Archive for category Ａｂｏｕｔ
OK, here’s my 9/11 story
I was unemployed and living in an apartment in Elizabeth. Pretty much every day then was already a drunken panic. I was between retail jobs but was trying to get by on those work-at-home schemes. Mostly scams. With a little more panic and a lot less drunkenness, maybe I could have got by, soldering circuit boards or assembling beaded necklaces and selling them myself. (Wait, I have to sell them myself?) Point is, I had no reason to be up that morning. My roommate, a friend from high school, was quite gainfully employed (in The City) and the only reason I lived in an apartment that was really nicer than I had business being in and ultimately had no way to afford. So he was at work. Everyone in that building hated me, with reason. Phones were out. There was plenty of booze in the place and I started most mornings with records and sifting through the wreckage. Sometimes I wonder how far into the day I might have gotten before I got the news.
But it was 50/50 that I’d turn the radio on if I didn’t find a record that caught my immediate mood. I clearly remember sifting through the stacks that morning before checking my phone: “No Service”. That’s odd. I flipped on FMU. It was Mike Goodstein, speaking in a shaky voice about what ever it was, an accident at the WTC. This is right before the 2nd tower fell. I ran to the TV in the next room just in time to see it happen. So that was something. This was more than what it was for me. Not that I’m too special in this, but was normally in the building at that time in the morning. More accurately underneath it, in the train station. It wasn’t the best route, but I preferred transferring there, just to be there. The whole complex under there was pretty impressive. When I first moved to North Jersey we used to drive up to Weehauken just to look at the skyline, then later, hanging out on the Jersey City waterfront, the Towers dominated. But more than the idea of being inside that place, it really was something, even during rush hour. I remember the rows of payphones that lined the main concourse that sometimes you still had to use then and you felt like you were in a movie even thought I hate admitting it. I hate having to be sentimental about a city commute. If someone blew up the Turnpike would we be fondly remembering the rest stops? Probably, but it was a little more than that. I’m thinking about the inside of the place itself that I miss. Then there’s the people. I didn’t know anyone that worked there or who was otherwise unlucky that day.
But I don’t know how to finish that paragraph. Are you ready to remember? The thing you weren’t supposed to ever forget? I honestly haven’t been thinking about too much, the details I mean. You can’t walk around in constant state of trauma, that’s crazy. Civilization would go nowhere and…uh…but we’ve got youtube now, which is…almost as good as tv! And our cellphones are bigger that they’ve ever been, at least the most expensive ones. So maybe civilization peaked in 2000. That makes sense tho, right? Gotta peak sometime.
But anyway, my other big memory of the WTC was seeing The Box Tops reunion. It was a decent show, I guess. The other people in my band that had just broken up were really into Alex Chilton. He’s alright, but I make a point of trying to make everyone else look like a poseur (it’s a problem) so I couldn’t miss that show, but I mostly wandered around the plaza. I wandered around NYC a lot back then but usually did not have am excuse to be in that plaza that was between the towers. I never had the cash on me to make to the observation deck but figured I would whenever. I just chilled on the huge circular bench around that weird globe fountain, looking up at the things. The lights in one of the towers from were I was sitting that day were like eyes. It felt like Tron a little. But it didn’t feel like anything else really. It felt like you sitting in front of the damn World Trade Center with little lights that look like eyes looking right at you and over there is Alex Fucking Chilton who maybe you don’t care about that much but he produced the Cramps, man. I was drinking a ginger beer.
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More updates
Yeah, I need to get better at this. Kinda bein a dick with it. The whole thing I mean. What can you do.
I’ve applied for the N4 level of the JPLT. Turns out the grades are pass/fail. Hadn’t looked that far into it before, I was thinking about get a good score on the thing (or very bad score). But I won’t really know, I’ll just do well enough or not. Well, shit. There’s old tests floating around . Pretty sure I can pass the N5. I figure it would be crushing to fail the N5, but less so the N4. Which I shouldn’t, but N3 would be pushing it. You gotta factor in the taking of the test itself, which I’m totally unfamiliar with, is a handicap. But I’m also thinking, you start something like this, you wanna go to the top level. Since it’s a yearly test I gotta knock off one year if I can. Better to take the 4 twice than waste a year of the easiest one.
