*Colour Petal

SLAV1010(Seminar)[09:00]- More work with adjectives and how they change around nouns and stuff

After class I went over to the LUU (Leeds University Union) and had a sandwich in The Green Space. I never realized there’s a whole other room at the back. It was pretty quiet until a girl came in and started talking loudly on her mobile. She was speaking to her mum or something, but then she mentioned her Japanese studies. When she hung up I asked if she’s a Japanese student and she is. A level 3 student (so she just got back from her year abroad), I took the opportunity to ask a whole bunch of course-related questions. I got her name and told her I’d add her on Facebook. When I got home later I found out her account was like super privated and unsearchable. When I got to it in the end, I discovered I can’t even send a friend request, so yeah.

EAST1210(Practical)[11:00]- Worked a little on 時間 and saying “It takes this long to do this” etc. Sat next to FERNANDEZさん and Dixon(dicks on)さん. DixonSAN puts on a cute voice and it’s disgustingly transparent. I think I’ve seen Morimoto-sensei wince a few times at it, but I’m not sure. What a cool teacher he is. 

SLAV1010(Seminar)[14:00]- Spent most of the lesson compiling all the material that will be featured on tomorrow’s exam. Holy fuck I am not prepared. Left class 15 minutes early because I had a 15:00 appointment at the Leeds Student Medical Practice for my year abroad vaccination. 

When I got to the LSMP the bitch on the desk would just not fucking listen to anything I said. We’re eligible for free vaccinations (Hep. B and Typhoid I think),  but one of the vaccinations on the list costs £40 (and a total of £120 down the line). Most students just cough up the money and get all the shots done. I said I don’t care about the £40 jab and that I’m just here for the free stuff. That dickfaced assbitch on the counter would not fucking listen, even though I repeatedly reminded her “Yes I don’t care about the £40 jab, I’m here for the free vaccinations”. In the end I called another person over who looked like they were actually semi-capable of holding a pen and breathing at the same time and promptly got sent on my way to get my free vaccinations.

Afterwards my arm ached a little.

EAST1210(Practical)[15:15]- Using いちばん to add emphasis to adjectives. I wondered why 食べ物 and 果物 both use 物 but something like 野菜 doesn’t (when mentioning a ‘group of vegetables’). I confirmed that 物 acts as ‘things’/’stuff’ in both these instances, so like “a bunch of fruits”, “food stuffs”. Yet 野菜 stays the same when talking about just 1 veg, or a bunch of vegetables. In Japan nobody knows how much veg there really is. Is he just talking about his 1 vegetable, or is he hiding many extra vegetables in his clothes/hair/animals?

Waited for ちえこ outside of Clothworkers central for 20 minutes before getting bored and deciding to go pick up some food from the LUU cafeteria whilst I wait. BAD IDEA. That food is expensive as dicks, but I was in the queue and therefore committed. Also no phone reception, so what happened was, ちえこ texted me literally seconds after I entered the cafeteria, I got my snack on and when I finished up headed outside. Noticed I had a text, responded, told her I was at LUU. She rings back and says “Sorry but I’m home now” CHDFSVJDFBVJFBJ Walked home alone in the rain.

Got home, did some stuff, went boxing. 

Got home from boxing, went upstairs to get some iced tea from ちえこ, then had a shower and called ちえこ down to help with Kanji revision. Kanji out of the way, went on to Russian revision. I feel it’s almost ‘too little too late’ with the Russian revision; except I actually tried the whole way through. I wonder if I’m the only one in the class who feels completely overwhelmed by the scope of the material and the time-frame in which we’ve been given to learn it. I’m probably just completely fucking retarded at Russian and will never really understand it.

It’s 01:35 now and I’ve decided to cut my losses on the Russian revision and get some sleep. Getting more sleep and being slightly sharper in the morning will probably do me a bigger favour at this point than wasting any more time with my notes.

EAST1264(Seminar)[10:00]- Something to do with consumerism in Japan. I got there 10 minutes late and found myself sitting at the back. I swear I have no idea what this teacher is talking about most of the time. She started handing round photos, and one of them was a picture of a cow. I thought: “Shit, Uni costs like £3,300 a year and I’m sitting here looking at her holiday photographs of cows”. My notes for that lesson was a drawing of said cow. I’ll upload it tomorrow.

EAST1210(Practical)[11:00]- Walked up to class with 2 of the guys from the previous seminar. We all had pretty much the same opinion on the previous lesson. One of them summed it up as: “She just can’t get over the fact that Korea’s history basically consists of getting fucked by Japan”. Oh man if she could’ve heard him say that (Note: she’s Korean [Extra note: ouch]). EAST1210 was pretty OK. We wrapped up our practice of ‘Family’ and basic counting systems (一枚、二台、三回 etc). This brings us AFAIK to 第12課 of 皆の日本語Ⅰ in our practical classes.

