I want to become fluent in the Japanese language so I decided to search for websites to help me with that. One of the best ones that I found is The Japan Page, which has games, articles, videos, and other good stuff. However, the best videos I've found online are by Genki Japan. The Japan Shop's videos are also helpful. I have a YouTube account just to bookmark videos. Unfortunately, this looks like I've joined the "Web 2.0 revolution." I detest social networking so you can understand my frustration.

The videos are excellent with helping you to learn vocabulary but that's it. You're essentially learning vocab in a void. Without learning how to construct sentences you have to pantomime when it concerns anything that's not a greeting or a verb. I've taken a Japanese course so I know how to construct basic sentences and am able to figure out to construct more advanced ones. No matter how good you are at remembering what certain words are in Japanese, if you can't use it in a sentence then your skill is pretty useless. I've heard that "Japanese for Busy People" is good if you want to learn how to say useful things like "Where is the bathroom?" (Toire ga doko desu ka. toire = toilet, ga = subject particle, doko = where, desu = sentence ending particle when there's no verb, ka = question marker particle) My sensei used it for a spoken Japanese language course one year.

I found another series of videos called "Pretty Intense Japanese," which are created by a girl who is fluent in the language. Her other (supposed) qualifier is that she's half Japanese. Her videos are different because she gives sentence examples, but she doesn't explain what each part of the sentence means, only what the sentence means as a whole. You might also have a tough time spelling things because the words aren't displayed. Also, her vocab from the first lesson were words a four-year-old would know: neko (cat), ringo (apple), sushi (sushi). Not particularly useful nor very "intense." She also seems insincere because her eyes don't reflect the smile on her face. What I do think is neat (besides the sentences) is the fact that she uses the correct intonation. I wouldn't have been able to tell that she wasn't a native speaker by listening to her.

Author's Note: I apologize in advance if the non-Roman characters don't show up correctly. You may have to have Japanese language support in your operating system. It's free to add for Windows, by the way.

Watashi wa kyou ringo tabemashita. (わたしはきよりんごたべました。) = Today, I ate an apple. Watashi = gender neutral polite "I", particle wa indicates the topic, which is different from the subject (ga); kyou = today, tabemashita is the past-tense affirmative form of taberu (to eat). The way I was taught, there would be an "o" after ringo (to indicate that it's a direct object), but we learned the ultra-polite speech.

Ano neko wa ringo tabemashita. (あのけこはりんごたべました。) = The cat (over there) ate an apple (her meaning: That cat just ate an apple.). Ano = "that" when used directly with a noun (otherwise it's are wa). I would have used "ga" instead of "wa" because the cat is doing something.

Sometimes, while I walk around Georgia Tech's campus, I think about Japanese sentences. I want to know if I can remember how to construct sentences since I took the class in winter 2008. I'm eager to take the next but I can't until winter 2010, unfortunately. I'm going to buy the Rosetta Stone software for the rest (I think just level 3) because the second level courses (intermediate) are hardly ever offered due to lack of interest.

Neko ga toshokan de mimasu. (けこがとしよかんでみます。) = (I) saw a cat at the library. Particle de indicates an action taking place, mimashita is the past-tense affirmative of miru (to see). The "I" is in parenthesis because you can leave it out if talking about yourself. Otherwise it would be Watashi wa neko ga toshokan de mimasu (わたしはけこがとしよかんでみます。).

The grammar is more straightforward than English, which is a plus, and there are usually standardized pronunciations (regional dialect alters things a little). Yes, the writing can be intimidating. Hiragana and Katakana aren't that bad but kanji gets complicated quickly. You don't need to know kanji to communicate in writing, but to read magazines, newspapers, etc. you should know the roughly 2,000 kanji in daily use. I wonder if the Japanese writing would be more simple if China hadn't influenced them with their written characters.

Author's Note: I don't know many kanji. I can recognize a lot more than I can write from memory. I know I (watashi) 私, Japan (Nihon) 日本, Japanese people (Nihon-jin) 日本人, Japanese language (Nihon-go) 日本語 (the language part is excessively complicated), book (hon) 本, tree (ki) 木, forest (hayashi) 林, fire (ka or hi) 火, water (mizu) 水, and person (hito) 人. Book, tree, and forest are remarkably similar to each other as are person and fire. The kanji for "Japan" includes "book" as one of its kanji but I can't remember why.

