renewal

Hi everyone!
Long time no write on this blog.

The last time I pressed Publish, I was starting my 6-month study abroad in Japan. A long time has passed since I came back and a lot has changed. Well, yes and no.

On a professional side, I no longer mark “student” as my occupation. I have joined the workforce now working from Monday to Friday (mainly). Having a new full-time job took me a while to get used to. I couldn’t stand looking at my own computer after looking at one all day!

On a personal side, I think a part that did not change is my love for the Japanese language! However, my energy level has not been the same and studying languages as much as I wish to has been difficult.

As many of you know, the pandemic is still on-going in America. I have been working from home since March. For a while, my routine was sleep and work. I was seeing every event being cancelled one after the other. Now, they are talking about a second wave coming along the flu season. Future seems a bit depressing at the moment. They are talking about a new reality. I guess I don’t know how to fit into this new world.

To help distracted my mind from the constantly rising numbers, I wanted to study Japanese to boost up my level. Like many, I tried to see it as an opportunity to have more time for my personal projects. But, I guess my accountability requires external force. I bought the 日本語総まとめ N3 series a while back and I am taking way more than the number of weeks indicated haha

Instead, I took a Japanese writing course during the summer. I was really nice to have a project other than work and Zelda (game I am still not done with :S). I really liked the course and spend so much time writing the little texts. Now, I know particules are my worst enemy 😦

When the course was done, I almost had a wave of anxiety thinking I was back to only having work to occupy my mind. So, I registered to a Korean online course on a whip.

I wish I could self-study with all the books have I accumulated over the years. But, in the few classes I atttended, I have learned more than since I mentionned wanting to learn Korean. I have a few more Japanese classes starting in September.

For a long time in a while, I am looking forward for the next weeks to come.

Is this a comeback? I don’t know. But, I hope finally commiting to invest more time to my language learning will help me boost my lost creativity 🙂

Condensed milk March and April

Hello,

Sorry for disappearing last month. My mind was focused on school with the last assignments to hand in and with final exams. So, writing for the blog was not my priority. I want to take a moment to write my highlights for the months of March and April. Without further ado, the highlights of March and April!

Our winter was supposedly coming to an end, but the weather didn’t seem to bring spring. Even though spring was not coming, the weather seemed better with the visit of a friend from Japan. He came to visit Montreal with a friend for a couple of days. We had the chance to meet a few times and chat for a bit. Being social does lift the mood after such a somber winter.

Before coming, he asked me if I wanted something from Japan. First, I answered 何でもいい. Then, I read Shanna’s Japanese books haul and I got the bite for the NO.6 series. Maybe it is more than I can handle (and these are not the only Japanese books I have in my possession :S ) I guess 2015 will be my year of reading. Maybe, I’ll finish a book by the end of the year. Let’s stay positive on that!

Speaking of reading, I manage to read L’art d’écrire by Pierre Tisseyre. It was a book about getting tricks on how to write better and even publish a book one day. One of the tips was translating. Attempting to do write good translation forces you to analyse the source text and to understand how does the target language work to translate efficiently. Another one is reading a lot and this has also been suggested by my teachers. I am always getting a new author to read in a class.

I purchased more books than I usually do last month. But, they could be showed on a separate post ^^

Studying wise, school took over so not much language learning. But, I am still working on getting over this slump Still making slow progress on this.  Making slow progress on both languages and still working on mastering French a bit much.

I started to work on decluttering my environment with the KonMari method. I purchased the electronic version of her book and read quickly to get the concept of the method. I still need to give more time into the process to be completely done with my life cleaning. I noticed I have put myself on a shopping ban until I am done with the cleaning. I guess I need to assess what I have in my belongings before determining what I need.

That was the start of spring for me. I will work on posting my book haul next.

またね～

先年日本に行ったね～

時間がたつのが恐ろしく速い。