since I talked about how we went to the library for a project work research orientation I spose I should also mention a little bit about what I've decided to do my project on.
I felt a lot better about it after talking to Ari-sensei last week. I was thinking the project had to be actually researching something, you know, like "the economic policies of the Taisho era" or something like that. but it turns out that, according to Ari-sensei, the majority of students just come in with something along the lines of "I want to read this book in Japanese." and then find something sort of similar to present about at the end.
so! my topic's not entirely hammered out yet, but I've decided to do something about translation. if possible, I would love to be able to write about, I guess you could call it "theories of subtitle translation"...? some of the issues would be common to regular translation, but what I really want to examine for example (in the case of Japanese to English), is the balance between conveying Japanese culture and making things understandable to someone coming from an American cultural background. How best to translate certain expressions, pop culture references, things like that. do you translate them literally and let the viewer fend for themselves? add some sort of explanatory note? change the reference into one from American culture that has a similar meaning?
Questions like that are really interesting to me.
Oh, and-- wonderful news about my advisor, too! I had just assumed that the project advisor would be the same as our regular advisor (i.e. Ari-sensei for me). but then the other day Otake-sensei came up to me before class asking about when we should schedule my weekly project work meeting, and I got really confused, until I realized that my project advisor wouldn't necessarily be Ari-sensei. and then I got kind of worried that it might be Otake-sensei. which wouldn't be bad, it's not as if I dislike her--it's just that I've had very little interaction with her, and she's known to be one of the stricter sensei at IUC.
but then the other day they posted the assignments, and I have Senda-sensei! YAAAAYYY!!!!
everybody is really jealous of me! ^_^ (especially Jason, who has "Kawasaki-sensei" as an advisor--someone that none of us have ever heard of, or have any recollection of ever seeing. lol)
so, all in all, i'm getting really excited about this whole project thing!
;-D
who, me?
- ☆sarita☆
- From a former North Carolinian and recovering Yalie: Currently living and working in the big city of Tokyo, while furthering an ever-growing obsession with Japanese pop-culture.
this week was actually really fun, because on Thursday we went on a field trip! well, sort of anyway. at any rate, it meant no class. of course--as is invariably the case--"no class" does not equal "sleep in," as we had to meet at the Motomachi/Chukagai station at 9:15 (normally the time I leave to go to school).
first we went to the 文学館 (Literature...Museum? yet another addition to the list of words I understand the meaning of, but only in Japanese). Which was...meh. They had exhibits about different authors, showing their drafts, or early editions of their work, stuff like that. It was ok.
we stopped in Chinatown for lunch, and that was REALLY yum. also, i discovered both a niku-man place that sells veggie-man too, AND a street of restaurants with meals actually under $10. whee! now i just have to remember how to get there.... which is more of a problem than it sounds, because Chinatown is crazy confusing. it's stuck right in the middle of Yokohama, but once you enter the gate, the streets get all windy, and all go off in different directions from the streets outside. so i invariably get lost, and wind up in the complete opposite direction from where i thought i was heading.
After lunch, we went to...the LIBRARY! hehe. which is a lot more fun than it sounds. the Yokohama central library is enormous. we went to get us all library cards made, and for sort of a research orientation for our project work. i found a lot of good books--and i discovered the library's amazing magazine selection. they have several different Japanese trade magazines about publishing and editorial, which was sooooo cool to find. i'm definitely going to start checking those out. but best of all, they also get Publisher's Weekly! so now i can start reading it again! (i had been debating buying myself an online subscripton, despite the expense, but now i don't have to!)
so, all in all it was a really fun day. although, as field trips always do, it turned out to be actually longer than a regular school day.
That sounds like it ought to be the name of some kind of band.
Nevertheless, last weekend! Jack Cafe, for the 3人 joint birthday party was lots of fun. turns out Jack Cafe is this 50s-style American hamburger joint. or, the Japanese conception of what a 50s-style American burger joint would be like. there were a lot of us, so Jeff just arranged a bunch of appetizers and stuff, for a flat fee. Hence, no burgers, but the rest of the food was surprisingly good. they served chips with actual guacamole, which totally made my day--and the fries were really good, too. but just in case anyone started to forget we were in Japan, there were about 20 jars of mayonnaise stacked on the counter.