Something only semi-relevant to the above: Tuesday means "Fire Day" in the Japanese language (Mars is also associated with the day). Tuesday = Kayoubi (火曜日) in Japanese. Wednesday is "Water Day" (also associated with Mercury) but Wednesday in Japanese is Suiyoubi (水曜日) not Mizuyoubi.

And that concludes today's lesson. I may do one about anime names/words and what they mean. This can already be found in multiple places on the Internet, though. Maybe I'll just do the more interesting ones (like Tsukino Usagi). To look at kanji, Hiragana, and Katakana on your own, I recommend a very good (though complex) online dictionary called Jeffrey's Dictionary Server. There's an option to automatically load the kanji and kana (so the terms aren't written in Roman characters at all). I think it's great because it forces you to remember things. The definitions are always written in English. To enable it, click the link in the sentence "If your Netscape does have Japanese support, check here." Then click the first link in the table labeled "try this link." This works for Firefox, Opera, IE 7 (not sure about earlier versions), and probably Safari automatically.

Oh, Wikipedia & Wiktionary have neat Japanese language guides (grammar, particles, and basic words). Kanji and kana are included.

No, these two things have very little to do with each other, but I've been thinking about them both today.

Legitimate Work at Home Opportunities

Yes, they do exist. However, it's my opinion that the odds of finding one when you have absolutely no skills are very low. The scammers prey on desperate people so I would avoid searching for these types of jobs when you really, really need money. That said, I think there are two good ways to identify legitimate opportunities. 1) the job requires a specialized skill such as knowing a language other than English or medical terminology or Java programming; 2) the pay is low ($0.01 per word or $25 per article). The ones that promise you'll make $4,000 per month with little or no training sound too good to be true, don't they? $4,000 per month is $48,000 per year and that sounds like the salary of a job that requires a college degree. If I can make that much upon finally completing my computer science degree I would be content.


Adoption

I can't understand why someone would think that having a biological child must be their original plan. To me, it's cultural conditioning. It's like you're expected to reproduce because you're physically capable of it. If you're not, then it becomes okay to adopt. The adopted child was never your first choice, it's your "last resort choice." Nevermind the fact that there are kids already in existence who need a parent or two.

I think it's interesting that you're required to go through a background check and sometimes take courses before you're allowed to foster or adopt a child but you're not required to do so before biologically reproducing. There are oh so many people who should never become a parent and most of them have gone the reproduction route. It's like entering a profession that you're incompetent at. You're not going to do a good job and other people will suffer because of it.

I read today on Engadget that Dell is changing the name of their female-focused mini-site from Della to Lifestyle because of public criticism. It's a netbook marketing site (a netbook is a notebook computer designed for mobile usage). Since Engadget's community is probably 95% male, the comments consisted almost entirely of bad jokes. The original Engadget announcement on May 11th and the Slashdot May 15th announcement talks about the backlash Dell received about the site and the subsequent changes. On one of the Slashdot reference sites (The New York Times), a female marketing professional (who's only semi-computer literate) is quoted: "If the netbook is great for using the Internet and has a long memory, that would really be about helping netbook buyers get stuff done while they waited at the airport — not because they want to check diet sites." Long memory? Huh? She probably meant "long battery life," although one commenter made a pretty funny observation about netbook memory being physically shorter than tradition desktop memory (because the system case is physically smaller). The new Lifestyle site is here but the design hasn't changed all that much from Della. I think the name "Della" is more accurate than "Lifestyle" because there are only pictures of women on the site.

I admit, I was incredibly annoyed about the site at first. The very idea that females supposedly need a separate and more simple (there's less technical information) site to buy a computer is pretty insulting. But the more comments I read, the better I felt about it. I decided that I should be more upset at the general female population than at Dell. Why? Because there are a lot of females out there who would think Della was a "cute" idea and not feel insulted by Dell placing diet tips and recipes on the "Tech Tips" page (it's now just called "Tips"). They embody the stereotype of the clueless female consumer (when it pertains to anything technological). Dell just took advantage of that fact. The site wasn't meant for females like me who grew up using a computer (and could probably build one from scratch).

