Luckily my winter school subject isn't listed on my results until 2nd semester because I failed Japanese. Whoever said it was easy was lying! We had to know all 100 Hiragana and Katakana by the 4th day! It was impossible to keep up. I passed the conversation tests but written (worth 60%) I failed. I think the best way to learn Japanese for me will be private lessons, where we can go at my pace and where there are no tests! I have found a place in the city where I can learn for only $25 per lesson so I will hopefully be doing that soon (if I ever get any shifts at my work again, so far I am not working this week, my 3rd week with no work :S It's getting serious now. I know that July is meant to be a slow month for market research but I'm pretty sure I would have at least a few shifts if I didn't have that crazy outburst last week. Oh well maybe my stuff on ebay will sell?)
Anyway that's all for now. I am going to be out taking street photos in the city tomorrow so maybe I'll bump into some fashionable bloggers? lol. I've been so busy I haven't done any for ages so I'm really excited about getting out and meeting new fashionable people. Yay. I really do enjoy taking the photos.
Congratulations on passing! I am going to Korea for two months in September, really looking forward to it. Hope it all works out for you!
ReplyDeleteI have been reading your blog for a while now and just wanted to say it is very interesting. And good luck with your ebay shop :)
nice worrrrk hayley :)
ReplyDeletei don't get my results back til the 17th. nooooooo
thanks for your comment! pogo was enjoyable. you should come this week, i'll most likely be there again haha :)
i'd love to bid for some of the stuff you are ebaying off but my paypal account got majorly hacked into and i can't access it! boo
good luck with it all :) xx
p.s i also studied japanese in year 12. all i can say is i'm glad i haven't continued with it. that subject needs a heckload of dedication.
ReplyDeleteit's good you passed the conversation though, if you can tackle that it'll only be easier going onto writing. i completely bombed out on my oral but did decently well on my written, haha.
good luck!
Congratulations Hayley. I just finished my MA degree in Curating Contemporary Art, my BA was in Fine Art. So I guess that is why I found Japanese writing easy- it was just drawing to me!
ReplyDeletei hope you get to sell your stuff on ebay, i need to do that too, I need to get rid of all the clothes that are getting too big and some handbags and sunglasses I don't use.
I think private lessons is a good idea. I took private lessons when I studied Japanese as a half course unit at college. My teacher at college just wanted to sleep all the time and have breaks, and I was the only one there who really wanted to learn the language. The other students who were Korean and Chinese thought it would be an easy pass for them. I studied really hard and came top of the class with 98%. It just takes time and concentration, one thing that helped since we had to do it for the exam was write essays. Some of the ones we had to write were, my apartment, my favourite film/book, and the final long essay was something relating to Japan. I wrote about Tomoe Gozen, a female samurai. Then we had to memorise our essays for the aural exam. I was teacher's pet and he was pushing my essay in front of me so I could cheat- but it was distracting as I had memorised it, so I closed my eyes! Although I am struggling with the Kanji now, there is so much to memorise.
wow congrats! sounds exciting! oh hey yesterday I saw the presets and sicne their from australia I had to think of you haha!
ReplyDeletewas a goood show! though my friends hated it haha
who cares... I love it!
Young: Thank you :> I hope you have
ReplyDeletefun in Korea, please blog about the cool things you see so I can get some tips. I know nothing about Korea except I like Kim Chi and the held the soccer world cup years ago. Lol.
Thao: Thanks. I am sure you did fine too but I know that the 17th seems so far away right now, but it will be here soon. Yeah Japanese is too hard to do in school or Uni. Too much to remember. It's weird how I did ok in conversation and not written because it seems most people are like you. I guess it helped that I lived in Japan so I know the sounds.
London Girl: Thank you and congratulations yourself! It's funny how you mention that all the other students were Chinese or Korean, that was exactly the same for me. I was the only Aussie from a non Asian background. They all found it so easy and could learn the 100 characters in the 4 days we had, whereas for me I could only remember 7 of them. Yep just 7. I think I would have passed if I did it over a semester a not a 3 week intensive winter school course where it's crazy stressful. I mean come on who can learn 100 new letters in 4 days. Not me at least.
