GTO!!!

こんばんは！

In terms of recent にほんご updates in my life, I recently started watching the Japanese drama GTO - Great Teacher Onizuka.

To be honest, my listening skills for Japanese were always a little weak (in terms of speed, i.e. during language lab it always takes me several repetitions of pausing and repeating the audio to really understand what it is trying to say). Hence, trying to listen to what they are saying in GTO is extremely difficult, and I always end up reading the English subtitles on the bottom anyway. Hopefully watching this will help improve my Japanese listening skills. (I do understand some of it though =))

It's seriously a great drama, though. It's really light-hearted and fun but at the same time reveals a sensitive side about people struggling with their identities. Everyone should go watch it if they have the chance!

Butttt.... it's time for applying to internships and FINALS!!! Busy busy

Hope to check in soon again...

さよなら！

FUTURE

Now that i'm さんねんせい, i'm getting more and more anxious about the FUTURE... and what i'm going to do with it. Even though my せんこ is electrical engineering, I feel like everyone on this campus (at least the people around me) are headed toward some type of financial job... investment banking, etc.

Especially with the coming summer... I feel like the right internship is going to be really important, because it pretty much determines what I may do after I graduate... I guess i'm getting a lot of anxiety about it.

I feel so behind, especially because everyone around me is talking about it or knows what they're gona do or is financially adept. I don't know.

I wanted to go to にほん this winter! but instead... I think our family is going to Cambodia. I started checking up pics online and it looks interesting-















Maybe it won't be too bad... it's hard to get the whole かぞく together now that we're all getting old... わたしのあれはにじゅうよんです。そして二ューヨークではたらきます。 Cambodia should be fun though... I guess にほん some other break!!! (P.S. i should also probably visit my sister more often because we're in the same city... we're all gona grow old and not be able to see each other someday)

さくぶん：てがみ

やまださん、おげんきですか。

わたしのなまえはロバートです。ニューヨークからきました。にじゅういちさいです。そしてコロンビアだいがくのさんねんせいです。

コロンビアだいがくはきれいです。そしておおきです。まちのせいかつはとてもべんりですが、いそがしいです。ニューヨークはいまとてもさむいです。ニューヨークのたべものはたかいですが、おいしいです。まいにちべんきょうします。しゅくだいはとてもむずかしいですが、おもしろいです。わたしはしゅうまつにともだちとえいがをみます。そしてときどきカラオケをします。カラオケはたのしいですから、わたしはカラオケがすきです。

わたしはらいねんのろくがつついたちににほんへいきます。にほんりょいりはおいしいですから、わたしはにほんりょいりがすきです。にほんのまちはにぎやかですか。さむいですか。

よろしくおねがいします。

じゅういちがつなのか

ロバート

some thoughts...

The only thing on my mind now is the long weekend next week.

しごとはいそがしいです。

I'm getting really tired/sick of all the school work... but i have to admit i don't have that to complain about.

just looking forward to thanksgiving, and christmas break, and summer, and graduation, and retirement.

On a brighter note, I feel like my Japanese reading abilities (in particular Hiragana) have improved. I now read things by skimming and understanding what they mean. I group them together into words now as opposed to reading each Hiragana character separately one-by-one. I hope I can soon read even faster... and with Katakana as well.

The midterm is coming up soon, and I'm a little worried about that. But the good thing about Japanese is that with everyday class and practice it's not something you can really study a lot for.... because you already know everything from everyday usage... it becomes a part of you.

my solid weekend

this past weekend of mine has been amazing... as soon as i took the analog midterm i was dreading (see previous post) i pretty much quarantined all my books into the corner of my room and haven't thought or touched about work until now.

thursday night i watched hairspray...



