Personally, I would never buy a netbook. 1) the screen is too small; 2) it doesn't support enough memory (1 GB); 3) the default hard drive sizes are too small (160 GB max); 4) the processor isn't fast enough (1.6 GHz) nor does it support 64-bit architecture. It's really meant for checking your e-mail or surfing the Web on the go, but why in the world would someone pay $250-$300 for a device that's only meant to accomplish a few tasks? When I buy a computer, I want it to be able to handle graphically-intense or processor-intense games, graphic design programs like Photoshop, and program design. I want it to still be able to adequately run contemporary software 3-4 years after I buy it. One of the arguments for marketing netbooks to women is because they're small ("purse friendly") and lightweight ("less likely they'll break a nail").

And, of course, small things are "cute."

I feel like speculating about my current taste in music. I grew up listening to whatever my mother happened to be listening to, which was usually R&B and rap. She will also listen to jazz or classical but only if she's tired of her usual radio station. As I fell prey to "herd mentality" in elementary and middle school, I continued to listen to R&B and rap on my own. This continued until eighth grade when I stopped truly listening to music altogether (eighth grade is also when my interest in pop culture died completely, but that's another story). I had a brief interest in the Spice Girls in middle school due to a performance we put on in drama class, but I was teased about it because "only white people listen to that." On Sundays my grandmother listened to gospel music without fail at a volume that would wake the dead and, as a consequence, I now consider choral music to be annoying.

When my interest in anime became full-fledged, I started collecting video game and anime music. This was when Napster was still free and copyright law was nonexistent when it concerned the Internet. When I received my very first MP3 player for Christmas (age 14), I loaded it up with J-Pop (Japanese popular music). As it only had about 32MB of memory on a card plus the internal 16MB that was about ten songs. I spent a lot of time memorizing the songs from animelyrics.com so I could sing along. (My interest in the Japanese language sprang from this.) This was the only thing I listened to consistently until Grand Theft Auto: Vice City came out. Unlike previous GTA games, the radio station music included popular songs from the time period the game took place in (the 80s). I spent a lot of time listening to V-Rock and realized that this rock-n-roll stuff wasn't half bad (one song that I can remember is Ozzy Osbourne's Bark at the Moon).

My interest in rock further developed thanks to GTA: San Andreas and I started listening to the Comcast rock music channel and writing down the title and band of the songs I liked. When my mother got a free year of Napster from AT&T, I used the subscription to download all the songs I had become interested in. There's nothing on my MP3 player now but rock and J-Pop. I said something to my mother about downloading some of Beyoncé's songs but I never got around to it. I download what sounds good to me and whose lyrics have some kind of meaning behind it. Most of the songs played on the popular local radio station Club 93.7 are (in my opinion) not worth bothering with, but my mother keeps the radio on the station because the one she used to listen to mostly plays "old school" now. I despise Kanye West and Lil Wayne's songs but that's just about all they play (along with Eminem).

Currently, my favorite band is Chevelle. I like the music and I like the fact that the lyrics have multiple meanings (and they don't usually rhyme). It reminds me of J-Pop. I have a feeling that the vocalist writes poetry because his words have depth. Second is probably Breaking Benjamin, whose vocalist says that the band wants to give off "positive feelings" despite doing the opposite. Three's vocalist has an accent I can't identify and it makes the songs sound different from most others. The Killswitch Engage songs I like are full of anguish (The End of Heartbreak, The Arms of Sorrow). While most of the songs I have are hard rock, some are more mellow (Foo Fighters, Three Doors Down) and some could be classified as metal (Bullet for My Valentine, Poison the Well). My mother calls most of it "noise," of course. I just dislike fluffy, unrealistic songs that describe the world as a nice place to live.


