Personal Growth

I have seen the future! My future, and it’s glorious.  Better than I had ever thought possible, truly.  And I will, as my favorite starship captain always says, “make it so.”

Ways to learn and memorize Kanji

As a long-time student of Japanese one ever present aspect of my study is that of kanji.  For my generation the word kanji is fairly well known, for older generations it means Chinese character or glyph.  Though called Chinese characters the word kanji is Japanese.  The reason for this is that the Japanese language adopted the Chinese writing system some centuries ago.  

Free time problem? I don’t think so…

So you say you have too much free time?  You say it’s a problem?  I say you are losing a battle with creativity!

Mnemonics for Japanese

I recently mentioned my intent to write a book about Teaching Yourself Japanese, well, I’m making progress already.

I’ve been writing mnemonics for making memorizing the Japanese phonetic syllabary (syllabic alphabet) easy.  I’m focusing the mnemonics on the American English dialect because that’s my native dialect and I can’t claim any expertise on any others.  I figure by making that clear in the text that is the least biased way I can write and it still be effective.

Teach Yourself Japanese

I’m thinking about writing a book to sell.

The topic would be about teaching yourself Japanese, with both language content and methodology inside.

It would guide you through the difficulties in literacy, grammatical structure, and linguistic-culture.

Mnemonics

I’m convinced that mnemonics and similar learning techniques are the key to effective learning.

I’m not just talking about Roy G. Biv, Thirty days hath September, or the look at your knuckles and count the humps to remember the length of the months of the year.  But yes, those are included.

Description of my Japanese Office

I’m going to try to give a neutral descriptive analysis of my Japanese office because I think it might provide useful insight into a culture many westerners are unfamiliar with.  I should preface this with the fact that my own work experience is limited and I have not worked in a business office or government office other than the one I’m describing.

Bean Dip and Pushups

I successfully made Kidney Bean Tahini dip yesterday. It’s quite good. I’m topping fresh cabbage leaves with it for a good nutrient packed meal.

Learning on your own

So, putting aside various “life-hacking” methods for optimizing personal learning, I think it really comes down to two basic processes:

Improved quality of life

So it appears that I am losing body fat based on my measurements so far, even considering how often I lapse.  My actual net weight hasn’t really gone down particularly much, though that is actually quite optimal assuming the weight is being made up for by muscle mass.  But anyway, even if not I’ve decided to stick with the diet and exercise plan because my quality of life has improved a bit.