Holywood is a little city on the coast, in the north-east of Belfast.
We went to spend on afternoon there and walk along the see. It was in March 2007, it was a bit windy but amazingly sunny.
Travel table of content
Monday, April 19, 2010
Ireland : Holywood
En français
Holywood is a little city on the coast, in the north-east of Belfast.
We went to spend on afternoon there and walk along the see. It was in March 2007, it was a bit windy but amazingly sunny.
Travel table of content
Holywood is a little city on the coast, in the north-east of Belfast.
We went to spend on afternoon there and walk along the see. It was in March 2007, it was a bit windy but amazingly sunny.
Travel table of content
Friday, April 16, 2010
I finished RTK1
En français
So that's it. After doing it, 3 times because I stayed stuck twice around 1400 kanjis and had to start again from the beginning again. After struggling with my kanjis stories never remembering them, never having them vivid enough. After finally deciding that it was just 2042, like a drop in the ocean compare to the 50000 hanjis in the biggest Chinese dictionary I know of. After deciding that is was going to be fun and easy and that there was no way around it... (I keep on telling people that everything is easy and that drive them crazy)
I feel kind of relieved in a way. That's it. I know them. I just have to let anki decide when I need to review them to be sure not to forget them ever again.
I'm also hyper excited. I never wanted to learn properly hiragana (review them) and katakana so badly.
I want to learn how to say the kanjis out loud.
I want to put hundreds of sentences in my SRS just cause I can.
And I want more kanjis. I know that's sound crazy. People are always afraid of kanjis but I think that's because they learn it a such a painful way. Me, I have fun all the way. Even when I failed at it, it was really fun anyway and I just want more, and more and more. I also really like complicated ones. I like when people look at my kanjis papers -I have plenty everywhere in my room and in my office- and tell me this one is too complicated, I don't use this one, you don't need this one. I don't care a kanji is a kanji, I'll probably meet it somewhere crazy and then I will go : "See I needed it". I'm pretty much addicted to kanji learning. It's hard to think I won't add more to my SRS tonight.
Anyway it's no time to rest. It's time to hurry and get some Japanese.
Well that's it, yesterday I finished to learn my 2042 kanjis.
I feel kind of relieved in a way. That's it. I know them. I just have to let anki decide when I need to review them to be sure not to forget them ever again.
I'm also hyper excited. I never wanted to learn properly hiragana (review them) and katakana so badly.
I want to learn how to say the kanjis out loud.
I want to put hundreds of sentences in my SRS just cause I can.
And I want more kanjis. I know that's sound crazy. People are always afraid of kanjis but I think that's because they learn it a such a painful way. Me, I have fun all the way. Even when I failed at it, it was really fun anyway and I just want more, and more and more. I also really like complicated ones. I like when people look at my kanjis papers -I have plenty everywhere in my room and in my office- and tell me this one is too complicated, I don't use this one, you don't need this one. I don't care a kanji is a kanji, I'll probably meet it somewhere crazy and then I will go : "See I needed it". I'm pretty much addicted to kanji learning. It's hard to think I won't add more to my SRS tonight.
Anyway it's no time to rest. It's time to hurry and get some Japanese.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Ireland : Cavehill (Belfast)
En français
I spend the last four years living in Belfast and I never wrote anything decent about Ireland. I'm not going to be complaining about the "horizontal rain" I had there in this post. I'm going to show you some pictures of Cavehill.
It's a hill near Belfast where you can go when it's not raining (yes, yes sometimes you can get lucky). You arrive first near the Belfast castle, it's pretty easy to get in. Everybody can just get in. That really surprised me. You can go visit the garden and also hiking to the cave and to one of the peaks called Napoleon's nose due to the shape I suppose. From there you have a good view of the city.
Travel table of content
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Germany : Mountains in Heidelberg
En français
This is the last post about the conference in Heidelberg. The other one can be found here.
We went to walk in the mountains near the city before the conference dinner at the castle. Here are some pictures of the hiking.
Travel table of content
This is the last post about the conference in Heidelberg. The other one can be found here.
We went to walk in the mountains near the city before the conference dinner at the castle. Here are some pictures of the hiking.
Travel table of content
Monday, April 12, 2010
Update on April's challenges
En français
So as I explained earlier I am participating to two contests for the month of April.
