Clothes shopping is something i enjoy as much as wisdom tooth extraction, or driving in a traffic jam. and yet, i was forced to do it today, mainly because i needed new jeans. got something satisfactory, but it could have been better. at the same time, i got some new socks and bought glue to repair my shoes as well (since the soles are almost coming off). makes me feel productive. also managed to finish most of my japanese homework for the upcoming week, borrow a reference book from school, and get my notes printed. and i even found time to catch up on sleep. go me!
for the past few days, my dad was in thailand for a business trip, leaving me with full car access. while i don't quite like driving to school in the mornings due to the horrible traffic, driving back home at night is kind of enjoyable. i think getting a car for honours year (and maybe further studies) is becoming more and more enticing, especially if i'll be stuck in the lab until odd hours.
yesterday, i went to a japanese school near NUS to watch a speech competition. i must admit, their speeches impressed me. despite the alight accented pronunciation, their messages were understandable and meaningful. i just wish i could give a speech of similar standard in japanese, but that would take another year of intensive study, minimum. in the course of learning japanese, i've come to realize why japanese people are such good listeners. it's because of the way that the language is structured. english is made up of 26 letters, which can form words of varying length. japanese is similar, but it has 78 letters (counting all the compound sounds and dots and circles). the thing is, english words are made up of anywhere from 1 to 15 letters, while i haven't yet seen a japanese word that exceeds 5 letters. this means that homophones are much more common in japanese, so listeners have to listen to the context of the conversation to find out which word is being referred to. paradoxically, the same kanji (chinese character) can have different readings depending on where/how they are used. so annoying. what's worse is that the new content is coming in fast, and we're expected to remember the japanese 1 stuff too. i am mildly unhappy and stressed by this. oh well. i'll survive, just for the sake of a future in japan.
the semester is approaching the halfway mark, and i still don't think i learnt much. well...guess i have to spend this week revising everything, especially since mid-terms are becoming a more real threat.
for the past few days, my dad was in thailand for a business trip, leaving me with full car access. while i don't quite like driving to school in the mornings due to the horrible traffic, driving back home at night is kind of enjoyable. i think getting a car for honours year (and maybe further studies) is becoming more and more enticing, especially if i'll be stuck in the lab until odd hours.
yesterday, i went to a japanese school near NUS to watch a speech competition. i must admit, their speeches impressed me. despite the alight accented pronunciation, their messages were understandable and meaningful. i just wish i could give a speech of similar standard in japanese, but that would take another year of intensive study, minimum. in the course of learning japanese, i've come to realize why japanese people are such good listeners. it's because of the way that the language is structured. english is made up of 26 letters, which can form words of varying length. japanese is similar, but it has 78 letters (counting all the compound sounds and dots and circles). the thing is, english words are made up of anywhere from 1 to 15 letters, while i haven't yet seen a japanese word that exceeds 5 letters. this means that homophones are much more common in japanese, so listeners have to listen to the context of the conversation to find out which word is being referred to. paradoxically, the same kanji (chinese character) can have different readings depending on where/how they are used. so annoying. what's worse is that the new content is coming in fast, and we're expected to remember the japanese 1 stuff too. i am mildly unhappy and stressed by this. oh well. i'll survive, just for the sake of a future in japan.
the semester is approaching the halfway mark, and i still don't think i learnt much. well...guess i have to spend this week revising everything, especially since mid-terms are becoming a more real threat.
-random thought of the day: Starting a dream diary.-
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