SLAV1010(Lecture)[12:00]- Something was covered in class. I have no idea what. I didn’t get much sleep the previous night, so I kinda just stared straight down at my paper and started to fall asleep. I think it was just an introduction to how to change adjectives when in some tense or form or something-or-other. After class I showed my teacher, Viktoria, my homework assignment and asked for some help. It turns out I’d been over-thinking it and actually the answers were relatively simple. I chatted with a girl who’d recently switched to an elective module in Basic Japanese and asked her how she’s finding it etc. . Her class is still covering greetings and stuff (goddamn, aren’t we like 6 weeks into term now?).

I went home and grabbed some noodles and orange juice.

SLAV1010(Lecture)[14:00]- Continued learning about adjectives and their stems/suffixes when modifying a noun(gendered).

Got home, got ready to have a nap for a bit. Interrupted by fire alarm. Decided to actually go outside rather than ignore it for a change. Grabbed my orange juice on the way out. After all that stuff was done, came back slept until 9/10pm(?). Did nothing for a few hours. Got around to doing my russian homework for tomorrow to the ramblings of Das Racist. 03:10 now. Guess I should sleep before class.  

University life posts on a (not so) daily basis here to fuck up your tumbln.

OK go

Perspective:

-First-person

Contents:

-I seemed to be walking the route home from work (approx 1 mile long)

-For some reason I was peeing in a bus stop, facing the road. (why did I even have to dream this?)

-I got back to my town, then obviously forgot what I was doing in my dream so I started making my way to work

-I suddenly passed loads of people I knew from secondary school (highschool), they all seemed pretty busy with their own things now, like real adults.

-Anyway, on the way the way to work it was getting darker and darker. At the start of the dream it was like a summers evening, with the sun faded, so the sky was a dark blue, rather than orange. Now however the sky was completely dark.

-I seem to become intoxicated. There was no drug-taking in my dream though. Maybe I was stirring in my sleep?

-Suddenly, BAD GUYS!

-Me and this other guy I knew from college, but didn’t like played it cool.

-They started chasing us.

-I grabbed this tricycle (it was tiny, an BKUB like) and it turned into a chase dream.

-It got pretty hilarious at this point because I heard a shout, and the guy I was with must’ve gotten Obliterated, but suddenly on my left Walfas swooped in on his trike and he was like “Oh hey Yuuka” or something.

-It was  awesome because I heard it in his voice really well. He sounded so silly. I mean, we were being chased by BAD GUYS after all.

-Me and Walfas tricycled so hard and so fast. Our trike’s connected like the way train carriages interlink and I was the one in front.

-It was pretty ACTION_MOVIE because sparks were flying from the wheels and stuff.

-I had to keep going, but the lights were red and there was traffic going everywhere, and Chris Tucker (Walfas) was like “AHHHHHH!!!”

-We made it, then started going slowly because I had obviously forgotten about BAD GUYS chasing us so they weren’t part of the dream any more.

-We got back to my house and I was really excited. Walfas would have to stay the night.

-We got upstairs and I quickly dashed in my room and was like “You can’t come in yet!”. I was trying to make it immaculate before he came in.

-When I opened my door Simon (one of my dogs) was sniffing Walfas. I was like “Oh right, Walfas do you know How_To_Dogs?”, but Walfas was like “Uhh we don’t have dogs so no”

-I explained that Simon is dumb, then I looked across the hallway and suddenly I was looking a Twitter timeline instead of the carpet. It’s weird, like, the dog that was sitting there was square and had updates appearing on it. Wow. Best dog.

-Anyway, the list was updating, and it was just my dog Simon, and Yoda (TsunTsun’s husband-dog-thing). I was like “Why am I even following Yoda? Why is he in my ‘Top Friends’ column?”

Reflection:

Gosh it was funny when Walfas first appeared. Lately I’ve been dreaming a lot about online people. I suppose it’s convenient seeing as it’s just in time for this Tumblr account. Still..Maybe I am thinking too much about others. Too me for me anyway.

A relatively boring dream that will be of little interest to anyone, me included.

I’m still undecided on how I should format these dream posts. With me writing all these dreams down almost instantly the ‘remembered’ (time it took me to remember the dream) section seems a bit redundant. I guess I’ll add a section to the end ‘Reflection’, that wraps my dream into a summary. I’ll possibly come to a conclusion on it too.

Perspective:

-First-person

Contents:

-Back at work. Dealing with customers.

-All the customers were repeated, like in a game, you would have maybe 4 or 5 customer types, and then they all start to repeat: skin, model, voice, etc.