Now we are the 12 of April, already almost in the middle of the month so I think it's time to take a look at what I have actually been doing for those challenges. I probably should have written something about it a bit earlier, anyway, it's here now.
Script Frenzy
For Script Frenzy I am a bit behind at the moment. I was supposed to write 3.33 pages a day. Actually I went out a lot since the first of April and ended up with being 16 pages behind in the writing. However, I'm not the kind to let things get worse and worse and I manage to write 17 pages yesterday. So now I have a total of 33 pages. I'll surely reach 40 pages tonight to be right on tracks again.
As I promised in the announcement of this challenge, here is a little summary of the story so far : Vienna's Ghost
Arman has the particular ability to be able to travel in people's dreams. Some people like it as he can help them dream about what they want and some people don't. But Arman sleep really few at night and never dream himself.
Yurei is the family ghost. She is scaring people unwillingly until Arman finally manage to talk to her. What Arman doesn't know is that Yurei is secretly in love with her and that she is the girl who appeared in his very first dream the day before and that he is desperately trying to fine.
As I always slide some links to my next story in the one I'm writing, I hide a little wink to "Demon and fairy" in this one. I didn't write much on the novel.
International L2 Reading Contest
Here is the International L2 Reading Contest. I have seen some of the read pages number of some people and I was really impressed. I surely over estimated my abilities when I joined this contest. But the good point about it, even if I am sure that I will never make it to the top 5, is that it allows me to test my reading in Japanese and also to read different kind of material. I really intend to push the effort until the end of the month (never left anything half done.) and I'm also intending to continue reading as much as I can after the contest.
花ざかりの君たちへ (Hana Kimi)
I read 20 pages of the manga. I don't really know how to count them though. Normally 10 pages read count for 1 page in the contest. But I read all pages three times (so maybe 6 pages).
The first time I just go with the knowledge of Japanese I have. That kind of give me a flavor. I'm almost done with Heisig's remembering the Kanji.
But if I can write the characters fine when I have the meaning and if I can recognize a kanji that I know, getting the meaning of it coming to my mind is not that easy.
So here is where the second reading of the page comes into place, I look up all the kanjis for which the meaning didn't strike me and sometimes write them down.
The third reading allows me to actually fix things with the hiragana and katakana and to make sure that I understand what I read.
That may seem a slow process and it's actually slow but that's also a lot of fun and that also showed me that I can understand more than I thought I was.
あのときの王子くん
I read two chapters of the little prince with the audio (audio books list). That's about 7 pages. These I read several times too, that depends of the sentences really. I like to have the audio with me because the hiragana tend to really really kill me. It's way more difficult to understand than with the kanjis.
I also read the equivalent of five pages on wikipedia about different topics. Basically, when I'm looking for something I will check the Japanese pages as well. I find it very convenient as I spend a lot of time on the computer. So each time I need a small break I will end up there.
And I read 6 pages of pure kana for the Japanese test for registration and placement into Japanese classes. I was already laughing when the girl put the paper in front of me. I had learned the hiragana the night before and I had told her so. I asked for something written in Japanese but she told me that that was the test I was supposed to take. I failed at it 7/58. Hopefully my supervisor wasn't really happy with the time table and decided that I will take the classes in fall instead. I can't tell how happy I am. I live with people who actually took this class at beginner level last semester and my Japanese is not worse that theirs so I really think that 10.5 hours in this class would really be a waste of time for me. I know kanjis, I'll know kana better in no time and I'm listening to Japanese all the time, I don't think a class would do more than to force me to say something my brain refuse to say at the moment. I already noticed that I'm able to say some complicated things when something apparently simple is totally alien to me. People ask me how I can know something complicated when I don't know something easy. Or also how I can know kanjis if I don't know kana. I don't know that's just the way it is at the moment.
So as I explained earlier I am participating to two contests for the month of April.
Now we are the 12 of April, already almost in the middle of the month so I think it's time to take a look at what I have actually been doing for those challenges. I probably should have written something about it a bit earlier, anyway, it's here now.
Script Frenzy
As I promised in the announcement of this challenge, here is a little summary of the story so far : Vienna's Ghost
Arman has the particular ability to be able to travel in people's dreams. Some people like it as he can help them dream about what they want and some people don't. But Arman sleep really few at night and never dream himself.