Coco: Thanks. I LOVE THE PRESETS. I've seen them heaps here in Australia and 1 time in Tokyo. Recently though here in Aus they aren't cool anymore because they have become successful. It's a common thing in Australia called the "Tall poppy syndrome" where we hate Aussies who become successful, especially if that success is overseas. I don't feel that way but a lot of Aussies do. It's a jealousy thing because we are sooo far away from the action of the rest of the world or something. The only annoying thing is my favourite song of theirs is on a car commercial now which kinda ruins the song for me.
I enjoy reading your blog & have added you to my list! I think I found you when someone posted a link on the Vogue forums :)!
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on your results! I am married to a guy (my husband in fact) who speaks and reads Japanese fluently (due to study and living over there) and he likes these daily grammar emails he gets from Yookoso.com just to keep him thinking japanese. They have a kanji a day as well and other stuff - you probably know about all that already though.
ReplyDeleteYay Hales. Well done! You are sooooooo clever...love you...Mum.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations! I passed all mine too. Which is good because now I don't have to go back to smelly university!
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment about eBay v Etsy. I'm thinking I'll go with Etsy and try and get an Aussie following.
congrats on passing!
ReplyDeletei am still psyched about my semester 1 results. where do you go to uni? and what are you studying?
Kittentails: Thanks I'll check out your blog now :>
ReplyDeleteSkye: Wow thanks for the tip I didn't know about that site at all. I only just started to learn Japanese I stupidly didn't learn anything while living there (well I learnt silly things like "you are a hot boy" and how to say I'm a vegetarian) Hopefully by the time I go back to live I will be semi fluent...hopefully...:S
Anon: Thanks mum.
L: Yay congratulations. Good idea about starting an Aussie Etsy following. I'm still unsure which way to go. I'll see how my current ebay auctions go then make up my mind.
Jude: Thanks, congrats to you too. Ok well I hate my Uni. It's a long story how I ended up there. Basically I used to go to VCA studying fine art photography but quit stupidly after 1.5 years and travelled (the travel part wasn't stupid) and then tried to go back but because I quit they wouldn't let me. The only Uni that would take me and give me full credit for my prior study was VU (Victoria University) in Footscray. I love Footscray (Yay Savers) but hate hate hate hate hate hate my Uni. Going to the "best art school" and then to the worst Uni in Australia is a little bit of a downer. However they do have AMAZING scholarships which VCA didn't have so at least I get some FREE shit (the Korea exchange is all FREE plus I get $10,000, crazy right???!) I didn't want to have to start a degree from the beginning and spend 3-4 years at Uni, I'm already 24 I want to stop studying before I'm old! Now I finish at the end of next year, just 1.5 years left, Yay. You need a degree to get a full work visa in Japan, any degree so it doesn't matter that its crap. That's why I'm doing it. It isn't really that crap its just some of the people are a little...dumb, like handing in essays in text message language. Anyway sorry about the rant.
ahh mental! those scholarships sounds awesome though, i'm going to try to get as much money from my uni/the government next year as i possibly can!
ReplyDeletei know a girl who is doing an arts degree at swinburne (i think! i may be wrong) and she also does an international course, which pretty much means in her second year she does a subject for a semester on "what do expect from studying overseas" or something equally as primary school. then she gets to study at a uni overseas, and when she comes back she does a wrap-up kind of "what did you learn from studying overseas?"
ridiculous.
i'm at rmit, it's awesome. the move from qld to here was so worth it.
we should do a savers trip sometime! i have no idea how to get to the one at footscray, i have friends who have tried...and failed.
hmm i think you can do jap at kumon? I know my friend does, but i'm not sure what level it goes up to etc..
ReplyDeleteso glad for you that is over! waiting for uni results really rape your brain. my friend was so angsty about it, she refused to go to sleep until results came out because she had nightmares. After the stress of exams, and then two or three weeks of sleeping in 2hour blocks, she has gone 100% mad.
ReplyDelete