2008年4月25日金曜日

今学き

私は今学きはむずかしくて、たのしいと思います。たくさんのしゅくだいをしたり、友だちとおもしろいエベントに行ったりしました。たとえば、ワッシントンDCにさくらまつりに行きました。今日本語一年生のフィナルプロジェクトをしなくちゃいけません。

So far, we've worked really hard together to get it done for Monday. We decided to include video clips instead of just using still photos, so we've spent a lot of time filming and editing. Yesterday, honya-chan and me finished editing the final copy and recorded our vocal parts. I gave Andreano the CDs with the audio and the edited photos this morning, and he's going to finish dropping the audio and the still shots into the movie we have this weekend.

It's been really great working with honya-chan and Andreano - they're both very determined and want to get things done early. Plus, Andreano has access to all the good equipment that the newspaper here uses, so that's been really nice.

Filming in the car, however, was a little interesting. I think we have on film someone almost getting hit by a car - silly pedestrians - but that's not good footage to use for encouraging people to come here. (The pedestrian actually didn't get hit - though he did punch the passing car - and it wasn't us that almsot hit him. Honest.

I'm looking forward to presenting this, because it's going to be a nice relaxed class presentation where we actually get to see our final project. That, and it'll be the first time that honya-chan and I get to see the finished thing - so there might be some suprises.

The blog this semester has also been rather interesting. I feel like it's been hard commenting on classmates' blogs at times because everyone's busy so sometimes there aren't new entries to comment on. I also felt strange at times looking at other's blogs, especially if we knew structures they didn't and vice-versa.

I've enjoyed having the confidence boost of finding out that, unlike first semester, I can now pretty much write a real entry in Japanese. Sure, it's a little silly most of the time, but it's fun, too. It's also great to be able to comment and receive comments in different languages, because then you know that you're being understood whether its correct grammar or not. I suppose the more relaxed setting of the blog helps, too. There's more pressure to actually try and do things than there is to just get it done right and be safe.

Granted, at the same time, I know we're all making mistakes in our writing and that's difficult if they aren't caught. It's easy to just fall into the habit of using the wrong thing, and then it's difficult to break that habit. So, hopefully, none of us are doing things like that consistantly.

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A Kappa Explanation

I'm sure by now some people are confused as to the images I've chosen and the video clip below. The clip below, in case you can't read the rather blurred kanji, is from the anime Gensomaden Saiyuki by Kazuya Minekura. The opening isn't as full of pretty fluorishes and whatnot like the actual episodes are.

Why am I explaining this, you may ask. Well, it all has to do with the kappa nickname that I tend to use - in case you didn't figure the kappa part out by now from the signature on the left. Kappa was the term incorrectly assigned to the Saiyuki character in the original Journey to the West series, Sha Gojyo. Gojyo was a sand demon in the original Buddhist myth about a Sanzo priest traveling to India to meet the Buddha. A kappa, however, is a water demon whose favorite food is cucmbers and who carry water dishes on their heads. This is not Minekura's Gojyo, either.

Still lost? That's good - I'm not there yet. In Kazuya Minekura's version, which is far more of an action and personal discovery piece where the four main characters (five if you count Hakuryuu the dragon who can turn into a Jeep) are trying to prevent Gyumaoh, the Demon King, from being reborn, than a religious treatise (though there are a lot of philosophical aspects and debates buried within it), Sha Gojyo is actually half kappa. You can tell he's not human or demon from his red hair and red eyes. I bet now you know who he is in the clip below.

I got the nickname Kappa from Minekura-san's Gensomaden Saiyuki series, prescribed by a group of friends that seems to perpetuate it regardless of who I'm around - it's actually migrated with me past highschool. Gojyo's personality has some rugged edges, though he's really a big brother type beyond that. He's also the fair bit of a romantic, once you get past the playboy aspect. While there are plenty of differences between myself and Gojyo (mainly the whole he's a guy and I'm not aspect), the name persists.

So, longer than anyone cares, this is your kappa signing off.

Gensomaden Saiyuki