Ramblin' Times

Ok, I'm gonna write coz 1) I have a few hours to kill, 2) I haven't blogged in way too long 3) I feel like typing on a real keyboard coz I do it way too much on my iPad or iPhone where it's really annoying and unwieldy, despite how good it actually is for a phone and a tablet. It's been almost 5 months since I moved to Japan. That's a month short of half a year and just typing that blows my mind.

This time I'm not gonna write one of those ridiculous updates I write that are like extremely long and annoying to read, I'm sure. So instead I'm just gonna ramble for a bit with whatever comes to mind! Why, it might be even more annoying to read. XD

And here's an idea: I'll do it in a list-ish format. You know, like with bullet points but more freestyle coz it's my blog and I'll cry if I want to, or use freestyle bullet points.

- First thought to pop into my head: My hands are really quite cold as I type this. You see, it's about 7 degrees Celsius outside, which puts it at 45 degrees Fahrenheit. Pretty sure it's exactly that temperature inside. Sure, I could turn on the AC and make it a little warmer but I just don't feel like it right now. I'll just have to type even harder to get my hands warm!

- Game I'm playing right now: Well, not right now right now, obviously, but I started Final Fantasy XIII-2 on the 15th (exactly a week ago, how 'bout that?) and I'm enjoying it a lot. It's in Japanese and I'm oftentimes surprised with how much I'm able to follow the dialogue. That said, there's a lot of times where I'm like 'I have no idea what anybody just said. At all.' The dialogue is also entirely voiced so I can't do what I did for Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword - which was beautiful and wonderful and everybody should play it. What I did with Zelda, by the way, was translate every bit of dialogue I didn't understand. It was great practice and it was also possible because about 99% of the dialogue is done in the oldschool RPG style where you have to proceed it by pressing A or whatever.

- I turned on the AC.

- How's your Japanese? Wow, ok, I'm embarrassed to answer this question. I mean, it's bound to have improved in some way or another since I got here. There's some degree of immersion going on, after all! However, it's certainly not where I want it to be. While being fluent is my goal, I do realize it's something that's going to take longer than a year. It's also gonna take me actually practicing. It's surprisingly easy to go through the day using very little Japanese. The teachers I work with are able to speak English so I generally default to communicating with them in English. Also, I'm classically shy so I don't go out of my way too much to converse with the other teachers. Also, something really interesting happens when I speak Japanese. When I write, my Japanese is actually pretty passable! However, when I speak it, for some reason it's like my IQ drops by about 200 points - yes, it moves to the negatives - and my Japanese is magically limited to a beginner or lower level in terms of grammar and vocabulary. I don't know how or why this happens but it needs to stop because it's absurd and unfair!

- Here, read this: mspaintadventures.com No seriously, go and do it after you're done reading my thing. Like, right now, middle click that link or ctrl+click it or whatever you need to do to put it in a new tab for later on reading. Just start it coz it's not finished yet and it's really good and the archive is already hella long so it'll take you a while. It's super funny (a bit slow at first so take your time) and also really interesting. The dude's vocabulary is incredible, by the way. Warning: profanity.

- Oops, went to reddit and lost about an hour or something!

- This post is already so long! However, I think I succeeded in both making it shorter than one of those super long update posts and also not making it one of those posts. If you read through all this rambling and any of my other ramblings I've done in the past you have my utmost gratitude. I do wish I wrote more often but honestly I'm just at a loss for something good to write. I do love to write though and am happy to just ramble so if you enjoy my rambling then ok! If not then oh well, the internet's full of other things to read and also the world at large. Yay!