Japan 111R Third Class

Here we are, already at our third class, 1/4 of the way through the term. Full details below.

Like always, its has been just alot of repeating after the professor and occasional presentation of a couple of lines between my partner and I. The presentations are getting more difficult with new words learned and the need to memorize. Of course, the professor still helps you with the words, if you get stuck. But I try not to.

As for the difficulty, it has definitely gotten harder. We're at a point where there are actual things I hadn't known/studied before. For example, that when you say minutes, sometimes you use fun, other times is pun, all depending on which number is said right before it. For example, 1 = ippun while, 2 = nifun.

More memory work !! argh !!

We did do something interesting today though. Although not that great. We had something called the Hiragana Bingo. Yes, its bingo, instead of numbers, we picked our own hiragana and put them into a 3x3 and 4x4. We played Bingo twice. Winners got some Japanese chocolate. I didn't win. Boo.

Finally, here is what we learned today:
- How to use ano/sono/kono
- How to read time (hours and minutes)
- Ask what time "nan ji"
- Learned kara/made, for "from"/"until"
- More nouns
- Events (meeting, working, partying, etc)
- Places (Department store, super market, restaurant, etc)

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Japan 111R Second Class

Here we are at the 2nd week/class at Japan 111R. Continue reading for the details.

When class began, we had a short practice of hiragana then we had a quiz on the hiragana characters.

We had a few practice where we had to walk up to the board to write/erase stuff. Otherwise, we just sat there and repeated what the professor said. Or talking with my partner.
Things learned:
- Lots of nouns (jobs, places, household items)
- Numbers (practice with phone numbers)
- Particles: mo, de, no
- Question words (doko, dare/donata, nan)
- Position words (koko, soko, asoko, kore, sore, are)

Closing statement, another easy course except for the mass overflow of nouns. This makes it difficult to learn because they're not in sentence or anything, just a huge list of nouns. Atleast a picture is included, that helps...

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Review: Dragon Dog...?

I was at UW yesterday, attending classes. I dropped by my favourite lab instructor for a chat since thats what I like doing... talking. And somehow we got to a conversation about foods and he mentioned a DRAGON DOG at the Davis Centre cafeteria. Told me to try it. So now I have and whats what I thought.

First of all, there are several choices with your dragon dog. As seen in the picture below.

You can choose your sausage, topping, and sauce.

The one I had was,
Honey & Garlic sausage
Crispy Cabbage topping
Cheeky Chilli sauce.

It was surprisingly good. Of course, I have never heard of the topping or sauce. I've had plenty of honey garlic sausages while I lived away from home in Ottawa. But they just microwave the sausage then put it on a grill for a few more minutes. I boil my sausages in water then pan fry them. Not sure which is better.

Although it was great, the cost was $4.50. Not quite the most affordable considering its a hot dog... with different toppings. Hot dogs are $2.50 or something.

I greatly enjoyed the sauce and the topping. The sausage was ok too, but I never had deep fried cabbage before. It was crispy and tasty.

This dragon dog is suppose to be hot, atleast thats what my impression is considering the name of the toppings and sauces. Although there was the Black Pepper sausage that I could have chosen, my configuration wasn't very hot. It was hot, but not hot enough to make me drink water. If its not hot enough for me, then its probably pretty weak in terms of spiciness. For example, a few people I know can handle spicy on a whole higher level than I am. I think I'm one of the poorest people when it comes with dealing with spicy flavours.

But the bottom line is, that its tasty. I don't think its worth the money, however, if you got some extra change and want something for a change. Definitely drop by the University of Waterloo Davis Centre for a taste of the DRAGON DOG.

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Japan 111R First Class

I was so excited ! Since its my first time officially learning the language through an institute (UW in this case). I got to class about 30 mins early >w<

The teacher is a pretty old lady, shes fluent in Japanese (as expected). No weird accent when speaking english either. Great news. I can't stand those Japanese accents when speaking english =(. It sounds too weird to me.

Anyway, to my dismay, this course seem to be more for the busy people, because the book is called Learning Japanese for Busy People. Boo. Meaning, it'll probably be more like teaching you phrases and things, instead of getting to the bones of Japanese.

Well, if thats the case, I expect to ace this course. Since I've already done a few CD lectures in the past. On and off. Been at it for a long time too... on and off.

What we covered in the first week.
- Talked about the Hiragana characters
- all 46 of them
- including the "ba" and "pa" alternatives of "ha", and the "da", "za", "ga", etc also
- small "ya", "yu", "yo"
- double vowel (aa, ii, oo, etc)
- double consonant (ikko, etc)
- How to write Hiragana
- the 4 ways to end stroke (stop, hump, sweeping, loop)
- We did several short skits where we had to speak Japanese
(I aced it of course, other people, not so much, Talking to yourself helps (hahaha) )

Homework included
- Writing hiragana for each of the characters 8 times (a,i,o,u,e -> n)
- Writing hiragana from roomaji words

Needless to say, this week was easy.