なるほど。
then Saturday was 久しぶりのThrash Zone (yay!). the place was really full, so we ended up standing down near the end of the bar, but that was ok. It's always a really neat crowd in there--lots of people who seem like regulars and friends of the bartender, and very relaxed. Misa was adorable, though. she was totally staking out the tv, waiting for the end of whatever music dvd they were playing, because the instant it ended, she jumps in with "So what DVD are you playing next?" and the bartender, a man who clearly knows a hint when it hits him over the head, goes "Did you want to pick something?" to which Misa replies "AC/DC!!" and points at the shelf, to the dvd she's clearly been eyeing since we arrived.
LOL.
anyway, it was fun times as usual. b(^_^)d
As promised, here's the short movie we made in Business Japanese, "A Day in the Life of a New Employee". Hope everyone enjoys the embarrassment as much as we did making it. ;-P
Sarah: Outa (Japan Commerce Co, Sales Dept.) / Receptionist / Suzuki-san
Katy: New Employee
Misa: Itou (Sun Commerce, Sales Dept.)
Sean: Tanaka-san / Nomura-san / Receptionist
Staff
Director: Ari-sensei
Scene 2: Telephoning Japan Commerce Co.
Scene 3: At the receptionist for Japan Commerce
Scene 4: In the reception room
Scene 5: Exchanging business cards, Take 2 (take 1 was better...)
Scene 6: Ending the business meeting
Scene 7: Leaving the company
Scene 8: At the receptionist
Credits!
So, last night at Jack Cafe was lots of fun. About to head out to Thrash Zone right now, tho, so I'll write a more detailed update on the weekend's events later.
This is just to give a shout out, and also because I'm updating the video.
This week is a sort of alt-rock style band that I've recently come to like a lot, called Kelun. They just made their major-label debut, and this is their first song, called "Signal." I like the album a lot. There's another song of their's, "Heartbeat," on the music player I added over there in the new left column.
<---
love,
~sarah
For the past couple weeks I've been hearing, "So, what are you and your friends doing this weekend? You're not going anywhere? Just staying at home? Well, you and your friends sure have been boring lately."
So, Mom, this is for you. I'm actually going to get out and do some things this weekend.
Tonight (I have to leave in about 10 minutes, actually), I'm going to a joint birthday party for Jeff, Andre, and Aragorn, who all have birthdays within the next week or so. There's a bunch of IUC-ers coming, so from what I understand, they basically rented out this place, Jack's Cafe, for a flat rate for about 2 hours. There'll be appetizers and drinks, and lots of people, so I'm looking forward to that.
Then, tomorrow night, I have plans to go with Molly, Jason, and Misa to....Thrash! I'm very much looking forward to this, as I haven't been to Thrash since...the night before I flew home for Christmas. Which is another story. Lol. Molly actually went back there with Andre on Christmas eve, but I don't think she's been back since. Wonder if the bartender will remember us? ;-P I think probably. I mean, it's not exactly a gaijin-trap, and I'd bet we're the only group that comes barging in there on a regular basis.
The rest of the weekend will probably be consumed by homework, as we've got rather a lot at the moment, especially in bungaku.
Oh! Speaking of which, business japanese. We've been doing these practical, work-related conversations, that sort of continue on with the same characters, &c. And last week we Ari-sensei had us string them all together and film them. Today in class we watched the video, which was sufficiently embarrassing for all involved. Lol. But Ari-sensei has promised to post it to the IUC server, so as soon as she does, I'll figure out some way to upload it here for all to see.
So, お楽しみして下さい、ねぇ～
You might have noticed, but there's some newness on the blog--links list, a music player (!) and a new 3-column layout. ^_^ (And if you didn't notice all that, then I find myself insulted).
I'd been wanting to have a sidebar on the left for a while now, but blogger doesn't offer a 3-column template, so I thought I was stuck. I found out that you can make a 3rd column, but it involves changing the HTML code and a bunch of--for me--complicated programming-esque stuff that I have absolutely no idea how to do. Fortunately, after a bit of searching, I came across an extremely dummy-friendly site that had instructions more at my level, i.e. "here's the code. copy and paste it into the box." ^^ Of course, it was slightly more complicated than that--involved some actual *gasp!* typing on my part--but eventually I was able to get it right.
Along the way, I came across some other code that lets you add a music player with mp3 files from your own computer. And I thought, why not.
You can't upload a whole ton of songs on the player, so I chose a nice representative selection of what I've been listening to lately. Some of the songs you might recognize from past videos, and some are new. So now, in addition to the music videos, there are some nice j-pop songs to play in the background, or even to leave on while browsing other pages.
The links list is fairly self-explanatory, so I'll leave that as is. I'll be adding more links whenever I find something I want to share, so look forward to that!