- Quote from Chevelle's "Closure" from Wonder What's Next (2002): "Your rebirth can't hurt / Branch out behind the pain"
- Quote from Chevelle's "Vitamin R (Leading Us Along)" from This Type of Thinking (Could Do Us In) (2004): "Well, if you're making it / And you're pushing it / Then you're leading us along / Like a cancer caused all the screaming fits / And the panic makes remorse"
- Quote from Chevelle's "Well Enough Alone" from Vena Sera (2007): "And like before, makes no sense / Never coming, always leaving right before / Hooked or substance, dig in deeper / Can't reveal..."

There are thirty days left until I leave for Atlanta. I'm keeping myself calm by not thinking about it. Humans are very good at denial. I've never had to do anything for myself so I expect to screw up. Repeatedly. Atlanta is many times larger than Flint. Georgia Tech is many times larger than UMF. Even though I've lived in a city all my life, I'm probably a "backwoods hick" to people native to cities like Atlanta. I still haven't bought everything but I need more money first. I'll get paid next Friday and the honors funds will be released to me as soon as I turn in the medical release papers. Unfortunately, I have to actually have a checkup before I can get a signature, which won't happen until the 23rd. I also have to mail in a bunch of signed papers to Georgia Tech before May 1st.

I have to turn in my term paper tomorrow and I also have a math test tomorrow. I still have four pages left to produce for my paper and two days worth of homework to finish for the test. I started the term paper over Spring break back in February but I didn't start my math until Friday even though the first assignment for it was given on March 30th. I also have two programs to finish in Assembly Language but I have until the 28th to turn them in. I have to turn in another draft of my personal statement for my independent study course.

Finals start this week. My first is tomorrow, which isn't an official finals day. The test will be short like the other two tests so it's not a big deal. All of my other finals are next week: two on the 27th (math and software engineering) and one on the 28th (assembly). I have to get a least a B on my software engineering final or I'm going to get a C in the class and then I'll have to take it over next Winter. I bombed the midterm even though I studied for it.

My term paper is about the foreign influences on Japan's pre-modern culture. It's also going to count as an honors election because I'm adding an additional 3 pages to the minimum (which is seven). I've just reached page seven. I have a feeling that I'll have to go into more detail in certain parts to reach the 10th page or I'll have to insert a lot of quotes to justify the use of more footnotes. I'm not going to get anything higher than a B in Pre-Modern Japanese History because I've gotten Bs on all the tests, Bs on all the essays except for one, and an A on a quiz. So, in short, I have two As and the rest are all Bs. I've heard from another student that Dr. Hanashiro rarely gives people As for essays.

I'll probably get an A in assembly. Mr. Galerneau is really generous with grading and his deadlines are soft (which means that you don't get penalized for turning work in late). You would have to work hard to fail one of his courses. I might get an A in Discrete Math, which would be a surprise because I usually suck at math. Discrete math the only one I can find that is directly relevant to computer science, though. The other three I have to take after it (Calc 2, Linear Algebra, Stats and Probability) are excessive. I'll need to struggle for a B in software engineering. In my independent study course, as long as you turn in all the work you get an A. There's no final for it.

I should stop wasting time and continue writing my paper. Or finish assignment #3 of math. It involves "shortest path" algorithms, which are actually kind of interesting. It makes me want to try to code them.

I was finally able to upgrade the memory in my laptop today. I mentioned to my father a week ago that I couldn't get the screw out and he offered to do it for me. I have little contact with him outside of getting a ride home from school twice a week so I was surprised. I went over to his house and he was able to help me so I put in the new memory right then and there. When I returned home and booted the computer, it locked up when it got to Windows the first time, blue screened me the second time, and didn't even make it to the desktop before blue screening me the third time. I bought the memory last September so it hasn't been a year yet, which means that it's still covered under the manufacturer warranty. And I bought it from Newegg so I can get a receipt. It's Crucial brand. It seems typical that I would finally be able to upgrade only to find out that the memory module is defective. I'm going to triple (quadruple?) check to see that it's really the right type of memory but the specs match. Maybe the PIN types are different. But doesn't that mean it wouldn't fit in the slot? I guess I need to do research on memory again. If it turns out not to be defective I can either try to sell it or I'll just be out of $15.