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Photoshop Tutorial: Adding Lightning

I decided to play around with a photo taken by my friend at mosaika. The pose is supposedly from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, from Kamina. "Your drill will be the one that pierces the heavens" or something like that. The lightning has nothing to do with anything, but I just made it anyway.

The steps aren't that difficult. I remember doing something similar to this back in grade 10 highschool. So I roughly remembered how to do it.

I started with a photo like this one (resized).

"Your drill will be the one that pierces the heavens" (Kamina)

- First, open the photo in photoshop.
- Then start a new layer so you could work without impacting the original image.
- Set your colours to black and white
- Make a gradient of black to white horizontally (left to right) or diagonally
- Basically the line where the colour changes is where your lightning will be
- Go to filters -> render -> difference cloud
- Go to adjustment -> levels
- Move the black triangle to the right or adjust the triangles to get a crisp lightning shape
- Go to adjustment -> hue/saturation
- Check the "colourize" box, this will give it a colour
- Change the hue to the colour you would like
- Now change the layer type from normal to screen, the lightning should appear on top of your original image
- Move the lightning via "free transform" to where you want it to be, rotate if needed
- Using the eraser, remove any unwanted lights in the lightning layer
- Take the smudge tool and go to the end of the lightning and smudge it so it doesn't look like it was cropped, smudge tool is the finger icon, in the same place as the sharpen tool or blurr tool

- Now I added a lens flare to the start of the lightning at the finger of the image, it makes it fit a bit better than without
- To do that, make a new layer, paint it black
- Go to adjustment -> render -> lens flare
- Set the size to a small size, this can always be changed later with the free transform adjustment
- Change the layer type to screen
- Move the lens flare to where it should be
- Readjust size with free transform if needed

And voila, you're done !

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Free Offer: $75 coupon for Google Adwords

Hi again, this is the same thing as the previous.
Updated Sept 9.

Got some money from google to advertise for a blog or a website, I don't need it. So I'm throwing it out there for whoever is interested.

The offer fully expires on Sept 30, 2010. So if you're interested, please contact me before then, at tomabackspin@gmail.com or pakhinlaw@hotmail.com (msn)

Thanks.

Google Adwords is a service for advertising a website on google advertisements, money is deducted from your account on a click by click basis.

Update: The money has been to the first email response I received at 7:42am, another one at 9:46am, and at 11:05am.

Many thanks to those who were interested. I'll post another one when I receive them.

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With that, my final coop term ends.

The goodbye was a sad one, lots of tears were had. Except they were all held inside.

"Good luck in school and your future career"
"Thanks, take care of yourself too"
...


With that marked the finale of the past 8 months of work at National Research Council (NRC).

Without a doubt, it was at this place I learned the most out of all my previous workterms. The people were educated and helpful. The tasks were intriguing and challenging. NRC had it all.

Aside from all the technical skills learned, great memories were carved there also. The times with these special people would be remembered forever. Atleast it will be written on this blog so even if I may ever forget, I shall remember once again when I read this passage.

I couldn't say these things when we parted because I am bad with giving speeches. So let me write it out here after I had to time to think and compose myself.

Thank you Martin for the wonderful guidance,
for without you, I would have sat in silence.
Also thanks to Cameron for helping me fit in,
it made asking questions not feel like a sin.
The wonderful solutions Alex suggested,
were so brilliant when I had tested.
Your abilities made me felt kind of weak,
but Pier's kindness showed up when I had seek,
turned my feelings upside down,
for there was a grin from a frown.
Lets not forget about Malgosia,
without you, there would be no fire.
You are the soul of our department,
with years of experience and commitment.
Thank you Lisette for the useful email,
keeping us in check so we don't fail.
It keeps us aware of our situation,
even if that means no more vacation.
The people there are always working,
but its all work and no singing.
That was why I started a noise,
it was called "delicious and moist".
I hope you enjoyed reading this script,
I had a tough time, my paper's all ripped.
Too many mistakes during compilation,
but now its nearing the completion.
With that I bid you all farewell,
we'll meet again, I swear upon my spell.

*staring*
*spell coujuring*
*spell conjured*

On a completely different note, my landlady also requested a poem, so I wrote this one here.

Oh where, where, where do I live?
Work at NRC starts on the fifth.
Without a shelter, death is certain,
but Marina had an open curtain.
She took me in, like a kind mother,
of a lost cat, when others didn't bother.
I felt for once there was warmth,
it was then, that I had sworn,
I would pay back her good deed,
500 monthly, if she need.
Thank goodness she accepted,
or else I would feel neglected.
Thus began my new life,
including home cooking with a knife.
There was a cat, her name was Cannelle,
around her cuteness, my composure fell.
I wanted to hug her so many times,
if it cost money, I'd have lost many dimes.
Eventually we became close, but now we must part,
my heart just froze, then pierced by a dart.
It pained me much, to have to separate,
but don't worry, I'll come another date.
Thats what I told myself when I moved on,
this memory shall never be gone.
Let us part for now, but its not the last,
we'll see in no time, since time moves very fast.

Unless someone wants to tell me, I suck at this, I think I might have a knack for writing poems. Atleast rhyming ones, all the other ones, I got no clue.

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