Demon Soul : Front cover

En français
As a NaNoWriMo winner I obtain the right to a free print of my novel "Demon Soul". After spending a long time writing it (NaNoWriMo, NaNoFiMo) and correcting it for the last few months. The written part is almost ready to be sent to the printer. However one crucial think is still missing and that's the front cover. I will maybe use some of the illustration presented in the "Demon Soul" blog post but I sure need a front cover. So last night as I was watching some more Japanese drama I started to draw and ended up with this first draft for my front cover. Please fill free to leave any useful comments to help me finalizing it.

About learning : Other people's questions

En français
I know that you would like to be able to learn something all the way and then when you are ready you go show of (speak a language, play the piano, read all those books or watch a movie without struggling....) whatever. I least that's what I want. I want to be able to learn whatever I want without having people on my back all the time questioning about : what I'm doing, what I'm learning, what I already know.... But I figure out that except if you are learning something secretly (difficult to hide the sound of your brand new guitar) that's impossible.

Normally, I'm just fine with questions. They ask me whatever they want and I answer more or less deeply. Trying not to get fights about methods (I had a major one before so I'm done with that and will let that guy being fluent by only using "Assimil" if he wants.)  So I can also get ride of people and their questions as soon as possible. But recently that has been going a lot on my nerves and I think I figured out why.
People have been asking if I understood things that I'm really trying hard to understand. The more effort you put on something the more touchy you get about it. Even your friend innocent question : "How much do you understand?" or "Do you understand it all?" tends to get really painful when you always have to answer "No".
Sometimes I really want to go : "No of course I don't that's brand new and I'm learning so $%#$^%."
Why? It's adding to the frustration I'm putting on myself (I know I should just go watch one more episode of "花より男子" to solve the problem :) ) for not knowing it all already and that's seriously not helping.

Now today someone asked me a different question which is probably the one frustrating me enough to write this all post. We were talking about something that I know way better that he does and after I answered his question with a perfectly fine and correct answer he went :
"Why don't you know?"
And that really killed me. I took it philosophically. Ok maybe I didn't explain clearly enough, maybe that's the language problem again so I explained again, nicely, slowly. And he looked at me as if I was talking nonsense and told me that he was going to find the answer by himself. The answer was just written in front of his nose.

I needed to do a lot of effort to learn English and to be understood, to achieve my native level.
Now, I'm doing it all over again in Japanese because I really want to. But if people dare to speak English to me and don't understand the answer even when I'm already speaking extremely slowly and using the most simple vocabulary I can think of. I want to yell. I don't mind repeating myself, I don't mind changing the words that's not the point.
The point is : don't look at me as if it was my fault if you don't understand after I did all that. In that situation, I'm the one with the knowledge and I won't do anymore efforts to be understood. Enough is enough. It's other people's turn. I worked for it enough already. At some point you have to separate what is your problem and what is other people problem. I guess that was today's lesson for me. Writing that, I'm not frustrated about the question anymore. I know what I know and I know what I don't. But I also learn that I have to say stop and to let the other people around deal with their lack of understanding. I can't be ashamed of my English level, I can't go hide it because some people around won't understand me. I worked too hard for it.

So next, what am I going to do about all the other questions that are going to come my way about everything I learn? Well I'm not to sure. I guess that also depends a lot on my mood at the particular moment when it's asked and who asks it and how.
But what I will do for sure is separate my own feelings about my knowledge and my own wish with the way people look at me. The extra pressure people want to put on you is absolutely not necessary. You're good enough at doing it for yourself. Don't let them take the position of the judge because they are more likely unable to hold it.

And other point. Generally the people who dare ask the worse and more painful questions are the one who are actually not doing anything themselves. Like the people who so really really really really want to do this and that but will never get started anyway because they are too old, or it's too difficult, or they don't have time or are busy or ...
Don't let people giving excuses put you down. You worth better than that, you started already, you are deep in it and you'll start tomorrow again. You're better and you're awesome nobody can take that away.

