Darlo's World

My my my, it has been a while since I last wrote. In fact the last time I put a real blog up (besides the Konan Uni links and Final Fantasy XIII Japanese review that is), I was talking about the sudden snow that was thrown down on our unsuspecting heads up here in Leeds. Well a few things have changed since then, the month being just one of them.

Let’s start with the easy one, exams. Well ok not quite that easy, in fact after every exam I left the room feeling I’d been completely destroyed in the head. Some exams, particularly my Japanese History exam, left me with that nagging feeling of self-doubt where I knew that I had either done fantastically well or scored worse than a celibate prostitute. Others, such as the Japanese listening exam, just smacked me in the face with a sense of failure so hard that even the worst posts on Failblog couldn’t even compare, though as a bit of a cheer-up plan, one of my Japanese buddies held a Nabe party as his place. I’ll talk about results shortly.

We did have some sad times aswell, as one of our teachers that had been with us since our first year was heading back to his hometown of Sendai. He’d been studying in Leeds as a postgraduate student, but was also teaching us. I remember his early lessons back in first year, and by that I mean early in the morning aswell. Using the Minna No Nihongo 1 Shokyu T25 (Minna No Nihongo 1 Series) book, which I still have and use (though now I use it a lot better than when we first began), we would go through various texts and discuss them. After starting again from the 8.5 months in Japan we were his students once more for another semester, but alas that time came to an end also. One student thought it would be a good idea to make him a scrap book, so a good few of us all pitched in. The picture on the right is one of the things I made. It’s (meant to be) the Leeds Uni Parkinson Building with a smily face. The text is actually a (very bad) play on words. “39″ can be read as san kyuu (lit. three nine) which can also mean “thank you” (in both Japanese and English, give it a go).

Here in Leeds, I tend to drink a lot of orange juice. It’s not because I’m gunning to be particularly healthy, but mainly because our tap water tastes like a brick, and old council house brick that someone’s pissed on after getting drunk on a night out … probably. Either way it tastes horrible. Normally I’d treck into town and get two litres of OJ from Morrisons every couple of days, which to be fair isn’t the most convenient method of staying hydrated. This soon changed after a cheeky phone conversation with my sister where she jokingly recommended I order a lot of it online and have sent via home delivery. Normally this would be done for a full grocery shop, so I sure did feel like a twat when I decided to call her bluff and ordered 59 litres of the stuff from Sainsburys, earning a few Nectar Points. When they arrived, along with a few carrots, chocolate bars and a Toblerone that I’d also ordered, the delivery man couldn’t believe what I said when I explained why I bought so much juice. He, and the other guys at the depot, apparently, thought I’d bought it all to try and sell on. That night I had the arduous task of working out where I was going to store it all, before rediscovering my tetris skills and slotting them in my wardrobe.

　

A couple of weeks back, we celebrated a friends birthday by doing an Otley Run. The Otley Run is basically a pub crawl typically done by Leeds students, beginning in Headlingley and finishing pretty much in town, and (though optional) fancy dress is normally worn. It’s the kind of pub crawl that covers such a hefty distance and number of pubs that it takes a whole day, presuming you can survive until the end that is. Facebook photographs have confirmed that I did make it the whole way, though memories are few and far between. Anyway, no one’s come back to me saying I did something I shouldn’t have (that I didn’t already know ^_~), so I’ll say it was a definate victory.

Last week was the return of LURPS, the Leeds University Rock Paper Scissors society. We had a tournament in the Old Bar and even had a guest player all the way from New Zealand. Details can be found on the LURPS website (photos coming soon).

We’ve just finished week 4 of teaching, and that does mean our exam results have been made available. I’m glad to say that I haven’t failed anything yet, though some results were bloody close. It’s also become apparent that I am much better at Japanese History in essay form rather than exam, as the exam itself severely hurt my overall mark.

Japanese Written – 53 – To be honest I’m generally happy with this, I’d have much rather got a higher score, and my practice exam clearly showed I am capable of better, but as far as written exams in Japanese go, this was a good result for me.
Japanese Listening – 46 – After the exam there were a lot of complaints about it being too difficult for our level, but to be frank I think in most cases it’s down to students not getting enough listening practice. Some students got scores upto and including 86 (out of 90), so trying to argue it’s beyond our level is pointless. In my case, I was just naff.
Critical Approach to East Asian Studies – 60 – A module that confused me throughout, and eventually turned out to be my highest scorer. 100% essay based, I was complemented on my bibliography (something I was worried about to be honest), but it was my spelling that let me down. I’ve not gone back over the essay yet, so I’ll take the markers word for it.
Organisation Management and Economics in Japan – 48 – No excuses here, 100% exam based, and I was shit.
Modern Japanese History – 50 – 50% exam and 50% essay. If only this one was 100% essay, seriously! With an overall score of 50, I scored 64 on the essay (the best mark I’ve ever got for an essay in my department), which means that I must have scored a pitiful 36 on the exam (40 is the pass mark by the way).

I also had the result for the Japanese Language Proficency Test which I sat in December. I knew all along I’d failed, but having the confirmation has finally put my mind at rest (but DAMN! 141 out of 400, that’s shit!).