-A short, fat Eastern-European man starts being nuisance. I go and replace the staff member that was trying to deal with him, because I know I can do  a better job myself. I talk with him and manage to slowly walk him out of the building. I turn around and smile at one of my co-workers.

-After stepping through the doors, the world takes on a sort of burgundy tint. Contrast becomes harsher and things even seem to become grainy.

-The man pulls out a cigarette , lights up, then proceeds to just walk straight back into the store. When I get back in he’s already causing trouble back with the same colleague. For some reason I get angry.

-Angry as in, screaming angry. Screaming at the top of your lungs type angry.

-He disappears.

-An old man is dying. His body looks rigid, and an old school-friend is watching over him, confused on what to do. I asked if she’s called the police or emergency services and she shakes her head. 

-For some reason I can tell he’s not dead, and help him up. I keep asking my friend to pass the walking stick(s), but she is just useless. I gradually manage to walk the man over to his car.

-I bought his timber, screws and other materials he bought in the store with him too. He asks me what he should do next. I tell him that he should go to the hospital.  As expected he disregards my words and says he is in good health. 

-We start to talk about age, experience and wisdom. I remind him that experience comes with age and knowledge is accrued from experience; but wisdom is something that is obtained differently, through understanding. Something deep like that. It ended up along the lines of “..well, whilst I’m younger than you, as long as it’s a very basic decision like this I can still answer it correctly. You should go to the hospital”.

-The man transformed into a cat, full of life and vigour. The cat jumps up and kisses me. I hear the man say thank you.

-I go back into the shop. The same CustomerType as the man who was dying is there, but this is a different person. He is part of an organized crime syndicate and escorted by 2 bodyguards. I help them out to their car. It’s small and run-down. The same as true for his once infamous empire.

-I get into the car, the old man/mob boss turns into a young pig. We ride away from the store

Reflection:

This dream made me realize that there hasn’t been a time in my life where I’ve screamed at the top of my lungs, or even really wanted to. I suppose emotions don’t wash over me so easily and in such severity in real life. I don’t often dream about the emotion ‘anger’ either. I can think of very few dreams that do that. Interestingly, I didn’t kill the man who was causing a fuss in the dream. I have many many dreams which are violent and involve slaughter; yet in this one, that would seem like such an obvious candidate for that sort of thing to happen, it just didn’t. Usually during a violent dream I am bored, whereas in this one I was intensely angry. Things in my mind seem to work the wrong way round.

I thought of a school-friend that I haven’t thought about in a long time. There’s no significance behind it. It’s actually because before napping today I saw she came online in an IM program for the first time in a year or so. An abandoned account I guess.

The old man who appears twice as ‘different people (leading different lives)’. That seems like some really typical ‘deep meaning’ bullshit that get’s pulled up in the movies. Especially when they both turned into different animals. The seemingly obvious message behind the mob boss turning into the young pig (and by proxy, not a particularly fat one), shows that he is greedy but his stomach still isn’t full. Well, my mind doesn’t work in that sort of way, so drawing that sort of conclusion is really pointless.

I’ll say it now:

I don’t think there are any real messages behind my dreams

,I think that sometimes they just represent what is going on in my subconscious thought.

—Or what I can hear from the television in the background.

jankn asked: Wow, you seem to meet a lot of twitterfolk in your dreams. Have you met them in real life? I had a dream once where Walfas was a pudding shaped shrub. That is all.

I’ve met a fair few yes. I value people from Twitter and am always interested in meeting them.

For instance, at the start of next month I will be flying over to Germany for the sole purpose of meeting online friends.

Yeah, I don’t know what to say about this one.

Remembered:

-Immediately

Perspective:

-3rd-person

Contents:

-I was back in my old workplace

-Me and @tsuntsun were walking around talking

-The topic of conversation changed to Metal Gear Solid 1.

-@tsuntsun was very excited about it, but I had to explain “Well, I played it a looong time ago, and I had an even shorter attention span back then, so I only made it as far as Raven[1]…”  (I think this was the boss’s name with the giant minigun)

”..but a friend was playing it too so I got to see the rest of the game when I played with him, yeah!”

-@tsuntsun began asking me questions about different parts in the game, for some reason I spoke about psycho-mantis and cyborg-ninja a lot (wow, that game).

-During these parts of the dream my mind kept switching to the game. It even did that thing that the game used to do where the character models became more detailed or something as you got closer, so in the cinematics when the camera pans around a character, part of their skin will “twitch” into place.

-I don’t even like MGS that much. I think this has something to do with the fact that @tsuntsun is always going crazy about something that I don’t know very much about and/or just don’t care for.

-Afterwards, there was a newsreader lady in the store. Except she was made out of Haribo coca-cola bottles. Fizzy ones!

-I said something like “Wow I want to try some, I guess it sucks to be her, if people hug her she will feel really rough.” Well, the logical answer to making fizzy sweets less ‘rough’ is to lick them until the fizzy stuff comes off.