and it was amazing. it's the second broadway show i've watched (first was mamma mia) which is kinda sad considering i've been here for over 2 years... but it was still really great. worth every penny even though it was really たかい. the performers were amazingly talented... and their voices easily reached every corner of the titanic room they performed in. after that i went to find my sister, who works/live downtown around 50th street... and it was good to see her again. honestly we haven't been seeing each other as much as we probably should because get lazy... but we both made a promise to each other to see each other more often this year (i hope we actually do it haha)



friday i went to MoMA. sadly, i'm kind of ashamed of admitting this, but this was pretty much the first time i've been to a museum in new york. once again it really blew my mind away, and it was a extremely refreshing break from all the work and everyday repetitive things i've been doing each week.. my conclusion is i should get out of my room more.

then at night my good ともだち from boston showed up to surprise me for my birthday... and i have to admit i was pretty surprised because we pretty much don't roll like that for each other... but it was really fun. i bought ビール for the first time and only drank responsibly with those who were 21 or above, because if i didn't that would be completely illegal and i respect the law completely.

saturday i was planning on going to central park but only made it to morningside park... and walked back. then i was taken to a surprise bday dinner with like 15 of my best ともだち at this place called Hawaiian Tropic. Of course, this place was consisted of 100 girls in bikinis serving us food... they took my Hooters last year. i'm kind of wondering what kind of person they think i am. but it was really fun and i was really appreciative of all my friends for planning it out... i couldn't have asked for a better night. Again, I only indulged in alcohol with those who were above 21 years old as well (the waitresses made me do it i swear...).

that basically concludes my weekend... and i guess i'm back to reality. school and work. kind of sucks but i guess that's what happens when you have to live in the real world. pretty much can't wait til Thanksgiving.

peace out

-ロバート

been kinda stressed out/tired recently... especially having to study for my analog electronic circuits midterm. everyone in that class is like a 27 year old grad student who seems exponentially smarter than me and other undergrads. EE is getting hard...

on the brighter side it's my birthday (たんじょうび) today. honestly i'm gona be going to classes during the day then studying for my midterm at night. everyone asks me how it feels to be 21, and so far, no different haha. maybe i'll have to wait til this weekend to find out

ok, back to studying!
じゃあまた!

Update on my Japanese life...

I feel like I've been learning a lot in Japanese class lately. I think we're at the point where we are learning enough particles and verbs that I could go to Japan and speak to maybe a 2-year-old there. But honestly our conversation would probably be extremely boring. After watching the clip of Death Note in class and having half our class explode with joy, I realized I really should probably check it out. I've always wanted to but never had the time. All my friends always go on and on about how awesome it is, and it's pretty much invaded all of Taiwan (from when I was last there). I guess I'm a little behind.

Learning Katakana has been extremely exciting and rewarding as well. Honestly, I feel an irreplaceable sense of satisfaction when I learn a whole new alphabet (I guess the only precedent of this is Hiragana). However, this makes me feel equipped to read a lot more Japanese text (essentially, double). Plus, I can finally write my names in Japanese (ロバートです). To be honest, I can't wait 'til we learn Kanji, because Mandarin is my second language and I can actually read faster the Kanji in our texts as opposed to the Hiragana and Katakana. Hopefully I'll be able to read them all fast someday. That is all for now. じゃまた!

みなさん、こんいちは。わたしのなまえはRobertです。Taiwanからきました。わたしははたちです。わたしはColumbiaだいがくのさんねんせいです。わたしのせんこはElectrical Engineeringです。わたしはにほんごをべんきょうしています。どうぞよろしくおねがいします。

Introduction

Konnichiwa.
Watashi wa Robert desu.
Sannensei desu.
Taiwanjin desu.
Hatachi sai desu.
Arigato gozaimasu.

I'm studying Japanese because I feel like the culture is extremely widespread and has a presence in almost everything I do. Not only do all my friends speak Japanese, but Taiwan is infatuated with Japanese culture, making more extremely curious about why the Japanese language and culture are so great. And so far, learning Japanese has been a really fun and fulfilling experience. Soon, I hope to be able to speak/listen/read/write well enough to understand Japanese music and movies.

Ja mata!