Yurei is the family ghost. She is scaring people unwillingly until Arman finally manage to talk to her. What Arman doesn't know is that Yurei is secretly in love with her and that she is the girl who appeared in his very first dream the day before and that he is desperately trying to fine.
As I always slide some links to my next story in the one I'm writing, I hide a little wink to "Demon and fairy" in this one. I didn't write much on the novel.
International L2 Reading Contest
Here is the International L2 Reading Contest. I have seen some of the read pages number of some people and I was really impressed. I surely over estimated my abilities when I joined this contest. But the good point about it, even if I am sure that I will never make it to the top 5, is that it allows me to test my reading in Japanese and also to read different kind of material. I really intend to push the effort until the end of the month (never left anything half done.) and I'm also intending to continue reading as much as I can after the contest.
花ざかりの君たちへ (Hana Kimi)
The first time I just go with the knowledge of Japanese I have. That kind of give me a flavor. I'm almost done with Heisig's remembering the Kanji.
But if I can write the characters fine when I have the meaning and if I can recognize a kanji that I know, getting the meaning of it coming to my mind is not that easy.
So here is where the second reading of the page comes into place, I look up all the kanjis for which the meaning didn't strike me and sometimes write them down.
The third reading allows me to actually fix things with the hiragana and katakana and to make sure that I understand what I read.
That may seem a slow process and it's actually slow but that's also a lot of fun and that also showed me that I can understand more than I thought I was.
あのときの王子くん
I read two chapters of the little prince with the audio (audio books list). That's about 7 pages. These I read several times too, that depends of the sentences really. I like to have the audio with me because the hiragana tend to really really kill me. It's way more difficult to understand than with the kanjis.
I also read the equivalent of five pages on wikipedia about different topics. Basically, when I'm looking for something I will check the Japanese pages as well. I find it very convenient as I spend a lot of time on the computer. So each time I need a small break I will end up there.
And I read 6 pages of pure kana for the Japanese test for registration and placement into Japanese classes. I was already laughing when the girl put the paper in front of me. I had learned the hiragana the night before and I had told her so. I asked for something written in Japanese but she told me that that was the test I was supposed to take. I failed at it 7/58. Hopefully my supervisor wasn't really happy with the time table and decided that I will take the classes in fall instead. I can't tell how happy I am. I live with people who actually took this class at beginner level last semester and my Japanese is not worse that theirs so I really think that 10.5 hours in this class would really be a waste of time for me. I know kanjis, I'll know kana better in no time and I'm listening to Japanese all the time, I don't think a class would do more than to force me to say something my brain refuse to say at the moment. I already noticed that I'm able to say some complicated things when something apparently simple is totally alien to me. People ask me how I can know something complicated when I don't know something easy. Or also how I can know kanjis if I don't know kana. I don't know that's just the way it is at the moment.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
America : Sunny day in Chicago
En français
So here is my last day in Chicago. I went back to the John Hancock Building for two reasons. The first was to take pictures of the city from above during the day. The second was to verify something. And yes, after verification, the best view in the all building is in the lady toilet, sorry about that guys.
That was a pretty hot day and I walked a lot again, must love walking.
I also went to see the bean and did some interesting pictures of it. I like the light effect on the curved mirror. Maybe that's a physicist thing but I was trying to see how my own image was moving on the surface as I walk around and under. I spend quite a lot of time there, that was fun.
Travel table of content
So here is my last day in Chicago. I went back to the John Hancock Building for two reasons. The first was to take pictures of the city from above during the day. The second was to verify something. And yes, after verification, the best view in the all building is in the lady toilet, sorry about that guys.
That was a pretty hot day and I walked a lot again, must love walking.
I also went to see the bean and did some interesting pictures of it. I like the light effect on the curved mirror. Maybe that's a physicist thing but I was trying to see how my own image was moving on the surface as I walk around and under. I spend quite a lot of time there, that was fun.
Travel table of content
Saturday, April 10, 2010
America : Baha'i House of Worship
En français
The next day, I went to visit the Baha'i House of Worship for the North American Continent with my host. That was really beautiful. I like how all the Baha'i temples have a different architecture. I'm not religious myself but it was interesting to learn about a new faith.
Travel table of content
The next day, I went to visit the Baha'i House of Worship for the North American Continent with my host. That was really beautiful. I like how all the Baha'i temples have a different architecture. I'm not religious myself but it was interesting to learn about a new faith.
Travel table of content
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