Skyrim, Smallworld, French and tea

So what's happened since Tuesday? Well, a few things. Except for studying and staying on track with my Japanese studies (I've been doing kanji like crazy) I've also recently finished my French dissertation for the second time. Fingers crossed it'll pass this time so I get it off my mind.

On Thursday I started playing Skyrim again. I'm still not sure whether that was a wise move or not, cause now I can't seem to stop playing... xD When I started again I was at level 9. Now I'm at level 16 and I'm hoping I'll gain level 20 before the weekend's over :P Although I still have troubles with some stuff, like a frost dragon kills me almost instantly and fullfledged mages are way too hard to kill, I've managed to kill my first troll and sabre cat :) Giants still kill me with one hit xD Lately I've focused more on sidequests as to improve my level before I try my luck at the main quests again. So I'm thinking I'll go back to Whiterun and improve my skills somewhat. Maybe imbue my armour with something and make a shitload of health and magicka potions! If I talk to everyone I meet in that town I'll soon have a huge heap of sidequests to do too... Too bad most sidequests end up being main quests after a while xD

On Friday we decided to have a boardgame night and started playing Smallworld. It was my first time playing that game but it was a lot of fun and I almost won! :D Beginner's luck? It wouldn't surprise me. I NEVER win at boardgames. That's just the way it is. If my mum was here she'd say: "Unlucky in games. Lucky in love." One can only hope that's true ;) Right now it feels that way anyway ^^ During the game I got to play Hill Amazons, Diplomatic Tritons and Heroic Trolls. I managed to get quite the empires both with my Amazons and my Tritons. Although the latter empire was compromised by Sorcerers and Flying Giants :P

During these few days I've also been drinking way too much tea. I'm almost starting to fear that my beloved strawberry flavoured tea will run out. I know the honey is...

What's to do the rest of this afternoon and evening? Well, I'm considering reading some in Best Served Cold or maybe writing a chapter... Before I have my laundry time and then it's back to Skyrim :)

Dreamy nostalgia of Japan

There's been a lot about Japan going on lately. In school, at home, in the news... News wise it isn't that great, but otherwise it's fantastic.

In school we're working on speeches in conversation class and I'm going to do mine about the side-trip we made to Kyoto while I was in Tokyo. This has me completely nostalgic at times. I have to look up the Japanese names for the shrines and temples we went to and I'll make a power point slide with pictures from the trip. I've also kept all the tickets and brochures so if I want to I can pass them around. I could make this really really great and impressive if I put my back into it. At the same time I just feel kind of... homesick :P In other classes too we often talk about experiences we had while in Japan and it doesn't help with the nostalgic dreamy feeling. This demands a picture bomb with fun pictures from Japan:

At home I've started watching doramas again. On Sunday I watched Daarin wa gaikokujin (My Darling is a Foreigner) which I really liked although the story wasn't that special. But I really did recognise many situations in the film. Like how the foreign guy reacted to Japanese words, expressions, kanji writings and customs. It was so much fun watching the movie and I'll probably watch it again :D

Then today I watched Aru Ai no Uta (Song of Love), which was a really cute romantic drama. Cute cause it was so innocent and sweet. But mostly I watched it just cause Matsuda Shota was in it and I've loved his work since I saw him in Hana Yori Dango and Liar Game.

Harry Potter Wizard's Collection!!!

Today was an awful day. Really really hateful to begin with it, then it got better. First of all I cried myself to sleep (as per usual the first nights after getting separated from Toni), but that wasn't until about 2.30am. At 8am my alarm went off and I forced myself out of bed. Spent the day feeling incredibly unattractive and still didn't feel like going to the gym to do something about it. Actually waking up today I considered skipping for the first time this semester, and it's just the third week!

Couldn't really concentrate on anything once I got to school. Did what I had to, but not much more than that. I had no energy. I had that pressure over the heart that comes every time after one of us has to leave. It's just there at the back of your head, doing nothing but bothering you, unless you think about it and the pain becomes almost physical. Anyway. Halfway through kanji class I got a text saying that I had a package to pick up at the post office. From Amazon. My Wizard's Collection. And that was that. After that text that was everything that was on my mind. So I went to pick it up immediately after school. The package was ridiculously heavy. After finally getting home with it my arms were shaking from the effort of carrying it all the way. But it was so worth it. Opening it was like Christmas. Couldn't stop smiling. So here's a picture bomb (some of the pictures aren't that great, I did tell you my arms were shaking):

I love the fact that all the discs are in books. It's so beautiful. And all those pictures and skecthes will definately end up on my walls after I move! There was a small book with labels from the movies, which I probably would have found a lot more entertaining some years ago. But I love the books, the pictures, the sketches, the box, the Slytherin locket (!), everything! It's awesome and I can't wait until I have time and means to watch through all of the new material.

