Hi! I'm Rino.
I want lean British English!!!
My English is too bad.
would you like talk with me???
If you want,I teach Japanese for you.
o(^▽^)o~♪

I'm tempted to respond now.

Concerning British English, aside from the small spelling and lexical changes - I can't think in how its different in some way and how I would be able to teach this, in an environment where American English is so dominant. I can just image me in some shitty eikaiwa in Japan, trying to teach people some correct usages of British English. NO ITS '-OUR' NOT '-OR' YOU DUMB JAPANESE PRICK! SHUT THE FUCK UP AND START SPEAKING CORRECTLY.

I am so gonna get myself a Japanese girlfriend, just so I can subconsciously make her speak British English with a bizarre Yorkshire accent.

Well here's my haiku response to Rino-san.

I seemed to have stumbled on this link whilst looking for Japanese related stuff.

Amazing. It gives a nice overview of the hell I have to go through. At Sheffield we started with around 60 and thus we expect an average of 15 to return based on previous results. Needless to say I am bricking it, a small portion of me is fearful, the other is spurring me on to prove myself. I am totally committed to this thing, but you just can't help questioning your own sanity sometimes.

Leeds also have a seemingly brutal dropout rates. And its these dropout rates which is concerning the government as less and less people are both considering doing degrees in Japanese and more importantly completing them.

I am now deprived of sleep, and need to crack on with these verbs (I am temped to leave the 600 or so and focus on the more important ones) and of course, the dreaded な adjectives (which I've done about 75% of so far.) Oh shit. I forgot about those kanji compounds as well.

Oh Japanese you foul mistress you! The only thing motivating me now to learn such an obscene amount of stuff in the remaining 6 weeks I have, is that I do not wish to fall behind and want to gain a head start over the rest when I get back. My brain is forgetting all kinds of crap now. Like how does this form end, and how do you form causative passive etc (させられた？) what are the nuances to remember, what is the Japanese word for spinach? Arggggh! My head is going to explode.

Thankfully, my chats with Japanese people over the web is keeping my need to remember Japanese primed and ready. Perhaps, I am using it everyday now - which can only be a good thing. But, like I say I am learning more than I need to know and am even attempting some complex stuff that will piss sensei off...

I stopped reading after the first few sentences... I really lament what will happen if I ever do my masters degree.

Dear All,

My name is XXXX; I am a post graduate student in the Department of
Information Studies at The University of Sheffield. I am doing my dissertation
project under supervision of Dr. XXXXX. I am interested in finding out
people's normal photo management practices and importance of location in these
activities.

I am writing to you to ask you to complete my questionnaire. It will take about
10-15 minutes and contains questions about your normal photo management
habits.

I would be extremely grateful if you could take the time out from your busy
schedules to do this.The research has been granted ethical approval from the
department and all information that you provide will be strictly confidential.
If you need more information about my dissertation please find the attached
Information Sheet. Should you encounter any problems or have any queries please
do not hesitate to contact me.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Information sheet

(1) Research Project Title:

Investigating use of GPS logs in people's photo management practices.

You're being invited to take part in a research project. Before you decide it
is important for you to understand why the research is being done and what it
will involve. Please take time to read the following information carefully and
discuss it with others if you wish. Email me if there is anything that is not
clear or if you would like more information. Take time to decide whether or not
you wish to take part. Thank you for reading this.

(2) What is the purpose of the project?

Managing personal information is being researched for many years. Various tools
have also been developed for the same. Managing personal photographs is one of
the main areas of research. With the emergence of digital cameras, it is now
very easy and affordable to take photographs of almost every event in life and
store them. These photos are often enjoyed by sharing them, story-telling about
the events occurred at specific time and place. GPS track logs collected along
with the photographs and other personal audio-visual multimedia can provide the
context such as location and time. This research is mainly focused on
investigating the use of location logs (which could be generated using GPS
devices) in people?s photo management activities.

The purpose of this study is to understand the use of digital trails generated
by GPS track logs in re-telling the trips for the domestic users. The project
would investigate people?s normal photograph management practices and use of
contextual information such as location and date time of the photograph in
these activities. The project also aims to identify issues regarding existing
technology and tools and to provide suggestions to improve the same on the
basis of user experiences.