Re: the fact that that whole "3rd term is easier" thing turned out to be a big fat lie. The other day after morning class (cutting into my lunchtime--how dare they?!) we had an orientation for 4th term. I kind of thought that it was supposed to be the same as 3rd, but apparently not.
First: the Good News!
Up until now, we've gotten to experience the pleasure of no-afternoon-class Wednesdays. Once a week, every week. And I thought that was pretty good. But it turns out, in 4th term, we have NO afternoon class! XD
My current M-Th morning class (literature) will continue into next semester, as does the Tues/Wed IJ grammar class. That one becomes 上級日本語 High-Level Japanese. My current Fri morning class, Business Japanese, ends after this term, and gets replaced by a new class. The choices are Speaking, Listening, Writing, 日本文化論 Japanese Cultural Theory (something like that, anyway), or 現代小説 Modern Fiction.
I haven't decided what I'm going to pick yet. I mean, the obvious choice would be the Modern Fiction class, as it's about "the short stories of current, widely-read authors." But, on the other hand, the Culture class sounds pretty interesting, too (Ari-sensei's heading it up). Also, taking two lit classes at the same time is definitely nothing to sneeze at. Or I could pick the listening class, for a bit of a break. Since my listening skills are definitely the best of the bunch (and by bunch, I mean the bunch of my other skills, or lack thereof), it would make for a bit of a slack class.
I dunno, I'll talk to Ari-sensei about it, but I'll probably end up going with the other lit class. From a future-use point of view, it's definitely the best choice. I'm just a little nervous about the workload, hence putting off the inevitable.
Next: the Bad News
Well, not exactly bad news, but... The reason we have no afternoon classes is because, during 4th term, we're supposed to be spending the afternoons doing dun dun dun...Project Work! Theoretically, at least. (Flashbacks to HIF, anyone?)
I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm sure the project will be rewarding, and interesting, full of fun facts to know and tell. It's just...I have no idea what to do my project on! Nothing. Complete blank. Worse, a void. I mean, I know there are lots of things I'm interested in--Japanese culture, fiction, publishing, dramas... I'm just not sure how to get a research topic out of that. You know?
Aaannndd...we're supposed to turn in a little sheet thingy outlining our project proposal "as detailed as possible." By noon Monday, according to the paper. (A fact which I just now realized. Eek) I guess I'll have to shoot an email to Ari-sensei over the weekend, see if she can meet me before class Monday--or before lunch, assuming I can get an extension past the noon deadline. lol.
So, anyway, that's the skinny on 4th term. As far as we know, at least. ^.^
As we've seen, the good folks here at IUC sure do like to shake things up.
Then, I got my day off for real. Thank goodness it was a 3-day weekend, Saturday and Sunday were so busy. Had quite a bit of homework to do, but I did manage to get some fun in on Monday, too. I went with Misa, Jason, Molly, and Bridget to see Sweeney Todd, since the movie finally opened here in Japan. I really liked it, actually. It was definitely just as heavy on the blood as I'd heard, but I thought it was a well-done movie. I'd never seen the musical, thought I was familiar with the story and some of the songs. Lol, especially that "nothing's gonna harm you..." song, which I'd heard performed several times before, but always as a love song. Rather a different impression to see it in it's real context... Hmm.
Aaannnd.... before the movie, they showed a preview for the Kurosagi movie!! XD Kurosagi is a drama that I really like, and since it had a rather unsatisfactory ending (i.e. not really ended at all) they made a movie of it! Whee! I've been waiting for this! The movie opens in March. And it was so cool to get to see the preview in a real movie theater! (yes, I'm a dork. freely admitted)
On that note, this week's video is the new single by News, 太陽のナミダ "Taiyou no Namida" (Tears of the Sun). It's the theme song for the Kurosagi movie, mainly cause the star of the movie is Yamashita Tomohisa, who's a member of News (the one in the scarf).
So, enjoy!
また、ねぇ！
Sunday, I took the kyudo 審査 test (shinsa), for 初段shodan, in other words 1st dan. I was really nervous, and it was a looooong day. The test was at the budokan where I usually practice, which I was happy about--sort of a home dojo advantage, if you will. At any rate, it was nice to not have to be all nervous in a new place, on top of everything else.
I had to get over to the budokan by 9am, so the plan was to wake up at about 7 to have time for some coffee and breakfast, hit up the ATM, grab a bento (cause sensei said I should bring one), and get to the budokan before 9 to beat the check-in rush.
