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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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This again

  • In this post I said the world was “literally going to hell”. Some people apparently believe in a literal Hell, or at least think that’s a reasonable thing to believe in. I don’t. I was thinking more about global warming, and the economic disasters which will leave us ill-equipped to deal with the problems it will cause, creating a kind of hell on earth. It’s literally hot. Get it? Get it? Hell? Hot? Huh? Plus the only way to slow down the heating might be to pump sulphur into the air. More than we already do. The Earth won’t literally become a burning, sulphurous pit, it will just literally be very hot and/or filled with sulphur. Or maybe we decide to just stick it out with just the heat. I think the sulphur part is optional for a decent hell, but everyone seems to agree it’s hot. It sucks cause I grew up with the idea of nuclear winter, which literally was cooler. (Ooh! I don’t have to publish this do I? Ech…) But that was so much worse! You’re looking at much more and sudden extinctions with the nuclear winter, but it weirdly seemed less terrible, or maybe less likely. We seemed to have more control over it not happening, which it didn’t. But maybe it still will. (See, there’s hope!) Maybe all of this shit will happen and all cancel itself out. Then things can keep going along perfectly, exactly how it is now. (It’s going so well!) Really I think everything’s just going to get really expensive. That alone will kill millions and bankrupt almost everyone else. But I’m an optimist. I also used the phrase “the way I figure it”, which I don’t think I’ve never said out loud, and won’t.
  • In this post I claimed the local record shoppe was the only source of Shonen Knife T-shirts in the 90s, when I’ve posted a video of people buying shirts right at the live venue like a normal person would. I was 14 in 1993 and did not have the kind of parents that took me to stadium shows which SK was then playing, opening for Nirvana. I did see them on almost every return visit since then in various clubs. (Bowery Ballroom, North Star Bar, Johnny Brenda’s) You are definitely missing out if you have not seen them live. But anyway, now that I think about it, you could also get the shirts through Rockabilia when it’s catalog mysteriously appeared in your mailbox upon the subscription to Spin or whatever. And that was probably paid for by my mom. But I had more than one shirt I tells ya.
  • In a totally nonexistent post, I didn’t talk about the new font I installed just for the post headings, because the default one always bugged me. There just wasn’t much to say about it. There’s also not that much to say about unicode font renderings in Firefox vs. Chrome. Either one is good. I guess. Yeah, it’s fine. I got the font from Neojaponisme.
  • I didn’t really post about this but can we all agree that Varg Vikernes is mostly just a racist at this point? Because a lot of people deny the racism[edit:no one does this] or try to ignore it, or justify it because he says some other “smart” things. And he made some cool music a long-ass time ago—I think it was a fluke. Most of it’s not that good. Yeah, this guy almost sounds intelligent if you cut out the parts where he blames everything on Jews. That’s really his whole thing. He has no real philosophy: he’ll side with anyone anti-Semitic. Nazis, Muslims, Christians, whatever. I was disappointed in the final cut of Until the Light Takes Us, but strongly recommend the 2-disc set that includes the full interviews. Unlike Fenriz who is strongly apolitical, or Hellhammer who has some horrible views of life but doesn’t intellectualize or apologize, Varg will say whatever makes him seem like a guy you want to buy a record from. Remember when his last record came out and he changed the name? He said he didn’t want to sound racist because he’s all not about racism anymore, so don’t worry record buyers who don’t want to support a racist, it’s cool. But wait, there’s a lot of racists that will possibly buy anything they agree with politically (a la the Skrewdriver school of record sales)? Oh, I guess it is pretty racist. Guys, it’s super-racist. In fact, forget about the anti-religion thing. Any religion is cool, as long as you buy the records, and hate Jews. No one can pretend not to see this is anything but middle school level sociopath bullshit.
  • So, my love for Fiddler on the Roof is wholly unironic. Life without Jews would be grim and frostbitten indeed. Speaking of which—total aside—Immortal, in this Until the Light movie…people weren’t ever laughing at you because of the music. Maybe some people were. Jerks. I love Immortal too. I don’t see any contradiction. But context is everything. That movie was a little ridiculous.

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Anki for July

Continuing from June. (I should start tagging posts.)

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Mixes

Been going through my Amy Winehouse mp3s of course. Thinking about how cool her attitude seemed when I first “Rehab”. I’m not a 12-stepper or anything, but I’ve cut way back on the sauce since then. I think her antics may have helped show how uncool it can get. Not to preach cause some people handle it fine, but I seriously stopped listening to her completely after being into her a lot and it shows in the duplicates in my playlists from songs being on numerous mixes. I’ll posts some of these old mixes again when I figure out a more clever way of doing it. They were made to be put on a CDR and were mostly for car listening—it’s all about segues and repeatability. My car CD player broke and I would replace it with a digital player if I had the money and I bet you would too. The CDR mix is not coming back. But I did spend a lot of time on em and like how they turned out, and there’s some really oddball tracks I got off myspace. That myspace period of 05-07 when it worked had a vibe that seemed to be going somewhere that just evaporated. Moving on, but trying not to forget it entirely. Some good stuff.

Been posting on 8tracks since April but haven’t been posting them anywhere or even linking to it. Working on a new one one now, doing one a month. I like the short mix idea. You can get a pro account and post longer mixes, but c’mon. Give everyone a break. You can link to other mixes to play after yours out of your liked mixes. It’s nice. No big deal. I always get stupid idea for mixes but never make them cause I take mixes way to serious. If you’re forced to keep it at 8 songs it can be fun. I like fun, on occasion. The only thing about 8 tracks mixes is they only play in order the first time through. I still sweat the segues. You’ve got to pay attention for 8 songs is all.

Got a profile on Mixcloud too, but didn’t post anything, might not. It’s very pro at Mixcloud. You can do more like a podcast there if you like. Thought about it, but I need to do through iTunes I think and I refuse to set it up on my main machine here. Unless there’s another way to make an m4a with chapters which is how they want you to it. I really need to get other laptop working. I was pretty terrified for a while to be working with no backup and lately by anxiety has really subsided, but for no good reason. I’m not completely fucked if this machine tanks, but I’m mostly fucked. Been using various services for cloud storage, I’m not totally buying into that concept for everything, but it’s obviously useful. Storage is not the only issue tho, of course.

But that’s got nothing to do with mixes. But what does really? Isn’t a mix like ending a blog post? Not really but they’ve got to end somehow.

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Amy Winehouse

I think everyone has been moved by the recent tragedy of Amy Winehouse’s murder of 93 innocent people. Some wonder if we should still listen to her music. I think it’s pretty good. The music, not the murders. But was it that good? Maybe we made too big a deal out of it. She wasn’t much a live performer. Unless you count murdering 93 people performance art, which I DON’T.

RIP

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