Tag: english

Propaganda

Today there was an interesting “class” i’ve forgot the name of… We watched an american propaganda “movie” against japanese from the second world war. It was first funny. I mean, it was so visibly full of the worst type of demagogy that i couldn’t help laughing a couple of times. But it was scary as well. Because it could be funny for me right now, but seventy years ago, when there was about no way to get informed except for the media the governments then (and possibly somewhat now as well) controlled, you could easily take even the such stupidity as truth, after the “Japs” bombed Pearl Harbor, the “Japs” you don’t know anything about except that they look different, speak different and write different—after all this, it’s not that difficult to believe that they might as well think different, that they’re just wild people still practising ancient ceremonies, dressing and acting as if they lived in the middle ages and consider nothing else an honor but to die for the God Emperor. And when i thought about it more: even nowadays we have this same thing. Providing people information your way to build prejudice and hate in them–very hard to protect yourself against, especially if unexpected. And the so-called everyday citizen, whose life more or less consists only of waking up, going to work and going to sleep, without any real interest for anything, believing almost whatever the media claims, would still believe such stuff without doubt. And that’s scary.


New music

Last.fm is good not only for making you realise what are your real favourites but also to find new stuff. For example while browsing around suggested artists i found a couple of them really interesting. (Such as Vanden Plas, Andromeda, Porcupine Tree and so on–the problem with these is that they have no material online on the site so i have no idea what music do they actually play. I’m sure it’s not bad, but…) There was one, Pineapple Thief, officially categorized as “progressive indie” that really caught me. They have their whole Tightly Unwound album online, free to listen, and that’s indeed what i’ve been doing whenever i’ve been “at home” in the past days (which wasn’t that much). It’s a mixture of progressive and indie elements, and i haven’t heard anything similar before. Give it a try, i really like it (for now, but how long this relationship lasts we shall see).


Alice

Before coming to Japan, i managed to read Alice in Wonderland. It was great. It would be fun to have such a dream at least once in a while. It’s just so crazy… Now i only have another mad book to read: The Wizard of Oz.

::X-Down-Alice::

Title: ::X-Down-Alice::
Creator: =rannsama


* a drop of

The meaning of this primitive is obvious from the first moment you look at it, though just what it will be a drop of will differ from case to case. The important thing is not to think of it as something insignificant like a “drop in the bucket” but as something so important that it can change the whole picture—like a drop of arsenic in your mother-in-law’s coffee.

James W. Heisig – Remembering the Kanji vol. 1

This last comment almost made me fall of my chair.


Flashcards

Today i started learning kanji again, with the method Robert suggested: flashcards. I managed to learn a few new today, and i hope i won’t forget them until tomorrow. The Anki app is really useful, a lot more, than the pdf books… I haven’t really tried this method before–or well, maybe i have, but that wasn’t a success at all, guess because i wasn’t taking it seriously. I wasn’t taking anything seriously… But now it’s really important to learn as many kanji as possible as quickly as possible, and i think this is still the best method. Daily at least ten minutes spent with them, and i think that time will just increase as time goes, since i set it to “teach” me daily 10 new ones. That should be enough i think…

I’ll have to learn new vocabulary as well. That means, beside memorizing the kanji, i’ll learn the readings and compounds as well—now that’s the more difficult part, as i still have to figure out how i’ll do it. Though probably when classes start, i’ll figure it out quickly enough, as i’ve heard the language education here is pretty tough but effective…


To buy

I was planning to buy a few more stuff now in the first days: a bike, a camera, an electronic dictionary and a guitar. I probably won’t yet buy myself a bike for two reasons: i can borrow one for free from the university, at least the romanian girls said so, and it would be just a trouble when i’ll be moving at the end of the year to my new dorm or flat, however it’ll turn out. The camera is not so urgent either, as the compact HP isn’t doing that bad a job (though the video quality is crap), but i really want to get myself something more serious, a cheap dslr or something along that line, with which i could make really good photos. Any idea which one would be the best for a (nearly) beginner like myself?

The electronic dictionary is pretty important, one with a touchpad, so that i can draw kanji on it i see and don’t know. That would be very useful to figure out what the signs or texts actually say, at least until i learn all the 1945 common kanji. And a guitar… Well. Many of you who know me for a long time may smile at this… But it would be fun to learn that as well. Knowing the way to make or at least to play good music would be great… And it brings people together somehow. That’s on my mind nowadays.


馬鹿鳥

Remember that bird in the Naruto anime that always flies in the background crying out “baka, baka!” whenever everyone’s favourite main character is even more stupid than usual? Well. There’s indeed such a bird, and it’s always around the dorm. I almost fell of the chair laughing when i heard that very same “baka, baka!” cry as in the anime.


How I met your Skins

Yesterday evening i watched an episode of Skins (season 3) and a couple of the first season of How I met your mother. There were so striking similarities to a few events in my life that i couldn’t help but write them down here. (Please don’t read forth if you haven’t seen Skins s3e8 and How I met your mother s1e12-18 and don’t want to be spoiled. Please don’t read if you were playing a great role in my private life in the past time and don’t want to read about yourself.)


Homeless

Every hungarian blogger seems to be a “cat person” except for me… (though Mefi‘s Kázmér indeed rocks.)

Street Survivors

Title: Street Survivors
Creator `gilad


Lost in Translation, still version

I so much want to see that movie, but couldn’t yet manage to. The important thing is that before Japan.

Lost in Translation

Title: Lost in Translation
Creator: `gilad