures I finally got around to uploading:

Behold! The Windows 7 Whopper, it's... Yeah:

And photo contest proof:

[Links are, well, at the biggining of the new pictures, rest are off to the right.]

Waaaaaaaaaah

douglas@triggs.org — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 14:12:38 GMT

Wah.

Actually, thought, really good year for them, overall. Progress!

Things

douglas@triggs.org — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 12:06:03 GMT

It feels like my Japanese communications skills are finally turning a corner; they still suck, of course, but it's gotten to the point that it feels like practicing my conversation skills isn't a frustrating (and completely enervating) waste of effort. I had to pick up a fair bit of grammar and (especially) a lot of vocabulary to get here, but I'm starting to be able to actually communicate (if not competently, at least effectively) on a relatively wide range of topics. Not everything (mind you), but more than (say) travel, food, and studying Japanese. I still sound like an idiot, of course, but that goes with the territory.

In other news, I found out the results of the 上南戦 (jounansen) photography contest... I got second place with:

First place would have been nice, of course, but despite a fair number of people saying "you'll win for sure" I never actually expected it (I mean, really, there are a lot of students here, I'm sure there are plenty of competent photographers). I'm happy about it.

I have a grammar test tomorrow, though, so I can be happy about it some more later after I'm done.

陸上部

douglas@triggs.org — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 08:22:01 GMT

No practice today; six people out with the flu. There were a couple people in my class, before, too, but so far the wood-knocking has been effective.

I had a feeling, actually, before I left. I had a much stronger feeling when I got there and saw a sign (even if I couldn't quite parse it). But I decided I'd wait around a bit, surf the web on my iPhone, and see if no one showed up... Someone did and told me.

I don't particularly mind; I don't have to run and got back a few hours of my time. One of the advantages of a fifteen minute commute is that going to campus is a now a fairly minor time commitment.

I think I might take a nap.

日本語

douglas@triggs.org — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 06:00:24 GMT

An amusing moment from class today... After explaining そちらは、もう紅葉も終わったころではないでしょうか ["the leaves have more or less already finished changing there, haven't they?"] while we were doing the whole reading comprehension thing by drawing a tree with red leaves on the board (using the black and red markers), then a tree with no leaves, he then wanted to explain how it was currently different in Japan (it just so happens that the letter we were reading was supposed to be written right about this time of year), so he drew a tree (in black marker) then looked around for a green marker, and not finding one, grabbed a blue one and said 日本では青ね before drawing the leaves.

野口先生 cracks me up sometimes. He seemed really strict and humorless before we started, but he's really hilarious. And a good teacher, besides. I'm pretty happy to be here.

それに先週の文法のテストでいい成績があって、とてもびっくりした。難しそうだったが、違ったかな。嬉しいで今から心配しない。もちろん今からまだ頑張らなくてはいけないが、安心してる。けっこうと思ってる。

Again

douglas@triggs.org — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 13:02:31 GMT

Yay!

Moar Internets

douglas@triggs.org — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 04:39:30 GMT

I'm going to go with this as definitive.

Decent speed, better ping.

そうして…

今朝試験を受けたばかりだ。もちろん成績がまだ分からないが、よくなくて、もう困るようになったと思ってる。

Teh Internets

douglas@triggs.org — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 06:43:46 GMT

62272kbps down, 32904kbps up. Suffice to say, it's snappy... Oh yes, it's snappy. (I'm not actually quite sure how snappy, precisely, the speedtest almost seems to return random numbers between 25Mbps and 65Mbps, mostly in the 35Mbps range).

Also, up and running within three days of taking possession of the keys.

Not bad at all.

Red Spider Lily Festival

douglas@triggs.org — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 13:44:30 GMT

Some old pictures from the Red Spider Lily festival I went to a few weeks ago (in Japanese, the 彼岸花). I didn't take that many pictures by my standards, but enough.

Is it strange that I go to a flower festival and mainly end up taking pictures of spiders?

[As always, click through for the rest, newer pictures to the right.]

台風

douglas@triggs.org — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 10:29:44 GMT

The second typhoon I've experienced in Japan came through last night. Like the first one, it came through mostly when I was sleeping. Like the first one, didn't get the full brunt of it (first time because it had weakened by the time it hit Hokkaido, this time because it had veered off a bit to the west -- the eye went right over Anders, though, right after landfall). That's kind of convenient, I suppose. I still haven't been through a real one.

They canceled classes today. I guess it makes me a curmudgeon to be annoyed instead of glad. But the trains were kind of snafu this morning -- I've never seen 24 pages of train delay notices on the screens on the Yamanote train before -- I think my previous record was four.

The weather's nice, even if it was really windy this morning (and still a bit windy right now) -- I went out when we were still in the 50kt circle, but the rain bands were all past. The clouds were moving pretty fast too, but the weird part is how they were actually going fast enough to make the sun seem like it's winking in and out almost instantly when the clouds covered it and then passed a couple seconds later. The effect was even more noticable when I was still inside, with the (frosted) windows closed so you couldn't see what was causing it.

In other news, the apartment is nice. Inexpensive, convenient, reasonably large, and in a totally kick-ass neighborhood. Got the keys yesterday, the aircon installed today (it was delivered yesterday), will be getting internet on Saturday, my bed and desk on Sunday, and Ai's apartment arrives (wholesale) on Tuesday. Time to update the FB info, I suppose.

Rakuten

douglas@triggs.org — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 13:41:10 GMT

Yay!

High Dynamic Range

douglas@triggs.org — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 14:43:40 GMT

So, on the trip, I played around a bit with HDR. Honestly, I didn't produce much of anything decent. But I posted a few of them anyway.

This one's my favorite -- it'd be darned near "perfect" if it wasn't for the lens flare:

[Click through for the set past the link.]

Rocky Mountain National Park

douglas@triggs.org — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 23:42:02 GMT

One last set from Colorado, from a trip to Rocky Mountain National Park with Chris and Laurel. Of course, all but two of these pictures are of various critters (I also got a pond and a waterfall).

Here's a bumblebee (cute, huh?):

[As always, click through for the rest, newer pictures to the right.]