Japan : お台場 and 未来館

En français
I went back to お台場 (Odaiba) with some friends to visit 未来館 (Japan's National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation or future museum) which we didn't visit previously. We decided to visit the general exposition and to go to the temporary one called "the haunted house" as well.
That wasn't really scary, but I still jumped several time, more of surprise I guess or maybe because the guys were letting me go first. (I'm a warrior.) It was a bit like being in a horror movie and that was really cool. After we could read explanation about why we get afraid of those things.
Then we went upstairs to see the robotic section and we interacted with the robots and took some funny pictures. We saw several demonstrations of what the robots can do, especially Asimo. We also visited the astrophysics part and really enjoy the room simulating the detection of neutrinos.

There was also a part about DNA that I probably need to visit again as I didn't have time to enjoy it as much as I wanted. There is really a lot to do in this museum.
 Travel table of content    

Japan : Thai festival

En français
Just after Asakusa's festival, we were deciding to go home when one of my friend who is from Thailand told us that there was a Thai festival and that we should go there. And so we did. That was the occasion to taste some Thai fruit and soup and to see traditional costumes. The all day finished with a French and a Pakistani dinner. That was a really long day.

Travel table of content    

Japan : Asakusa's Sanja Matsuri festival

En français
Last week-end we went to the Asakusa's festival. On Saturday, the same day as the fish market and garden visit. I know that's a lot but if I stop doing  things I get sick... I didn't do much last week then guess what, I got sick. So I better run everywhere in Tokyo.
The Asakusa's Sanja Matsuri festival is one of the three main Tokyo's festivals and it's no need to say that it was crowed. We were first looking around waiting for the first pagoda to appear and them we followed one of them to the temple. We didn't see all of them maybe just nine or ten out of one hundred. That was impressive.

Travel table of content    

About learning : Those things you shouldn't care about...

En français
This post is I believe more specific to learning languages than the other posts in this series. I wanted to be general but I always tend to end up thinking in terms of language learning anyway.

When learning a language, there are a lot of things that traditional teaching tend to put in our way, like for example : grammar and rod memorization, penguin talk (I mean textbook version of the language)... I'm not going to tell you about how grammar doesn't exist here as it has already been done on ajatt probably in a better way than I could do it. So I will rather tell you about yesterday suddent discovery and how it made me think about a discussion I had with someone about a year ago about how babies learn.

Yesterday, I was having an improvised lunch with some people, mostly Chinese friends and I suddenly realized that there is no tons in Chinese. Which now gives you two options, either you think I'm crazy and walk away either you read how I came to that conclusion.

First I don't speak Chinese. I took some classes, I had friends teaching me words. I pick up words when people speak Chinese around me. At some points some of my friends even didn't bother to translate things anymore, but since that time, few years ago, I forgot a lot (lack of practice). Anyway one of my friend told me recently that I can understand 2% which I consider still better than nothing (for the moment). So yeah I have no authority to go around telling people that there is no tons in Chinese, but I'll still do it, just because I can.

So here is how it happened.
My friend was explaining the difference in meaning between two Chinese words apparently really close but for me they were sounding different, like really really different. Then we had the pronunciation practice to repeat the words. I know that's weird to do that during lunch time but we do that all the time, probably due to international environment. Normally I repeat and I don't get it right and people end up giving me the tons which doesn't make it always easier. This time I just got them both right. And I realized that I didn't try to figure out the tons before saying them. I just repeated what I heard. That seemed a lot easier actually. That also makes sense.
Do you think Chinese kids are wondering what tons the word has before saying it? No they don't. Just like I don't have to worry about the genders and cases when I'm speaking German because German people don't, of course with some words I still wonder but that's just because I didn't hear them enough. Ask my little cousin why he says "je suis" and not "je être" and he is going to have no clue what you are talking about.
To really speak a language you need to be more like a parrot that like a rule-learning-machine.

Which bring me back to my discussion with that guy about learning. He was telling me that baby learn "by trial and errors" and I was telling that they were learning "by exposure to things and repetitions". (You know which school I'm coming from.) At some points we asked to someone with a young kid, that's seemed to be the easy way out. He answered "by trials and error" because no matter how much he showed to his daughter that she had to push the bottom of the bottle up to get the liquid out she was never doing it. So we said "ok", and walked away.
But now I can say that the reason is not because she learn by trial and error the reason is because she was not yet used to the way her body and the liquid in the bottle move. I can look at my friend playing the piano forever. I will never play the same way as he does unless I sit there and hit the keys. By repeating and repeating the same song over and over again I will get there, because first I know what the song should sound like.
 Same for languages if I listen enough the sounds are going to come out right.

