New home

h'ola! i have a new home! please change to http://dirtsideoff.wordpress.com/
thank you for visiting!. :)

なにかしているんだ。。。

まああ、いまからなにかしているんじゃないよ。つまらないねええ！！！

Heard from a friend recently that should I pass JLPT Level 2, I could get a work as an administrator with translation job for about SGD3500 a month. I said wow to that. Now that's a goal worthy of achieving don't you think?

Now, I'm waiting to take my JLPT Level 3, which by my reckoning is a tad easier. Can't get a decent job at a Japanese company where they can send you oversea, but it does help me a bit in opening up doors previously left closed. Now I can go to Japan and relatively understand what most people talk about...that is if I ever get to practice my listening skills...

To that end, I will try to insert a few sentences of Japanese phrases into my blog writing so as to familiarize, and hopefully ingrain the speech patterns into my head, so that when I do open my mouth to spout some nonsense, it'll be useful nonsense.

Which reminds me, 日本語の勉強するだ、今から始めて！！

たいへんですね！

Wow! Tonight's test is super hard!

Let's see. The total point for the school is 350 points for which the passing point is 175. On Tuesday, the comprehension has a 100 point weightage, tonight's test has 150 points for listening, dictation and kanji, this Sunday will see a 50 points oral, and finally on next Tuesday, another 50 points essay writing.

My expected points so far would be around 70 points from the comprehension paper that I am relatively sure of. If want to be really sure, then the points are only 60. From the listening part, from 150 points, I have lost around 15 points. So now, I have a grand total of let's see now, 135+60=...えっと。。。195!

Holy shit! I passed already! やった！！！

Now all I have to do is to ace my oral and essay, so i can stay in the top 30! Okay, maybe top 50! LOL!

Ohh, so tired!

Wah, today I am superman...

Not only do I have to study for my Japanese lesson's exam tomorrow, I got another exam on my plate in the morning! The bad part is, the morning exam has a course note that is 2 inches thick! Argghh!! My eyes!

For good or for bad, I am still not studying...I don't know why. No mood perhaps? Or some other thing...Need psychoanalysis to determine why the hell am I so lazy. LOL!

Oh, by the way, how long does it take to lose 6 kilos? Never! LOL! Why? Because you will put on 4 kilos due to muscle buildup, so in effect, you only lose 2 kilos. Hehehe...now...to look for something to help me gain muscle mass...running perhaps? Maybe some other ... "invigorating" exercise!

Heh heh heh!

Slow light?

Can light be slowed down enough for it to be useful in computing? Is it a need? Why the answer is yes and yes!

This is what Wikipedia said:

Researchers at UC Berkeley slowed the speed of light traveling through a semiconductor to 6 miles per second in 2004. This was in an effort to develop computers that will use only a fraction of the energy of today's machines.[1]

In 2005, IBM created a microchip that can slow down light, claiming that its light-slowing device is the first to be fashioned out of fairly standard materials, potentially paving the way toward commercial adoption.[2]

Well...I'd say that's something. Here's another one.

Hmm...but I got a question. why does the light speed up after it's being slowed down? How does the light sped up after it's been slowed down? What makes it speed up again? Did it really slow down? Or was it just our inaccurate instruments that erroneously told us that it is slowed? Did the light really slowed or did it just got blocked, bounced off into our eyes to be perceived, and another photon of light takes its place on the line? How do they know it's even the same photon of light? How do they measure they really only released only one photon?

Well...sorry for being a pain the the arse questioning machine...but I think they are valid, no?

しけん！

なんと！きょうはしけんをしまたね！！！
Oh, shitshitshitshitshitshit! 2 minutes after coming out of the exam room, and i went, "Oh shitshitshit! Shouldn't that be に instead of と???" Arghhh! Checked the notes, really really shouldn't have done that, and found out to my horror, it was supposed to be に!!! ARGHHHH!!! 3 points down the drain. :(

This exam was tougher and trickier than I thought. きょうねんしけんはさいきんしけんよりかんたんですね。。。

やっぱり。。。こんどしけんはかならずたいへんだけど。。。

じゃあ。。。みんなさん。。。しぬな！

がんばって！

ファイトーOH!!

Catch-22

Sometime ago some people asked me "How I get to become so good with the English Language." I answered him, "Because I read a lot!"

Now, I am learning a new language, one with the reputation of being both difficult and popular, Japanese. In both grammar and usage, I indeed find it very hard. "Hard as in how?" "If it's so hard, why didn't I just improve it like how I did for my English?" my detractors said.

Wish it were that simple. Allow me to explain. In order to improve my Japanese skills, I first need to read more. But in order to do that, I first need to understand more of what I read, and for that to happen, I need to understand the text. But before I can even begun to understand them, I need to know how to read them. To know how to read them, I need to be exposed to their usage everyday, but for that to even start to happen, I need to read which, unfortunately is back at the initial problem that I had.

Catch-22.

However, there is a way to break out of the circle. Through several years of slow, steady learning accompanied by light reading. First, it is imperative that I know how to read, especially kanji, the hardest of the three Japanese scripts. Only after adequately mastering kanji can I be reasonably capable of reading full Japanese texts.

Ahhh, when will I be able to both read, write and converse fluently in Japanese, I wonder...?

Decisions decisions!

これ。みて！
This camera, Nikon D200, the veritable successor of the good D100, and I have got my sights on this one after I found out Nikon D80's specifications don't differ much. For one thing, it has a lot of specs that I would expect to see in my first DSLR. But why would I want to buy a DSLR that is anything but entry level like the Nikon D50? Hmmm...must be the trait I inherit from my computer buying mind; buy the best you can afford now, and it will last you a long time until the next upgrade. Sure, I could use an entry level camera first, but you know, it just doesn't satisfy the gadget freak in me.

...

BUT! Wait-a-minute! What's this I see over at the Canon camp?
OMG! The Canon DSLR-40D!! Heck, If I think Nikon D200 is good, wait till you see the specs of this baby! It simply blows the D200 away! Arghh! My hands are itching to hold it, test it, caress it, and maybe buy it! Just...need...to...test...!

Photography

Recently, as in several days ago, my Casio Exilim EX-Z110 decided to kill itself and give me alot of trouble. Okay, so it isn't exactly dead yet, more like mutilated and going blind. Hahaha!!!

Anyway, I asked my friends here in Singapore, those photography nut-cases, about buying a digital SLR, and poof, they gave me a slew of advice about what and what-not to get. After several days of combing through the reading list, and trolling the Internet photography forums for buying tips, as well as product comparisons, I've come to a reasonable knowledge of what to get. Problem is, it's expensive as hell, and like hell, it's a hot item.

Now my dilemma is, to buy or not to buy. Look at the thing. Nikon D80. My friend has one. Another also brought one, albeit 2nd hand, and after I looked at the specifications, and compare it with it's higher spec-ed cousin, D200, and their attendant price difference, I feeling more and more like having this D80 than the D200.

What do you think?