I'm paranoid now about my computer blue screening me again. It'll take a few months for the feeling to go away. I know from experience.

Firefox alone uses up 20% of my available memory. I'm a heavy tab user. My current record for the number of tabs I've had open at one time is 16.

Much to my amazement, I was accepted into a summer research program. Well, four summer research programs (to be precise). I still think that there have to be people more qualified than I am out there. Why didn't they apply?

I Googled my Georgia Tech advisor and discovered that she's famous. She even has a Wikipedia entry. That only adds to my unease. I graduated from high school with honors but low honors because I barely attended classes. I also graduated two years late because of that. I didn't take AP courses because they didn't (and still don't) exist. I dual-enrolled at MCC but only two classes transferred to UMF. The only other honors I received was a small academic scholarship because I didn't fail Michigan's standardized test and the designation of "Urban League Scholar." I don't have a perfect GPA and never will because I have to take math classes. There will probably be other students in the program with flawless academic records, were valedictorians or salutorians in high school, and have earned numerous awards. Oh, and they'll be younger than I am.

It's for ten weeks. The longest I've ever been away from home is two weeks when I was twelve. It was okay until near the end and I've avoided going anywhere overnight since. I'm completely incapable of taking care of myself. Seriously. I'm just not the type of person who values independence. I'll have to wash my clothes, which is something I've never done. I plan to wear some stuff more than once to minimize the experience. I won't have to cook because I'll have a meal plan, which is great because I don't know how unless it involves a microwave. Hey, I barely eat unless I'm reminded to.

I'll have to learn how to listen to an alarm clock and make it to places on time. I'll have to share a space with strangers. I'll have to remember to do things on my own because my mother won't be there to remind me. It's like I'm a baby bird who has just been shoved off a cliff and must learn how to fly before I splat against the ground.

I have to write a proposal for it to count as my honors off-campus study. I'm in the process of doing that. It has to be approved by my advisor, the honors director, and the honors council. I also have to fill out several forms. I also need to get the CS department chair's permission to take the special off-campus study course. Once I return I have to write a thesis, which won't be too bad. I'll have more than one semester's time. There's a course for this, too. Altogether there are eight credits.

I don't want to return from this trip radically different. Slightly different I could probably handle, however. I still have at least another year at UMF before graduation and then I'm going to grad school. Where? Who knows. I don't even know what I want to specialize in. I know I want to do research but I also like website development and the idea of video game programming. Right now I'm so tired I like I'm going to pass out any second. I want to finish the manga I'm reading and I need to work on the proposal. There are other things, too, but I can't think of them right now.

Maybe I'll create a series of weekly entries about my research experience (complete with photos). I've never done anything interesting enough to even consider this.

Matta mitte ne (see you next time)! (from: the Record of Lodoss War bonus scenes)

I just read two articles about Circuit City's going out of business sales and I have to say that the commentary and photos are hilarious. Of course it's sad, but it's still funny.

They were down to selling loose cables, broken computers, furniture, and used cleaning supplies. No joke. There are photos to prove it. $.50 for a used can of Pledge, $5 each for beat up chairs.

The Tragic Last Days of Circuit City
The Last Will and Testament of Circuit City

There was a mysterious electronic device with no manual, no power cord, no USB cable that they were trying to sell for $90. When the guy went back a few days later they'd marked it down to $60. It turned out to be the top of a Canon portable photo printer. It could have easily been a strange video game.

They were selling display model laptops with missing keys for more than what a brand new laptop would cost.

At the end of the second article, there is a YouTube video compilation of several Circuit City ads. The last one features a 1997 IBM Thinkpad marked down from $1599 to $1399 with a 133MHz Pentium I processor, a 12.1" screen, and 32MB of memory. That's about what mine cost and it has a 2.1 GHz 64-bit processor, a 15.4" screen, and 1 GB of memory. Of course, it's now four years old and qualifies as a "grandparent" laptop. If I had more memory everything would be great.

