composition

こんにちは。はじめまして。わたしのなまえはジェラミーです。にじゅうさいです。わたしはコロンビア大学のがくせいです。にねんせいです。せんこうはしゅうきょうです。いまにほんごをべんきょうします。アメリカじんですとナイジェリアじんです。わたしのがっこうはスイスのジェネーブです。わたしはきょねんにほんのとうきょうときょうとにきました。にほんはきれいくにです。ほんとあにめをよむのがすきです。かくのもすきです。これからおせわになります。どうぞよろしく。

rambling...

Unfortunately I don't have much to write about this week soo I'm just going to talk about food. It's definitely more fun than talking about midterms and papers anyway...

I discovered a little Japanese restaurant close to campus a couple of weeks ago, but I've only been back once since then. I had forgotten how much I love Japanese food! I had the most amazing chicken and avocado salad ever. We haven't learnt much food vocabulary yet, so I don't know how to say that in Japanese. I think chicken is "toriniku," but I could have made that up. I figure names of foods in Japanese are useful things to know, especially if I plan to eat at Japanese restaurants more often. I can imagine myself trying to translate the menu, even if everything is already translated for me. It's always fun to try it yourself and see how close (or far) you get to actually figuring out what you're about to order.

I figure I should try to type in hiragana as much as I can, but I had a little trouble figuring out how to set my computer to hiragana. I'll work on it again this weekend when I have time...

oops...

I forgot to write on my blog last weekend! That should be taken as a sign of how busy things are starting to get...and that I'm getting old and forgetful...

Our compositions were due on Tuesday, so we can probably expect comments from Sato-sensei today. I thought mine was too short (especially after seeing how long my group members' compositions were), but I just didn't know how to say many of the things I wanted to. I doubt that it's competition-winning material, but the effort involved in writing a composition (of ANY length) entirely in hiragana was much more important to the learning process. Sato-sensei was also reluctant to answer all of my many questions about what I could and couldn't say, and that encouraged me to think for myself. Hopefully I won't find out today that thinking isn't one of my strong points...

I wonder if maybe I should have been more creative and just made up things about myself for my composition. It would certainly make it more exciting to "perform" in front of people if it had all kinds of crazy and outlandish facts in it...

SMAP

I looked up SMAP on wikipedia, just because I was curious. The groups members are in their mid-30's now, which surprised me. Western boy bands never last that long (not that I'm complaining). Plus, Sato-sensei didn't seem to have much confidence in their singing abilities. Oh, well - they must be doing something right...

chigai!

This week, while I was skimming the romanized translation of the textbook, I saw the word "chigai," and that it meant "you're wrong." We also learnt it in class the next day. As I mentioned in my last posting, I'm a fan of anime, especially the ones with psychological or philosophical themes. Most of the time, there's a scene, usually around the climax, where the main character will be confronted with someone who reveals secrets about him/her that he/she would rather not admit. That's where the word "chigai" also comes up, usually despserately screamed by the unfortunate character. I had an idea of what the word meant from the english subtitles, but it's still interesting to learn the real meanings of words I've heard before (especially words that seem to have such dramatic implications!) Yes, I know I'm a geek...at least, I'm having fun! :-)