Japan : 浜離宮恩賜庭園 (Hamarikyu Gardens)

En français
After going to the fish market we went to 浜離宮恩賜庭園. There is a 301 year-old pin tree there. That makes people laugh when I precised 301 instead of 300 but that's still true. We walked around and climbed the little hills, (nothing as difficult as Wayna Pichu) and me and Erick went to the tea house to have traditional Japanese tea with a pastry. They gave us the rules of how to drink the tea, that was interesting.

Travel table of content   

The 301 year-old tree.

Japan : Fish market

En français
Last Saturday morning we got up a 5am to go to the fish market. I really awake suddenly, I was a bit lost for a while when I realize that the time to go was past and dressed up in a hurry. Hopefully I managed to get there as the others were waiting for me. This market is really huge and you can find all sort of fishes and seashells there. At the end we went to the restaurant to eat some really fresh sushi and a soup. おいしい!!
 Travel table of content

Amigurumi : 초고마로 (chocomaro)

En français
















초고마로 is the brown version of 마시 마로. One of the reader asked me a while ago for the pattern to make a 마 시 마로 but I didn't remember how to do it. I made two already one for me and one for my friend but they were different. So I tried to make an other one to get the pattern and I ended up with this version of 초고마.

 Body and headMake an amigurumi ring.
1) 5 sc in the ring.
2) 2 sc in each sc around : 10 sc
3) (1 sc in the next sc, 2 sc in the next sc) 5 times : 15 sc
4) (1 sc in the next 2 sc, 2 sc in the next sc) 5 times : 20 sc
5) (1 sc in the next 3 sc, 2 sc in the next sc) 5 times : 25 sc
6-10) 25 sc  
11) (1 sc in the next 4 sc, 2 sc in the next sc) 5 times : 30 sc
12) (1sc in the next 5 sc, 2 sc in the next sc) 5 times : 35 sc
13-18) 35 sc
19) (1sc in the next 5 sc, decrease once) 5 times : 30 sc
20) (1 sc in the next 4 sc, decrease once) 5times : 25 sc
21) (1 sc in the next 3 sc, decrease once) 5times : 20 sc

Fill up with stuffing
22) (1 sc in the next 2 sc, decrease once) 5times : 15 sc
23) (1 sc in the next sc, decrease once) 5times : 10 sc.
Sew to close.

Arms (make two)Make an amigurumi ring.
1) 4 sc in the ring.
2) 2 sc in each sc around : 8 sc3) (1 sc in the next 3 sc, 2 sc in the next sc) twice : 10 sc
4-10) 10 sc
Finish off

Legs (make two)Make an amigurumi ring.
1) 4 sc in the ring.
2) 2 sc in each sc around : 8 sc 
3) (1 sc in the next sc, 2 sc in the next sc) 4 times : 12 sc
4) (1 sc in the next 3 sc, 2 sc in the next sc) 3 times : 15 sc
5-10) 15 sc
Finish off

Mouth 
Make a chain of 3.
Working in circle.
1) (3 sc in the first sc, 1 in the next.) twice : 8 sc
2) (1 sc in the next sc, 2 sc in the next 3 sc) twice : 14 sc.
3-5) 14 sc

Tail
Make an amigurumi ring. 
1) 5 sc in the ring.
2) 2 sc in each sc around : 10 sc
3-5) 10 sc

Ears
Make a chain of 5.
Working in circle.
1) (1 sc all sc on both side) : 10 sc

To make it a bit more  마 시 마로 like you can make the arms a bit shorter.

千年女優 (Millennium Actress)

En français

千年女優 (Millennium Actress) is an animation movie by 今 敏 (Satoshi Kon) from 2001. 今 敏 also directed パーフェクトブルー (Perfect blue) and パプリカ (Paprika)

When she is still a teenager, Chiyoko Fujiwara hide a painter, but he has to escape leaving behind him a key.
She soon becomes an  actress following him to several place where she is acting.
In her old age, a journalist come to interview her. She relates the story of her search for the painter through her movie in different period of Japanese history.

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