(3) Why have I been chosen?

If we are to better understand the use of new technology, we need to what are
the people's habits and how could the technology be used to improve them. So
your contribution matters a lot.

(4) Do I have to take part?

It is up to you to decide whether or not to take part. If you do decide to take
part you will be given this information sheet to keep and you can still withdraw
at any time without it affecting any benefits that you are entitled to
in any way. You do not have to give a reason.


(5) What will happen to me if I take part?

You just need to fill the questionnaire. It will take around 10 -15 minutes to
complete.

(6) What are the possible disadvantages and risks of taking part?

None

(7) What are the possible benefits of taking part?

Whilst there are no immediate benefits for those people participating in the
project, it is hoped that the outcome of this study would identify limitations
of existing technology and would provide suggestion to improve the same which
in turn simulate future research on the topic.

(8) Will my taking part in this project be kept confidential?

All the information that we collect about you during the course of the research
will be kept strictly confidential. You will not be able to be identified in
any reports or publications.

(9) What will happen to the results of the research project?

The results of the research will be published in my dissertation.

(10) Who has ethically reviewed the project?

This project has been ethically approved via Information Studies Department
ethics review procedure. The University?s Research Ethics Committee monitors
the application and delivery of the University?s Ethics Review Procedure across
the University.

Don't get me wrong, I love the postgrads. I deleted the names in case I get sued or something.

Nothing much to report from Castle Greyskull recently...

Revision update; what I need to do by Sunday...

Adverbs - Time
Adverbs - Quantity
Adverbs - Negative
Adverbs - Pos and Neg
Adverbs - Random

Adjectives - な

New verbs - around 600 (!!!)

Kanji compounds - Maybe 350 or so.

Its a lot, but hopefully if I get everything typed up I can start my 6 weeks of revision. Getting everything typed up saves time not just for now, but also for term time. Hopefully this may reduce the stuff I need to learn during the first few weeks. Its unbelievable amount of stuff to type up, but I'm confident I can do it. I have also managed to figure out to turn j-memorise files into rtf files. Complete life-saver!

I also have to revise grammar, although this should take less time to do than kanji and vocab. I just want to get all the boring stuff out the way first.

Funny things always seem to happen to me on the way to the gym. First I saw Tony Chang smoking outside of Tesco. The Chinese legend who runs my local Chinese restaurant and whose daughter I fancied at one point. Secondly I saw two dogs having sex. Erm, yeah. But its not like I see this very often. It was just very random. Thirdly. Its sunny! OMG! What is wrong with the UK right now?

I spoke to my friend Aya recently. She is off to Birmingham, the same time I am off to Japan. Lol. Just my luck eh? She is also seriously doubting her confidence to get the grades required to study abroad in the UK, depite the fact her English is fantastic. I honestly think some Japanese lack confidence sometimes and its often the people who are most ashamed or embarrassed about their English who are the best speakers of it. The people who randomnly approach gaijin for free 英会話 are usually awful English speakers and they struggle to understand you, even if you omit all known words and just grunt. Perhaps its just a case of classic Japanese humility.

I suppose for her, she is in a catch 22 of sorts. Because living in England for a year would no doubt increase her confidence and level of English to an extremely high standard. However she needs the high grades in English in order to do that.

Meanwhile at El Tropico del Middlesbrough, yours truly is donning his Rafa Nadal pirate pants and sunglasses and enjoying the weather whilst it lasts.

じゃね☆

Ah, wonderful. Its like a daze. Like a quixotic blend of the insane and the beautiful dancing on the shores of Rimini in a perfect setting. I awoke this morning at Darlington train station to be greeted with glorious sunshine that would dip in and out amongst the clouds in schizophrenic fashion. It would have been nice to admire, had I not been;

a) hungover from Stevie’s birthday
b) shattered beyond belief
c) recovering from a stomach bug, in which I had made a Jackson Pollock over the ceramic bowl of life not being able to sleep at all during the journey – despite my tiredness

Crazy feelings.

