久し振りだな～

Commence the Weeaboonese! ( @ ⌓ @) i.e.
- Begin Rant -


Last semester I tried teaching a once a week Japanese class. Mainly just to skill up my teaching skills. Secondarily to promote the Japanese language and culture at UTEP. It was going really well at first but some problems arose as a result of my approach:

• 1.  The class is too short. 

The class I took in undergrad was every day of the week for one hour and the class I had was only once a week for 2 hours. So I had less time to teach more information.

• 2. Its too much information at once. 

Its a lot of information to throw at someone but IF I wanted to complete the first half of the book in one semester the students would have to learn at the pace I set for us which means that students would have to study everyday on their own...

• 3. No one was studying at home.

The purpose of the class wasn't so much to teach people Japanese pace by pace so much as to teach you the foundation of Japanese grammar and vocabulary for the students to then go and build on. Unfortunately, people here are bad at studying and tend to not study even for their important classes.

• 4. Most of class was spent recapping which in turn made the class longer and made me fall behind in the syllabus and made my classes longer.

People have trouble enough staying awake, attentive, present even at a 1 hour class at this university and here I am asking them to stay almost 2 hours.

• 5. Its hard to keep the class motivated to attend class, participate in class, and study for quizzes/tests.

Its a free class so the motivator of "I paid for this so I should do it" is gone. Its not for a grade so the motivator of "I will flunk out of college if I fail this class" is gone.

-End Rant-

THIS TIME!
I've changed the pace of the class to be slower with more piece by piece teaching so we won't have as much information to cover. We will get through about a 4th of the textbook if we're lucky haha. Hopefully classes will be shorter as a result; probably ending around 6:30 instead of 7:30. I'm also just going to go ahead and assume the students don't study so with any luck the pace will be slow enough that they can remember all of the previous lesson or quick study before tests. Also I will give grades! Sure, there is no real consequence of getting a bad grade but I'm going to do it Asian education style and post the test results for everyone to see. The embarrassment of their grade being public and the effect of seeing the grade they're receiving on paper will hopefully be enough motivation to study at least a little. XD


P.S. I didn't initially think that the culture part of the class was going to benefit anyone until one guy in the class bowed to me like this

And I was like "the fuck was that?" and corrected the guy to bow like this.

Turns out every one thought that picture #1 was the ACTUAL way people bow to greet each other in Japan...everyone...not a single person knew otherwise. I mean people do bow like this but usually only in prayer or if they're a monk or martial artist or something. I realized that culture exposure even in classrooms is very important and so I will incorporate culture into my lectures as well as post interesting pieces onto the facebook page.

K-dramas are a gateway drug ( ³⌓³)

These days I've been watching a lot of Kdrama. Usually I alternate between watching only kdramas and watching only anime every few weeks but for most of this year I've been watching kdramas. Its weird.

I remember I would finish every anime I started even if I kinda didn't like it. Like with Clannad! Clannad is a slice of life anime but I thought it was an shonen type anime so I watched the whole first season, second season, movie and OVAs thinking that "something would happen" because to me slice of lifes are very VERY boring. In the end I still don't like Clannad and I wasted time watching the whole thing. I kept doing this until at one point I was complaining to my friend Bree about a terribad anime I was watching when she goes "If you don't like it then just stop watching it". Which of course is common sense but my wanting to know how the anime ended subconsciously overruled how bored/silly I thought the anime was. Since then I've been kind of half watching animes. In almost every anime there's those few slow or filler episodes in the middle so before where I would have watched them, I just stop watching the anime entirely.

Kdramas for some reason are not like that for me luckily haha. I think I'll have to "force" myself to go on an anime binge soon. There's a lot of characters on r/anime and at the recent anime cons I went to that I don't recognize at all. I'll probably start with Tokyo Ghoul and Shokugeki no Souma since I've heard good things about them.

I want to be with you but I also want to be with Netflix

WHOOO Road Trip Time to SAN JAPAN 2015!! Only 2 more days of this shitty internship in the way (x __ x)

Ahh. I don't really want to do the driving part since its going to be 8 hours. I drink 5 hour energy to stay awake though. (￣◇￣;) s--should be fine....
No jk I'm pretty good at driving long distances. I've got thissss ( •̀ᄇ• ́)ﻭ

I washed my car this weekend to get it nice and ready for the trip. I forgot to vacuum the trunk though so there's still quite a bit of sand in there from when I went to White Sands. I am admittedly a little worried about all the weight in the car. Its only a V4 engine and....one of the people I'm taking is pretty heavy. The other I've never met and she might be heavy too
( ･᷄ ︵･᷅ )ｼ hmm...
BUT the passengers are the ones paying for gas so it won't really be much more cost for me than the miles I'd be putting on the car. The hotel is free too and I am going to be fed haha.

While I was washing my car my little sister came home from tennis practice. She came back outside sat on a skateboard next to the dog in the shade watching Scooby Doo. When I asked her why she was outside watching Netflix she replied "I want to be with you but I also want to be with Netflix". lol (ᗒᗨᗕ)

P.S. The organizer people apparently "okay"ed wearing cosplay while volunteering but now its too late for me to make one so I'll be doing a custom character for half of it and the other half of the time I'll be DANBOORU GUNDAM!!

I'll also be giving out free ice pops because the temperature is supposed to reach into the 100s and as a volunteer I should be concerned with the safety of the attendees. (*＾v＾*)

Haha...am I quitter?