As I said, that was the plan. What actually happened was that I woke up at 8 (the time I'd planned to *leave* the apartment originally), frantically threw on some clothes, had no time for coffee, grabbed my stuff, and ran out the door. To find that the ATM was inexplicably closed. Grabbed some food (and coffee) from the combini, and still managed to make it to the budokan right at 9am. A feat of which I am actually quite proud.
Of course, getting to the budokan at 9am was just to check in. The actual testing is done by number. And I was #386. Out of 387. Suffice it to say, I had a sizeable wait. Shodan is a fairly beginner rank, so it was basically me...and 300 high school students. They're, well, I'll stick with energetic.
I wasn't actually scheduled to begin my testing until 2pm. But that was the written part, so it gave me some time to study.
See, the kyudo exam for rank has both a shooting part (obviously) and a written test. At shodan level, the written is fairly simple, but given my severe lack of studying and the *small* fact that the test was in Japanese (of course), and sans dictionary, I was a little nervous. It turned out all right, though. The main essay question--thank goodness!--was basically, "what good effects kyudo has had on your daily life," that sort of thing. Basically the same sort of thing I've been writing for speeches and compositions for class all year. And I have to admit, it was pretty gratifying to see the sort of taken-aback look on the test proctor's face when little old gaijin me handed in a full page of Japanese. ^_^ lol
Then, the shooting part, which I was nervous about, a little bit, but mostly just COLD. I missed both my arrows, but the shots were all right. I guess it must have been good enough, cause I PASSED!!! ^_^
And here's the picture to prove it! They posted the results by stamping 合格 (pass) or 不合格 (didn't pass) above everybody's names. I'm the second from the left column--second to last, like I said. I took a picture of it with my cell phone. Cause, well, all the high-schoolers were doing it, so it seemed like the thing to do. hehe.
Apologies for the lack of updates, it's been kind of busy around here, 3-day weekend notwithstanding. But, in exchange, now you get a whole bunch all at once! (here you go, mom)
So, I was all prepared for a boring Friday night--snuggled up in my room watching dramas. Which is what I was doing, until I got an aim from Jason, at midnight: "Felicia wants to hang out, you coming?" Honestly, going out at midnight like that, it felt almost like being back at Yale again. So we met up with Felicia and went over to her room, in Toriumi Haimu, which is a building that several IUC-ers live in. Despite the fact that it's *really* close to me, it was the first time I'd been over there. And I was sufficiently jealous. Felicia's room used to be a double (her roommate moved out) and it's huge! Especially compared to my little half-a-shoebox. Of course, it was pretty cold--the Haimu has no central heating, and about as much insulation as your average Japanese building--which is to say it's barely distinguishable from the outside temperatures. Still, she has multiple rooms, including a dining table and a real kitchen, with a sink, and counter, and a real size fridge and everything! Can you tell I'm jealous?
(^_^)
We ended up staying at Felicia's until around 4am, hanging out. We caught Jeff, who lives down the hall, on his way back home, so he came over too. Lots of fun, tho the 4am part was a little rough the next day, seeing as I went to kyudo practice all afternoon, though fortunately not until noon, so it wasn't too bad. Usually I tend to skip the weekend practices--sheer laziness, I admit. But I had to go to the one on Saturday because....
Sunday I took the kyudo test! XD
And more about that in the next post!
Rather frustrating, actually. We've been having a lot of snow lately. Well, in a manner of speaking. For example, last night it snowed--lightly, granted, but continuously--for several hours straight. Which was all well and good, it was very pretty to watch while I was freezing my butt off in the dojo at kyudo last night. But the weather lately has been stuck in that bimyou territory where it's cold enough to snow, but still above freezing, so none of it sticks. Which, all in all, makes me feel kind of cheated.
Like I said, I was watching the snow from kyudo last night. Which meant I got home pretty late, and stayed up even later finishing that stupid essay for lit class. zzzz........
So now I'm pretty tired. Oh, and speaking of the essay, remember how I was complaining about the fact that the teachers decided to leave the length "up to us"? Well, it turns out the other lit class actually got a page range! Why them and not us? *pouts* But according to Ben, they were told 1-2 pages, and mine came in at about a page and a half, so that makes me feel somewhat better. I'd been afraid that it was a little short. I totally sent it right off as soon as it was finished last night, tho, I was so tired. I didn't even proofread it. *gulp* (almost like being back in college again...)
