lol

FUJI

This is pretty bad ass. Taking that I was driving in my car when I saw it. And the picture is from my phone!

Finally!

Finally!Finally!Finally!Finally!Finally!Finally!Finally!

There's waves.

The week before there was nothing.

People were still out there

Starting this Monday, there's been ok waves

Yesterday there was swells, but they were inconsistant. Waist high, but the wait between was anywhere from 15-20.

But be happy with anything, because no waves is the norm

Today the waves were GREAT, and are getting better.

I'm trying to go after work, and tomorrow morning!!!

Sadly the last few weeks I haven't had much spare time to study. Learning Japanese was the number one goal, but it's been pushed back because of College. Thanks school!

Deck Statistics
Deck created: 1.3 years ago
Total number of cards: 3617
Total number of facts: 1820

Card Maturity
Mature cards: 1427 (39.5%)
Young cards: 418 (11.6%)
Unseen cards: 1772 (49.0%)
Average interval: 103.2 days

Card State
Active cards: 3528 (97.5%)
Inactive cards: 0 (0.0%)
Suspended cards: 89 (2.5%)

Correct Answers
Mature cards: 94.5% (2140 of 2265)
Young cards: 61.3% (9242 of 15083)
First-seen cards: 46.2% (959 of 2076)

Average Reviews
Deck life
138.2 cards/day
In next week
64.6 cards/day
In next month
26.8 cards/day
In last week
57.0 cards/day
In last month
63.5 cards/day


Average Added
Deck life
7.5/day, 223.7/mon
In last week
7 (1.0/day)
In last month
1269 (42.3/day)


Average New Seen
In last week
76 (10.9/day)
In last month
223 (7.4/day)


Card Ease
Lowest factor: 1.3x
Average factor: 2.2x
Highest factor: 2.8x

Kanji statistics
The 1845 seen cards in this deck contain:
680 total unique kanji.
Old Jouyou: 652 of 1945 (33.5%).
New Jouyou: 16 of 191 (8.4%).
Jinmeiyou (reg): 9 of 645 (1.4%).
Jinmeiyou (var): 0 of 145 (0.0%).
3 non-jouyou kanji.
Jouyou levels:
Grade 1: 65 of 80 (81.2%).
Grade 2: 130 of 160 (81.2%).
Grade 3: 131 of 200 (65.5%).
Grade 4: 94 of 200 (47.0%).
Grade 5: 63 of 185 (34.1%).
Grade 6: 54 of 181 (29.8%).
JuniorHS: 115 of 939 (12.2%).

This movie will be bad ass. Check out the vid. It's been approved as healthy

The scary thing to happen in Japan, is to have your car break down while you are parked at a toll meter.

This happened to me the other day. I was surfing and car broke down. FML. I was wet, it was freezing and 9 A.M.

I put my board in my car.

Locked everything up.

And hiked my ass to the nearest train station that was a 40 minute walk away.

Mind you I was in my wet suit

Dripping down the road.

I got on the train, tired and wet.

Japanese people stared at me

After about 15 minutes I had a puddle around my feet, trailing down the ground on the train.

When I got to my stop, I had to walk another 30 minutes to my apartment to call a tow.

I didn't know the name of the beach. (Yay for my Japanese) And had to give the directions to the tow trunk

When I made it back to the car, the toll was 6300 yin. The tow was another 5000.

Getting my car unstuck= roughly $123.00
Soaking up a train and ruining some salaryman's suit = $20
Getting called scuba steve by the tow man= priceless

For somethings there's mastercard

later

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Questions!

1. How many facts (production and recognition are only 1 fact) do you have in your SRS not including RTK?
1449

2. What sentences have you and are you putting into your SRS?
The sentences mostly come from anywhere. For the most part it's Manga and Dictionaries. Lately I've been pulling from iknow, gotta love the visuals and sound!

3. Do you do production (audio/hiragana to kanji) and/or recognition (kanji to reaning) or something else? Is there an order (eg production and then recognition)?
I better with recognition over production, but I'm trying to get it balanced out. I don't have a particular order either

4. Do you use any kind of special techniques when you review an item with your SRS? eg. dictation, role playing etc.
I got a really wicked pen that writes like a paint brush, but no role playing. I'll tell people to leave me alone or go to Starbucks

5. How many cards on average do you add to your deck per day? Or if life is getting in the way of this, once things settle down how many do you intend to add per day?
The goal is 20 a day, but it averages about 8 a day. I believe it's really hit or miss. some days I'll put in 40, someday 1, most days 10.

6. How much exposure (immersion) to Japanese do you get (or intend to get) on average each day or week? In what form?
My immersion is high. I live in Japan and am constantly reminded that I do not speak Japanese. In the mornings when coming to work and going I get at least 4 of none stop Japanese. At work I'll study whenever I get the chance. If staying in Tokyo, I have Japanese in my face all night long. another 4 hours. I don't speak it though. So In a day I get about 8 hours.

7. Describe your level including any strengths and weaknesses.
My strengths are reading. i can read manga. understanding is different I'll understand about 90% of manga. I'm now beginning to start reading books, and newspapers. My listening and comprehension has grown 100% in the last year. My handwriting and reading speed is good too. My biggest weakness is speaking. I speak like an English person speaking Japanese, but I pronounce my words really well.

8. Are you satisfied with your progress and the techniques you are using?
Yes and no. I'm satisfied that I have made progress, but I feel like it wasn't fast enough, or in the time I've been using I could have been better if I had the same tools that I have now at the beginning.

9. Are you satisfied with your level?
No, I've got a long way to go.

10. How far do you want to go with Japanese?
I want to reach natural fluency

11. How confident are you of getting there?
No doubt

12. From when you started RTK, aside from your process evolving bit by bit, are there any major things you would do again differently if you could?
I would have started with iknow, having a ds dictionary, and all the manga I have. but really this is all a process. And it's easy to say where I am now, that I wish I had this or had done that. Really If my future self said to my past self, " You should do it this way" I would have been to stubborn

I did it! It took a year of music, video, movies, and television. The crap I've had to shift through. If I have to hear another cute dog story, I'll get in the business of hurting cute dogs. (I'm a cat person anyway) But I've finally found something in each form to occupy my day-to-day life. When I started the immersion project it was difficult. Building it up took both time and research. Most of what floats to the top is just junk. Pushed by people with alot of money. And digging my way through horrible music, books, movies, television programs, I have finally found entertaining substance. Here's music I can not only recommend to others. It's all thanks to Yoshika and her brother, and our friends. Some loaned cds, some stolen, some blue. anyway here's three of the lesser known bands. Check them out and let me know what you think

Chara:
This girl's voice is her trademark. It's sweet and pulls you in to a trance. Her music is POP but not the bubbly crap being poured out by most J-pop artist. Her music has been hosted on commercials for children and can be put on as background to liven up a scene. My favorite song of hers is 70%-夕暮れのうた. One reason I like her is she's a real artist. Her music stands out and her music videos are artistic(not in the retarded way). I'm seeing her this summer!

Midicronica:
A really cool funky band. They are a bit like a rip/slim meets nujabes. The lyrics don't make sense, but they stand out with the hip hop flow. They made their debut with Samurai Champloo with San Fransisco. To bad only one CD has come out. It's a classic

Lastly for today at least

Sherbets: <---Japanese link A rock band. And it reminds me of something from the 1999's with their gutair solo's and the lead singer screaming randomn sounds into the microphone. They still make music today, but it can be quite difficult to find any of their music. They still play in live band houses today!. Any way with loud music, strange lyrics I wonder if they are on drugs.