-The conversation became pretty stupid, with me mentioning the fact that she would become sticky if she was licked, etc. etc.

-The dream started to take on a slight (heh) sexual tone when I mentioned the fact that I want to lick breasts. I am confused and enraged by such a heterosexual notion. I remember saying to @tsuntsun “I want to lick breasts! (.づ•‿•)づ. “

-Yeah, it even contained that little guy that I paste everywhere.

Image source

A short dream, my mind was having a hectic night and switching between dreams quickly

Remembered:

-Immediately

Perspective:

-First-person

Contents:

-Another dream about California, San Fran

-All of these dreams tend to take place during sunset

-Was in a cornershop, buying study materials for University

-@twiitar was there, he was also buying study materials

-@bitmapchaos (probably) was recommending us which books to buy

リトルライブラリ

Today I had my first bad experience talking with native Japanese speakers. It has been a learning experience.

It was in a Skype conversation (text chat), which had 20 people in at the time (me included). All participants were native Japanese speakers with the exception of me. There will often be random outbursts of a particular language in chat, as many of us are studying languages. However, the primary spoken language is Japanese.

Today, almost immediately after I typed a line in English, one user asked “Sorry, but can you use Japanese please”. I thought this was strange, as I had only said one thing in English, and seeing as there are many times when people use other languages it seemed peculiar. 

What was annoying was that, the user immediately asked for Japanese, after just over a sentence. Considering this is a chat where if someone writes English, I (or another person in chat: Aki,) will translate it into Japanese, or offer assistance etc. .  So if they couldn’t understand, it could easily be translated.

Anyway, chat continued (in Japanese) for a while. The topic changed to the name of the user, which I abbreviated down into the starting letters, forming “SFMRU” (Super Fantastic Moon Rabbit Udonge - Yes, this was the user that was complaining about the use of English in chat), or 「すふまる」. It became teasing, and the user asked (in Japanese): “Just call me Reisen, or Udonge.”

The teasing continued a while longer as it seemed harmless. すふまる, rather than think I was joking with them, thought that I genuinely couldn’t understand what they had said. They tried to write the same thing in English, whilst mentioning in Japanese that they would cry.  —- I should mention at this point that it’s a pretty lively chat, and someone saying “I will cry” shouldn’t be taken seriously. That’s not where the drama came in.

Well, eventually すふまる must’ve come to the conclusion that communication was impossible, and started calling others for help, despite the fact that I was talking directly to them in Japanese. Language aside, that really is quite rude.

It was soon not so much a joke any more, or at least, it didn’t seem that way. They became almost hysterical, complaining about how they couldn’t understand English, when really 99% of chat was in Japanese, and they were surrounded by Japanese speakers. I guess the climax of the chat and the part that really got me was:

In a short space of time すふまる gives up on me and asks 秋穣子(Aki) for help, then really going crazy about how they can’t understand English. Finally, someone else asks for Japanese to be used.

I guess when I look at this post, I look like a dick for using English at all, but really, it’s not uncommon in the chat at all.  

From すふまる’s perspective, asking for Japanese to be used in a Japanese chat is definitely fine.  I do think there are certain ways to go about it though, and kicking up a fuss like this just makes me look like a bully. 

Me, the bully. In a 19:1 situation. It really was quite strange and horrible. I was upset by how quickly すふまる’s mood seemed to change. 

The natural chain of events followed:

As for this post in general, I guess there really is no way to write it that accurately puts across the way I felt. Alienated.

At the end of the day, I think すふまる was just tired and frustrated. They gave up on communication in Japanese; then things got worse.

=====

…and you know, my whole reason for studying Japanese is to be able to talk to friends better without them having to struggle to understand what I want to say.

=====

I guess that’s why this particular instance affected me so much.

Today Walfas went back and looked at all the old tweets from 2009 he had favourited.

It was kinda weird seeing how I spoke to him differently back then, but now it’s more relaxed because I know him a lot better.

Then Miluda was sad because she sucks so she has a valid reason to be sad (because she sucks) 

I remembered when me, Miluda, ポンポン and ジェイワン were in a Skype call together. Miluda realized I didn’t bother learning how to count and exploited it. ポンポン laughed pretty hard and gosh it was embarrassing. That was a really good day.

I guess over the past year or so I’ve really gotten to know a few people pretty well.

It also made me remember that many people are intimidated when they first meet me online. I guess I’m pretty selective about the people I choose to keep around me, and even then only a handful of people have really caught my attention. 

(They are dix)

Tomorrow is my last day at work. I’ve been working at this store for almost 3 years, which was definitely unexpected for a part-time thing.

Another day closer to going to Germany

(Germany is going to suck)