So that’s what I’m thinking. I’m not getting back to where I want with Anki, but I’ve now got it stuck at a max of 2 days. I can keep it there easy at this point, but it’s got to get down to a max of 1 day and stay there to make good progress. Been going back to Jpod101 too. (I have several old Berlitz and Pimsleur courses but they don’t get very advanced.) I joined Jpod a while ago and for a while I was hating myself for paying for the premium service but if I hadn’t I doubt I would be going back to it and it is kinda good if at times grating.
Signed up for a travel alert and got a dead cheap price today, but not cheap enough. That’s not happening any time soon. But thinking long-term I feel I’ll end up living in North Jersey somewhere and visiting from there. I don’t think I could do the moving to Japan and teaching english thing. Pretty sure I’m too old for an entry level position and would be terrible teaching kids. Maybe I could teach in North Jersey, like ESL tutor. Maybe do freelance translation or other writing but I’m thinking it’s not going to be enough. That’s almost the same as trying to make a living off art/music. I still have this idea of getting a restaurant/bar job right away and say fuck it for a while because I need to be living on my own asap, but I’ve never been able to get that kind of job. One time in art school out teacher laid down the harsh reality that most of us would give up art of have to work as bartenders and just do art on the side if we were so serious about “real art”. Now, I wish he had said “work in fast food…” because then I’d think, maybe advertising isn’t that bad. I thought ‘bartender’ sounded pretty punk. Seems a lot of people though that. But I digress. つづく。。。
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Anki for August
It continues.
Looks like I did pretty well. Did for a while. This past week I’ve hit the wall. I could blame the hurricane, but it was not that bad in my exact area. Didn’t even lose power. It was mostly distracting; couldn’t stop watching the unexpectedly uninterrupted newsfeeds. Thought it would be worse, but not much worse. (It was plenty bad for a lot of people, jerks.)
Anyhow, right before that I figured out that 2 hours a day is the exact right amount to do everyday. Less will not get through the whole list each day, more will cause burnout and then the next day you wind up doing less and figure it all evens out and of course it doesn’t. Things get out of hand real quick (tho I kept all the decks under 3 days…they can still pile up.)
Pretty confident that my JLPT attempt will be total crash & burn but I gotta do it. It’s the only way things sink in for me.
Let’s just look at the list compared to last time: (I’ve skipped both 6000 decks this round.)
T.& I. Verbs – 0 (-173)
2000 step 02 – 373 (-240)
2000 step 01 – 497 (-298)
2000 step 03 – 550 (-181)
2000 step 09 – 621 (-185)
2000 step 08 – 616 (-200)
2000 step 06 – 600 (-240)
2000 step 10 – 636 (-208)
2000 step 05 – 640 (-220)
2000 step 04 – 663 (-217)
2000 step 07 – 744 (-169)
Should all be 20 lower but I bailed today. Needed a break so I guess I can get 1 day a month. Tomorrow I apply for the test.
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More Replacements for Smart.fm
You know what, maybe you should just join the new site. Go ahead. Fine. I’m sure it’s fine. Sure I’m sure. Fine for YOU. Me, I’m stubborn. (It helps as much as it doesn’t.) I’m doing good without it, and I talked about using Anki as pretty much the same thing. But there’s a few things Anki doesn’t really do at all that Smart.fm did and it’s not nitpicky style issues. But I’ve found a couple free sites that get close to the same thing.
Kana Invaders
Tests typing speed and quickness recognizing kana. I know my damn kana at this point but I would like to get better at typing. Eventually I should learn how to use the Japanese keyboard input system
Kanji Box
Just kanji multiple choice flashcards. Maybe even better than Smart.fm’s speed drill game, but it’s a lot less game-like. There’s no timer, so there’s no way to lose but you can get your speed up. The best part is getting that instant feedback of the correct answer everytime you screw up, and you will. And when you get a good run going seeing that red flash on the screen is a lot better better punch in the gut than a low score at the end that does not even tell you what you wrong. This is not about getting your name on a leaderboard this is about inflicting maximum mental anguish. You deserve to— wait, what was this about again? Well, it’s what works for me. (This used to work within facebook but now it doesn’t? You might need to login to it through facebook. It’s legit.)
…To meaningless Pain! I mean, To Learning! With a purpose of some kind! I think. Maybe.
