Ouch.

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Yes, "ouch" is precisely the right word...

Ouch... I didn't even get to do half of what I planned to do over this painfully short spring break. I slept most of it away and now someone gave me something to translate (though that last part wasn't entirely a complaint).

Oooh, ouch... I just found out my grades for the winter quarter. My GPA took a hit. I was a little disappointed with one class (ENG 401) - I thought I totally rocked the final, but I guess it was a "B" like everything else in that class. I really thought I would get an "A" on the final, though... just look at my beautifully crafted 3 x 5 index card (pics: 1 | 2)! As for my other class (KIN 345), I got a "B", and I really don't know what to make of it. I didn't know what I got on my mid-term (I think someone took my scantron) so I didn't know what grade I had coming into the final, but I did the five internet assignments and a... competent... job on the final paper. Japanese was just fine.

...OUCH! I am in physical pain right now since I decided to run (then walk, then jog, then walk again) to some place a little farther than Rosemead High School. I didn't know exactly where I wanted to go, but that was ok. I just needed to get out of the house! This act is apparently punishable because a few hours later, my ankles felt like they would fall off at any moment. Plus it now hurts when I laugh or cough, and I'm coughing a lot. Still, if there's anything I learned from that KIN 345 class (Physiological Effects of Exercise during Aging), it's that as we get older, it's all downhill, so we should get into a habit of exercising now. I've found some helpful info about exercising in these threads, though: "How do you work out?" and "The Gym Thread: Post your sessions here...".

I hope I'm not alone looking forward to school! (not the actual "learning" part... the meeting people part)

It's over... sort of

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Bah. Somehow I made it through the day with only about an hour of sleep (I'm not even kidding)! You all know what that meant - there was a paper due today! I finished at 5:57 and woke up at 6:57. It was quite a shock looking out the bathroom window; I was still expecting darkness but it was pretty bright.

Oh, right, finals. Well, my first final was alright; I did pretty well on the multiple guess section, but for the short answer part... I'm hoping I get partial credit, heh. The teacher can't be in too bad of a mood because his wife just gave birth, so...

Then I went to the language lab to kill some of the 5 hours of free time I had. It wasn't as fun as I hoped it would be... but at least I (sort of) studied for the test by listening to the old dialogues, and I (sort of) had fun playing around with the Japanese IME and listening to the Chinese audio exercises (I'm not mastering that language anytime soon...). I tried getting some sleep too but that was a little hard.

Bumped into Todd (from the speech contest) at lunch. Still a nice guy!

Japanese final. It wasn't hard, but it wasn't easy, either. Changing the verbs to honorific forms was tricky, like with 来ている - do you change 来る to いらっしゃる to make it 「いらっしゃっている」 or do you leave it as 来る and change the いる to いらっしゃる to make it 「来ていらっしゃる」? Grr. Translating English to Japanese wasn't as terrible as I thought (having listened to those dialogues at the language lab), though the word order might be a little different from the book. It took me two tries to get the listening part down... I'm still upset that I couldn't catch it all the first time. And as for the last part ("write a letter expressing thanks")... the hard part was remembering the expressions wedid learn! It would have been easier if something like "use ばよかった" was included... then I would know what to aim for...

Yeah, I feel bad about finishing first and leaving so quickly. I wanted to go home, but I also wanted to hang out with everyone... but I didn't know if everyone else felt that way too. Hanging around outside of the class just to hear people say "well, bye" and then walk away would make me feel kinda dumb. I just want an updated group pic!


Still one more final to go. Not too easy, but not too hard. I'm sitting comfortably with a "B", and that's not factoring in participation, so it looks like I'll have to come out with an "A" in the final to get an "A" in the class!

Saturday - the best day ever?

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Ok, so Saturday was two days ago. And yeah, I really should be studying right now. But last Saturday (3/5) was just so nice I have to write about it before I forget it all!

I owe most of the great experience to Sam. He picked me up at my house and before going to school to work on the role play, we stopped by his house where I met his VERY nice sister and father. He also treated me to some VERY good wontons! After saying 再見 we were off to school.

The roleplay was... um, fine, even without a Japanese tutor to make sure everything was ok. It's probably not going to win any awards, though.

Then we were off to Kinokuniya! He used those certificates he won and I bought some really good books: Jazz Up Your Japanese with Onomatopoeia and 日英故事ことわざ辞典 (Japanese-English Proverbs Dictionary). I think between these books, the three kanji dictionaries and the two grammar dictionaries that I already have (not to mention the internet), I have all the references I need.

Amazingly, he treated me to some curry rice at one of the places nearby. So, so good. おごってくれてありがとうね！

Later on my brother came by and we watched Ong-Bak... again! (I watched it the day after, too - yes, it really is that good!)

Even at night, I was able to watch episode 7 of ごくせん and episode 1 of Sassy Girl, Chun-hyang. It's actually airing right now (KXLA 44, Monday & Tuesday, from about 9:45 to 10:25), but as always, the episodes we see here are heavily edited from the original episodes shown in Korea - I'm talking at least 20 minutes cut out.

Of course by then it was about 2:00 am. What a day. (A great day for a change!)