Things are still dull right now and I opine for Sheffield. I would take Arai-sensei’s kanji class at 9am, some midsemester tests and a listening dictation all back to back rather than be stuck here with nothing to do and no-one to see. 8 weeks to go and I’m chomping at the bit to have some form of sanity again. Although Sheffield is far from sane.

I have managed to type up the 50 or so Japanese onomatopoeia – my favourite so far, being ピンピン – something I’ve not felt recently due to a lack of any physical movement or time management. Along with some adverbs, I hope to have all my new words done and dusted by the end of the week, so I can relax and just skim learn the stuff I need to know. Right now it’s a case of having my study aides in place, so I can focus more on my true weakness. My listening skills.

Because I will be doing 20 credits next year in Japanese, but presumably the same intensive workload – I’ll have to forge ahead and start reading ahead for Lexicology. The wonderful thing about this is, is that I am reading for the sake of reading and using the time to get a good overview of what I’ll be doing. Anything to combat this boredom.

This module is very strange. There are two to three lectures a week, no workshop exercises and I am assessed on a 2hr exam and 3,000 word essay in which I’ll have to write about the development of the English lexicon. So basically we look at slang, neologisms, foreign loanwords and slang/dialect.

Given my last essay result, I feel a bit hesitant about my essay writing skills. I normally can write about the most absurd things and make them seem plausible – however I have a habit of trailing off and missing the point. This year I am going to bother the head of the module incessantly with help!

Perhaps I should just write about increasing my Japanese lexicon!

Actually this is something I genuinely do find interesting and is probably one of the few linguistics modules I’ll look forward to taking at Sheffield. Last year despite my illness and utter contempt for the Varieties of English module, I enjoyed Professor Beal’s discussion on the background of dialect words and phrases. Cockney rhyming slang developing as criminal code in London’s backstreets for example.

Let’s hope Amazon can deliver them soon. Incidentally my mammoth green book of Sociolinguistics is gathering dust now. Although, I’ll probably use it in the fourth year when my module choices become more taxing and I’ll need to remember the stuff I forgot in the first year.

A sad fact of the matter, is that for duals like myself Linguistics is very much a side order to the main dish of Japanese. Sadly I’m competing alongside people who do this subject as a major and therefore are used to the teaching methods, assessment and above all practical knowledge of the subject. I really disliked most of the linguistics last year and I spent zero effort on it. This year, now that those modules count towards my degree classification I am going to have work my ass off.

Before I left this morning, I logged into Mole, which is the most annoying slowest thing we have at the university (aside from me of course.) I still have all my first year module choices listed, which is kind of annoying considering I just want to banish them to dustbin. I want to see the second year stuff, to show that I’ve truly made it and survived the horrors of fresherdom.

Also recently I seem to have taken a bizarre fancy towards Konno Asami of former J-pop Morning Musume fame.

Curious. Not that I should be creeped out by that of course. She is extremely cute and intelligent and reminds me of a girl I used to date, or maybe it was a girl I want to date but got scared away due to my insufferable bowl movements and kanji fetish. Also internet girlfriends are a waste of space. Looking at you Yukari! Right, off to the gym to think about me being ムラムラ towards Miss Konno and 101 reasons why she will never go out with a loser like me.

じゃね☆

I haven't taken many pictures recently so here's one of my giant belly;



キモイ！However after going on the scales, it seems I've lost a kilo in a week!

This is quite a feat considering I've done nothing but arse about all week. Although my diet has changed considerably and I'm definitely not eating as much as I used, maybe thanks in part to sitting on my arse all day. I still need to lose a hell of a lot more weight however. Maybe another 15 kilos. Its very possible and an obtainable target before Christmas at the very least.

In other news, I have to learn 850 verbs before the start of term and make sure I clean my room because everything is not where it is supposed to be and it looks a mess. To prove how hard we work at Sheffield here are the first year kanji. Sadly, my brain can't remember any of them now - so its off the gym and library on Monday and I don't care if I don't feel up to it.



I don't know what's worse. A picture of those kanji or my hairy beer belly (or should that be whiskey belly?) This blog should carry a governmental health warning. Well to ligthen the mood here are some photos that I found of the first night I met Tomo and we went back to my Chinese friend's flat. In the end we left at 4am after rice and green-tea. It was taken in January iirc...