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Stunt Learning
The Japanese Learning Proficiency Test, or JLPT, is held every year on December 4th. Because the deadline is not midnight on December 3rd, I miss it every year. You’ve got to apply in September, and seats are limited. True, there’s been a number of years where I was barely studying enough to even pass the lowest level, but there’s been even more when I’m chugging along and suddenly it’s December and it’s like…well, I already know I screwed up. I’m not even studying the right things anyway. Advice I hear a lot in Jp. learning circles is simply “not give up and you will learn”. But it’s possible to not give up AND not learn. If you take a month or even a week off studying completely, it doesn’t mean you gave up, but it’s self-sabotage.
The Smart.fm/iKnow is based on some advanced SRS research. It got me on the right track, finally. I’ve had a deck of real paper flash cards for years, but it’s hard to keep track of which cards to study and when. It’s real easy to think you’ve learned a card and just put it in the ‘done’ pile and soon all the cards are in the ‘done’ pile so you look at them all again and you don’t even remember half. Anki, I think, is somewhere in between a fully automated system and a manual analog deck. In theory it’s the same kind of SRS (idea-wise) as iKnow, but the way it’s set up more depends on you. The social network aspect and public posting of progress helped (you’d have to resort to some kind of public…log…which could be potentially embarrassing…everyone knows learning a new language is about shielding yourself from public ridicule by fleeing to another country, and that the best way to become fluent is to not try too hard), but also the thing told you when to study what. If you were dumb enough to take on 40 lessons at once on Smart.fm it would be obvious you were making a terrible decision—at all times at least 30 of them would be telling you: Study NOW. Can’t do it.
Not knocking Anki, it’s just Smart.fm was more self-sabotage proof. I don’t think any one system is the best. I’m doing all this and naturally sometimes I get to thinking that maybe I can make the One Perfect System. Like, I’ve wasted all this time and maybe it gives me the insight to do that and it wasn’t all a waste. It wasn’t all a waste, but a whoooole lot of it was a waste and I’m not getting anything out of that. There was nothing wrong with any of the systems I’ve used (like Berlitz or Pimsleur) or that one is better than the other, it’s that I couldn’t stick to a schedule of repeated and prolonged public embarrassment. That’s the key.
But there’s also this article, which is about a study which maybe proves something I kind of thought already, which is that the number of hours learning (or the amount of study repetitions) is irrelevant. There’s just moments that the thing clicks into your brain for whatever reason. Going through the repetitions mindlessly alone isn’t going to do it. But I’ve lined up so goddamn many, I have to plow through. It’s pretty ugly, but even if I’m looking at a deck ten decks with an average of 800 cards, doing 20 a day on each will net 100 cards every 5 days. It can’t be done in one month, but it could only take 40 days. (I’m not doing quite that well, but I can easily finish those by December and will be well into the 6000 decks.) My main problem is deciding which test to take.
I don’t think there is One Perfect System for everyone or even any one person. (A Slightly More Perfect System for JLPT study are almost probably the decks designed for that test that are labeled by test level.) Going from system to system might (could) be best. In the end it’s one language that your using to communicate; acing the test isn’t the goal. (Would be nice tho.) All these learning systems top out at some point and you only get better from there by using the language in real life. (A decent JLPT score might help get into a situation where you use the language more in real life…) Unless you’re just in it to watch unsubbed anime. Which is fine. But it’s also not that fine. At some point. I don’t know if I’ll live there or anything but I’m into doing some kind of cross-cultural exchange that is a real thing. It’s becoming something that seems more important than continuing some kind of aesthetic from the 90s, which was really fueling me before recent events.
The reactions to the tsunami in Japan, good and bad, didn’t surprise me at all. I think the worst parts are part of a certain entrenched way of thinking that could be helped with more open exchange of information within the country and better international communication. On the other hand, the riots in England didn’t make sense to me. I’ve read some things that point out some of the complexities and what not and I can get it, but I don’t see how you’d fix any of that. Half of my ancestry is British/Irish (bit murky) and it’s not upper class. And I’m into a lot of UK pop culture, but I don’t really get it on a gut level like I thought I did. My point is you gotta focus on things you think you can change. I didn’t even know the UK was fucked up on that level and that’s a place I think about more than Africa, for example. Or Russia or the Middle East. I’m just trying to focus on what I understand. It’s about the type of society I think is a positive direction, not about race.
I could go off about weeaboos who are barely aware that Japan is an actual country but I need to get back to killing my brain with words.
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