So let’s end on a bit of good news eh. Think back to September, when I opened the auditions for Learn With Anna. Well the first bit of good news is that the animation is done, online and ready for you to view and enjoy. You can watch it at the LSTV website, or on Newgrounds (please vote 5 ^_~). The second bit of good news is that it’s been nominated for a NaSTA Award (National Student Television Association Award) in the animation category. Presuming no other student TV stations submit anything into this new category, then we’d get a victory by default, otherwise I’m not really holding up much hope for silverware.

Well, that’s me pretty much caught up. It’s taken a good three hours to jot this down, so if you’ve actually sat here and read all this then here’s a little reward in the shape of a very cute snowball fight.

Music! Go!

Well the last couple of weeks of the semester have been a hellish fight for survival, but I’m thankful that I can say … “I made it”. That is at least until the exam period in January, then I’ll be completely buggered.

So lets start out with the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test). This is an exam taken all over the world at the same time (give or take several hours for time-zone differences) to assess your level of Japanese (not spoken). Here in the UK it’s held at the School of Oriental and African Studies down in London, so for some of us a trip down was needed. Me and a friend went down a day early to do some filming for LSTV (I won’t say exactly what for, but it’s a news story on textbook prices), so I spent the night at YHA London Central. It was definately one of the more comfortable hostels I’ve kipped at, bar the snorer in the bed above me giving me dreams about zombies in an “I am the only one left” kind of fashion.

When applying to take the exam, of which only 1000 people can sit a year, I thought I’d have time to study and revise properly for it. Unfortunately this wasn’t the case and I arrived in London horribly unprepared. We headed to a couple of Japanese book shops and bought a past-exam paper and a grammar book recommended by one of my teachers. My intention was to spend the night going through the past paper and cramming as much grammar and vocab into my tiny fragile mind as I could … but again this wasn’t the case.

Sitting in the lounge next to the big ass telly with books spread across my lap, the guy sitting nearby watching the rugby has a look at one of my books. “Do you speak Japanese?” he asks. I look up and bam, instantly my interest in studying goes as my interest in Japanese oral practice increases. By chance I was at the same hostel as a guy who lives very close to where I was living in Osaka! After a few hours of fun conversation he went to bed so once again I cracked on studying … until a new group appears, curious about the text I’m reading. To be fair I did get a fair bit of studying done, but not enough to leave me with confidence for the next days exam.

I woke up in the morning and wanted a full English breakfast. I checked out of the hostel and ventured in search of a Wetherspoons. After a few hours of gormlessly wandering around London (with help from a relative on the phone with the internet), I eventually found the Shakespeares Head in Holborn. Though the service here was fine, the when the breakfast came out I had to look in the direction of the kitchen to make sure the building wasn’t on fire. The vast majority of what was on the plate was burned and almost uneatable, even the black pudding (I’ve never seen a burnt black pudding before). I will say however the sausage was fantastic, too bad I left the rest of it on the plate.

I met up with a friend and we went to face the exam. I left the exam with the feeling that I did as well as I thought I would.

Some of us who came down from Leeds then went to a bar for a post-exam drink, but as they were pretty costly I just had the one. Since a few of us were getting on the same coach back, a suggestion was put forward that we carry on drinking in Victoria so we wouldn’t miss the coach when the time came. For me, I’d spent the entirity of the two days walking around London rather than taking the tube (when did tube prices shoot up so much!?), so I said I’d walk it. After being mocked a bit, I gave my bags to the others and proceeded on foot towards Victoria.

I really should have learned from past experiences that my natural navigatory skills get tempered somewhat when the sun goes down, but more than that I get in trouble whenever I stop for a bog-break. It seems I normally have a tendency to flush away my thoughts about the ‘hear and now’, and normally start off going in the wrong direction. Once I hit the river I knew I was pretty buggered and started running the correct way.

Arriving at our meeting point, the Wetherspoons at Victoria Train Station, there were two things I wanted: a pee, and a pint, I’ll let you decide which came first. There must have been something generally crappy about Wetherspoons in London on that day. I ordered a pint of the Christmas ale, but the guy at the bar poured it with such speed and vigour that instead of a decent head I got a mass of bubbles. Much in the same way a kid would blow bubbles into a chocolate milkshake. I let the pint settle and asked for it to be topped up so I could get a head on it (by a different server of course). It was better, but still very very crap. Leaving the bar area I did overhear the first guy ask what was wrong with it, but was no longer within earshot to hear her response. After speaking with my waiting friends it seemed that they too received service from the same guy that was “rather lacking”. Normally I can associate Wetherspoons with being a great experience, and have always had high praise for both Cuthbert Brodrick in Leeds and Thomas Botfield in Telford, but I think next time in London I’ll have to venture elsewhere.

This week saw me battling with my old nemeses, “history” and “academic reading”, in order to pull out a 3000 word essay on the US Occupation of Japan. Though I thoroughly believe that my essay itself was a massive load of fudge, I’m pleased to say I did learn a good amount of what happened. That is until the several parties over the weekend to celebrate the end of the semester. Great hangover cure by the way, have a big controlled vomit (that is get yourself prepared, glass of water, mint, position yourself, vomit on your own terms) followed by a bit of kip. Or an even better way to avoid hangovers, cut down on the booze ^_^.

In creative news I’ve done a bit more work for Lotaku in that I have finally finished the design for the WebComics Tarot Project. I’m hoping to spend a bit more time on the comic over the winter break and crack out a couple more pages before classes start again. Likewise I’m very close to completing the Learn With Anna animation, just having a few snags with exporting.

And so to play us out, the literal version of The Safety Dance!