Internships are supposed to be about exploring a field you want to go in and gaining some valuable guidance from a senior in that field. Sometimes those professionals are really nice and friendly and do as much as they can to help you...other times well, no one really wants to tell those stories.
Imagine you're learning how to swim would you prefer a teacher who gives you arm floaties and gently shows you how to float on your back in the shallow water? Or one who pops your floaties and tosses you into the deep end?

I got the latter type of supervisor... so I decided.

(ﾉ^ヮ^)ﾉ*:・ﾟ✧Fuck this shit.  

All I've really learned from this internship is that I never NEVER never want to work in local government. There so much back and forth between departments, red tape and in general everyone with an once of power is on edge about budgeting. Please tell me this isn't what the corporate world is like. I had no idea this internship would be so bad but a week in I was already getting some queues.

Anyway, I've given my notice as per my contract for the end of next week. Its honestly one of the best feelings in the world to stop doing something you hate. I've wanted out since around week 3. How I managed to push myself to continue until this point is amazing. I had been going on road trips and weekend adventures with my friend from undergrad who is interning in a city 4 hours away. I think its that "light at the end of the tunnel" that really helped me get through the week. That and I started watching Running Man on Wednesdays instead of on the weekends.

Another reason I wanted to end it early is because I'm going to go visit my twin in San Francisco. She is interning there and I have been wanting to visit, see silicon valley, go to a cat cafe (despite my allergy), etc. We're going to drive down to Los Angeles for the weekend and go see the LCS quarter finals o(≧∇≦o)

I can't wait to meet TSM and Team Liquid <3

P.S. I don't think you can call it quitting when it increases your quality of life. I'm much better off not being in that place.

I really need to learn to actually speak Spanish.

I have one month left of my summer internship and since week one the only thing I've wanted to do was quit. I absolutely hate working at this place. I feel like its sucking the life out of me. (つ﹏<)･ﾟ｡

I'm not sure why I hate it so much. Its relatively easy its just my stress level is really high from working there. I've never dealt with this much stress before and its eating away at me. I had a job before that I needed to quit. It in Illinois which is a right to work state. I gave a one week notice but not everyone seemed to have understood I wasn't coming back until the last day. I simply left. For this internship I have to give 5 days notice. I imagine after giving notice, my supervisor will not give me a good recommendation. What I don't get is why I am getting a recommendation from her at all.

She mentioned that one of my final tasks would be basically to write my own letter of recommendation and that she would sign it. I didn't and still don't really want one from her even after she mentioned it. I think its a little fucked up that I'd write my own recommendation letter....I mean what the fuck do I know about writing them? And the point isnt for me to recommend myself its for her to express her thoughts about me.

Either way I really REALLY really want to give my notice and leave August 8th. I wonder if she'll take it well. Honestly I'm not sure how to break it to her. God I wish I knew what to say..... Should I fake that my grandmother is dying? Its not like I'll ever see my supervisor again anyways. (｡•́︿•̀｡)

P.S. I was thinking today that I really need to put more effort into speaking Spanish. I know how to write and type in Spanish well enough but I have no confidence in speaking it. Hell I had never spoken to my own grandmother (who only speaks Spanish) until this summer when she visited for a few days. And even then it was half broken because I didn't have the time to think about what I wanted to say....Literally everyone in El Paso speaks Spanish. I had a bit of culture shock when I first came over because so many people speak Spanish. I came to resent it for a while. Thinking things like "why do they talk to me in Spanish? This isn't Mexico, it's the USA. We speak English here" type things. Thats not a very good way to view the world. I should embrace the culture and learn to speak Spanish better while I have the chance. So that's what I've resolved to do. I'm going to join a club and try speaking mostly Spanish around town. ( •̀ᄇ• ́)ﻭ✧

P.P.S. What got me thinking about all this Spanish business was a picture from reddit haha

I fucking hate doing laundry.

I haven't posted in a while as a result. Not that anyone is following me but I kind of like talking like this. I have had a written diary before thought.
I kept it all of about a week. (￣◇￣;)....

Iirc there was something about a pecan pie in that entry as well. (Don't judge me because that's the only thing I remember （< ～<）)

Anyways, I liked reading the posts I made earlier. Got me feeling all nostalgic about my undergrad years. I really miss my old friends and the big school feel. My school now is small and my class is only about 10 people big.

Right now its summer. I just finished my first year of grad school. I'm getting an MBA with a focus in International Business. Why an MBA? My dream is to start a network of language schools around Japan! Focusing on preparation for college in the USA probably. I need to know business to get that going but thus far I can't help but feel like what I'm learning isn't much related to my end goal. I plan on being more active next semester! I just have to figure out how to network first.

Everyone says there is nothing in El Paso but theres so many people here! Surely there can't be nothing.... That applies to both my education and my personal life.

I've been trying to find people to hang out with since I first got here. My sister has a ton of friends from class. I try too but my classmates kind of suck. They're so boring. Their personalities are made up of alcohol and football. I can't seem to find anyone at all that clicks with me... I'll keep trying though!

There is much more on my mind but this post is kind of long already.
I'll keep coming back here and writing though!! ( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ


P.S. I only remembered this blog because I was thinking about writing a blog of my thoughts but they would probably be a bunch of one liners like "I fucking hate doing laundry" instead. (*cough* which is actually what I came to write since I'm folding a month's worth of laundry（< ～<）) On that note, I think I'll use the post title box for my one liner thoughts. Sooo disclaimer: my actual post will have nothing to do with the title most of the time. ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