I keep looking at it where it sits on the floor, and I keep smiling at it. I'm just that dorky.

And I love it.

First three days of school

So school started this Monday. For the first time since spring 2010 I'm studying Japanese again and it feels great. Before starting I was really worried that I maybe would have forgotten too much, but it's going well. There are a lot of kanji that I've forgotten. They just tend to be annoyingly familiar but I still can't figure out what they are.

Since it isn't a beginner's course we had no introductory meeting on Monday except for all the teachers being there for about 15 minutes saying hello and introducing our new teacher: Inaba Miho. Then the lesson started. Everything was in Japanese. We were going to do a listening comprehension exercise and at first I was terrified. But then something just clicked and suddenly it felt like I was back in the classroom in Tokyo. I could understand the exercise. I filled it in correctly. Then we were going to write our jikoshoukai (self-introductory speeches) and I felt kind of proud for still being able to ask questions and receive advice in Japanese. I understood all the corrections Inaba-sensei said to me and I didn't have to turn to English to help me understand. I felt so proud of myself :)
Something that made me less proud of myself was that I didn't talk to anybody that day. I went to class, did what I was supposed to and then I left without saying a word to anyone of my classmates. I'm new in a class where everyone have known each other for the past year. It's hard. I never have any idea where to start or even how to start a conversation with a complete stranger.
Also I couldn't go to the afternoon class cause they moved it. When we received our original schedules online I made an opitician's appointment according to that one. But when they moved the class it clashed with my appointment and ofc I had to go to that one... That was a positive thing anyway! Got the news that my eyesight has gotten slightly better :)

On Tuesdays I only have one class at 3pm xD When I got there Kayo-sensei handed me the papers that were handed out on the afternoon class on Monday (I e-mailed Murao-sensei and told her that I had an appointment). Anyway the first thing that happened at that class was that she handed out a newspaper article and gave us ten minutes to read it. Although she had given us a glossary of a few kanjiwords in the end I was still completely dumbfounded. Kanji. Everywhere. Could hardly read a thing. Made me realise I have to work hard on my kanji this semester. I have hardly any problems understanding spoken Japanese (thanks to Tokyo I imagine), but if it's written and contains loads of kanji and no furigana, then I'm in trouble. Getting to know the history of Japanese poetry was interesting. As long as she's not going to ask us to write our own haikus then I'm fine.
After class I gathered up my courage and asked a classmate about the homework Murao gave us. And that was all that was needed. Something to start talking about. Spent about 45 minutes after class standing around in the hallway talking to four people from my class. Success! :D

Today was the first class we had with the head of our course. So he gave us all the information about the coursework today. Seems manageable. Finding out that we don't have to write our mini-essays in Japanese, but in Swedish or English was quite the relief. Wonder what language we'll write our dissertation in...
Also I'm really excited about our course literature!

The kanjibook and the green one in the bottom seem to be very similar to the ones I had in Tokyo, which is great cause I learned a lot from them, although they did not seem much at first glance.

Being back to studying Japanese is great. I've only been to back for three days and I can already feel the difference. I feel like I'm learning something all the time instead of just banging my head against a wall. Here's what French felt like:

I did lie on the floor singing my heart out at one point, and there were way too many nights where I cried myself to sleep cause I was never good enough. I felt constantly like a failure cause I never succeeded, and none of the teachers seemed to be able to help me. All they did was ask me if I had been to France and then they just brushed me off like I was stupid. If I asked for help they just repeated the same instructions they gave the first time, but slightly louder. There was never any encouragement to get better. No incentive. No help. On the other hand this is what Japanese feels like:

So yeah, I like this. I'm happy :)

Harry Potter picture bomb

I want to blog but I have no ideas. So I'll make up for it by making a very nerdy post. A picture bomb. Click for larger.

I have a tumblr in my Google Reader that gives me loads of pictures. I get loads of pictures off of my Swedish HP community. This is what I do when I'm bored. I'll end with this gif, which (if I'm not mistaken) is made by one of the members on that very same Swedish community.