Today I have the day off, and it’s off again to Shibuya to pick up my new visa. I have my fingers crossed, hoping that it’s going to be for more than a year this time. It’s a nice sunny day today, so it’s also a good excuse to go out and take come pics. Today’s picture (030228) is of a window that I can see from the back of my apartment. The blue window from the other day is right next to it.
Yesterday I had to give some demonstration classes, which is when I give a class to potential students, with all their mothers present. You have to sell the product (the language school I work for), so there is a bit of pressure to do well, and it’s usually not something I really enjoy doing. But for some reason, the two classes I gave yesterday ended up being really fun, and the mothers also seemed to be enjoying themselves. The first class had kids from 3 (2 years and 10 months to be exact) to 5, and they were great.
THE TWO TOWERS finally started playing in Japan last weekend, and I was simply blown away. Wow. Great entertainement. Can’t wait to have the DVD to watch over and over again.
Still listening a lot to all those new albums that were released this week. Of the three, Sketch Show’s TRONICA has become my favorite. I absolutely love Sketch Show’s sound, and it’s something that not many people are doing right now (or at least not that I’m aware of).
For the past 2 weeks I’ve been studying at least 2 hours a day of Japanese. I’m still going strong. I’m about to finish my first kanji textbook, and so I’ll probably buy the second one today. Gotta keep going at this pace if I want to see a noticeable improvement in my Japanese sometime soon. I want to pass the level 2 Japanese proficiency test by the end of the year (level 1 is the highest grade). Wish me luck.
Category: General
Wow, good luck for 2-kyuu (Japanese level 2)! I’m still struggling with my 3-kyuu textbook but I must admit that it’s been a while sinve I’ve studied as hard as you have been lately.
ganbatte!
I know level 2 is not easy, but I’d rather set myself a challenging goal. And the studying is going nicely. I just had to find the motivation to really stick it out, and spend a decent amount of time daily. I think that’s the only way that you’ll be able to see an improvement, especially for the kanji. It’s hard, but I’m starting to feel really bad that I’ve now lived here 4 years (it became 4 years last week) and I still am not comfortable with the language. It’s pure laziness on my part, and it’s something I had to address. I know I’m capable of a lot more than what I’ve done up to now, so it’s just a matter of not forgetting that and forging on.
i’m going to have to get a shop here to special order that sketch show ep. i really liked the audio sponge release. i like it cause it’s electronic without falling into techno cliches. or even really sounding like techno for that matter.
Place a special order at Patrick’s Tokyo Record Hunting Service. He might even be able to find it used.
http://www.tokyorecohan.com
And Tokyo Recohan gets the stuff to you much faster than any other shop does*. :)
One of my clients in Europe already received his copy of “Tronika” from me, even though it came out less than a week ago.
(* once it’s found of course, in the case of special requests)
Tokyo Recohan is even better: it’s SO good Patrick even found me a copy of “Tronika” in my favourite record shop in Amsterdam !!
I love this cd, I’m playing it all the time :-)
http://home.wanadoo.nl/cmgs/Shibuya/cdpaginas/sketchshowtronika.html
TRONIKA is indeed a great record. Right now I’m all over the new compilation AUDIO SPONGE 1, which was compiled by Sketch Show.