I recently made the mistake of reading an article about the pro-life forum in the school newspaper. I should have known that it was sponsored by a religious group (the campus Catholic club) and also should have known that their argument would be the same thing they always use. Religious people lack creativity (and logic).

In sum: a fetus is human, albeit a very young human, so it is wrong to abort it.

As far as I know, pro-choice supporters are not arguing against the fetus being human. It was created by a human ovum and a human sperm so, therefore, it must be human. They are, technically, not even arguing against the fetus having a chance at life. As soon as it is conceived it is alive so it has already had its chance. What they are arguing for is a woman's right to make a decision about what happens to her body.

What I argue for goes a little beyond that. A fetus is unable to live independently of its host (its mother's body) so, by definition, it is a parasite. You could never call a parasite a person. Therefore, a fetus is not a person.

You could also go on to say that a fetus is not a person because it does not have a consciousness. Since an infant still does not have a consciousness for a short while after he/she is born, but can now live independently of its host, the definition of "person" gains a subpart to include this.

Interestingly enough, I agree with many of the abortion alternatives that the Right to Life (RTL) people come up with. If people would be intelligent enough to use contraceptives then there would not be many abortion decisions in the first place. Of course, you can not totally prevent conception through rape, but rape victims become the same as the "sinners" who were careless in the eyes of fundamentalists. They also ignore the fact that no contraceptive is 100%. Improbable does not equal impossible.

What I do not agree with is the "abstinence" concept. Humans are, first and foremost, animals who are usually governed by their hormones. When you promote abstinence you take the focus away from "safe sex" and place it on "no sex at all." If given the opportunity, a human with a regular level of hormones is probably going to have sex. Being a firm supporter of abstinence is not practical.

I wish I could see more pro-choice billboards (any at all). The RTL people have them everywhere, sometimes across the street from each other, which is ridiculous. Having them across from medical clinics that help women is not ethical. Of course, they would never admit that they are shoving their message down people's throats. Religious people always believe that they are saints and everyone who does not agree with them are sinners doomed to the "everlasting fires of Hell."



I'm reminded of an episode of the L-Word when Kit went to an abortion clinic after an accidental pregnancy. She already had a twenty-something son so I can understand not wanting another child so late in her life. It turned out to be a fake abortion clinic where the people try to get you to change your mind through scare tactics (mainly photos of mutilated fetuses). The "scare tactic method" was also featured in an episode of Weeds. I love how Showtime tells the truth about the craziness of the world (or, at least, the United States part of the world).

I've been using TVersity media server since about September to stream my anime from my mother's computer to my PS3 so that I can watch it on the HDTV. Besides her computer being pretty new, it has multiple processors and a huge hard drive. By contrast, my poor laptop is three years old, has only one processor and only a 100GB hard drive. My PS3 had been almost decorative up to that point because I only had one game (the stupid things are too expensive). I stumbled across the concept of media servers in an old PC World magazine in the doctor's office and inwardly jumped for joy.

It took a lot of tweaking but I can get it to play every format that I've tried so far. The only problems left to overcome is getting the subtitles in MKV files to show up and getting dual audio files to automatically play in Japanese instead of English. So far, one of the only sure-fire way to get subtitles to work in TVersity is to extract them from the file and save them in another one. There is no way I'm doing that for every anime MKV file I have so I decided to try using another program just for these files.

I just tried PS3 Media Server and, holy crap, the subtitles are there! They'd better be since the guy who made this also had trouble with embedded subtitles and TVersity. They're a little cut off on the bottom but that happens to everything I stream, for some reason (the extreme left and right portions are usually cut off as well). I thought I was going to have to download the non-HD Xvid version instead. I used to only get the Xvid version before TVersity because MKVs never played correctly on my computer.

(As an aside, DivX files can now be played natively by the PS3 if you install the latest firmware which makes the entire process more user-friendly, let me tell you. When you stream a file and it has to be transcoded, it doesn't like it when you try to rewind or fast-forward.)

Now I have a decision to make. Do I watch episode #2 of Kuro Shitsuji or do I continue to work on the essay about The Tale of Genji that's due on Wednesday? Hmm, such a tough decision!