Today in class was pretty sad, too. In lit this morning I was barely functioning, and to top it all off, everybody was out (sick or... just out) so our normally 6 person class was reduced to just me and Misa. Eek. Well, Amy L showed up for about half an hour--she came in late, and then went home during the mid-morning break (why come at all then......?). But that hardly counts. And of course, during afternoon class I was in the throes of depression due to UNC's miserable loss to Duke. I was frantically checking the score during breaks, then parked myself in front of the computer during lunch, refreshing the Yahoo sports scores page every 2 minutes until the game was over.
....I guess Senda-sensei will be happy.
but i realized that i haven't updated a blog posting lately (a real one, anyway) and that needs to be done!
absolutely nothing to do with the fact that i'm drawing a complete blank on what to write my speech about... nothing at all. nope. (too much protesting?)
also am realizing that recent posts have been horribly lacking in photos, too. whoops. haven't really done anything photo-worthy lately, so...sorry. i'll try to remedy that soon, and take some pics of, well, something.
on to the past week--on the bungaku front, we finished up our first short story. now the homework is that we're all supposed to write our own critical essay about the story (which we'll be doing for all of them from now on). and the length is "up to us." i HATE it when they do that! i mean, "up to you"--what does that mean?! does that mean 1-2 pages? 3-4? gah! whatever. i do actually have things to say about this story, so that's something i suppose.
pop culture class is also still fun. we're in our movie unit now. we got to watch "Shall We Dance"--the amazing Japanese version (DVD of which i own), as well as the embarrassing Richard Gere + J-Lo American remake--and compare the two. that was friday, then today we discussed Miyazaki's "Spirited Away," one of my FAVORITE movies. so even though i'd seen it a million times before, i rewatched it over the weekend as "homework." hehe. god, i love this class.
friday afternoon, we also had a screening of "Battle Royale," cause we'll be discussing that in a few days. it's a super famous movie, and i'd always heard of it as one of those must-see films. and it was, cinematically speaking, very good, i thought. but, it was seriously the most disturbing movie i've seen in recent memory, if not ever. it's based on a book that caused a huge controversy (as did the movie). the premise of the story is that Japan has gone to the dogs, so they decide to pass the "battle royale act," which means they randomly select one class of 9th-graders, send them to a deserted island for 3 days, and make them kill each other off until there's only one left standing. (as incentive, if there's more than one person left alive at the end of the 3 days, then everybody dies)
....you can see where the controversy comes in. like i said, it was a really interesting movie from the perspective of social commentary, and sort of getting inside the kids' heads, seeing what makes people kill each other, and how they all deal with the stress and everything. but, when it was all over, we all felt pretty shell-shocked.
i find myself torn between wanting to see the movie again, with subtitles---and *never* wanting to see the movie again.
let's see, what else...oh yeah, business japanese is going pretty well too. i only have it once a week (fri mornings), which makes it kind of a nice, low-prep class. i.e. we do useful things *in* class, and there's lots of conversation practice and things that i think are helpful, but there's not a whole lot of outside-class work. which is really a good thing, because nobody really has the time to do much prep for such a relatively minor class, on top of everything else. and i think the teachers realize that. altho maybe it's a different story in the other fri morning classes (i.e. reading, speaking, writing classes respectively). but i'm happy with my situation.
ok, wow, this post got long. so i guess i'll wrap up now.
oh! but, it snowed yesterday!! ^_^ a sunday, so as far as potential vacation days goes, it was a waste of perfectly good snow as far as i'm concerned. but it was certainly pretty while it lasted.
eek, almost 10pm. ok, i spose i'll suck it up now, and go and try to write my speech. that's seriously the hardest part of all this--trying to figure out *what* to write about. after a while, you run out of topics...
ok, bye for real now. and i promise to try and include some pictures next time!
new video!
PV is "Lips," by KAT-TUN.
this is one of the currently most popular boy bands in Japan at the moment, and their latest single.
and, just to clarify, this is a boy band that I *don't* actually like--except for sheer entertainment value, by which I mean the fact that they are utterly ridiculous and take themselves *waaaayy* too seriously.
cause--I mean, really! watching this video, it's hard not to cringe. ;-P
so enjoy the horror that is kat-tun (even the name's not original--it's just their initials. hope nobody drops out ever...)
and anyway, it's worth it just to see Koki (as always) trying to be gangsta, Junno looking like something out of Final Fantasy, and androgynous Kame practically making out with the mic. *sigh* oh dear...
at any rate, it's an epic example of japanese boy-band fashion. lol.