Benkyou Burnout

[Jembru]

To avoid derailing another thread, I thought I'd start a new thread for this. I recently mentioned in another thread that I feel run down at the moment and my doctor thinks I have developed an anxiety problem. I'm undergoing tests and don't have any results back yet, but I was advised to think about anything in my life that might cause me stress and try to avoid it. Besides the obvious thing of working nightshifts and so not getting enough daylight*, the only other thing I can think of that stresses me out, is that I try so damned hard and never seem to get any better at Japanese.  

Every 3 months or so, I will experience what I call 'benkyou burnout' anyway. I just reach a point where my mind feels frazzled and I don't think I can physically continue until my poor brain takes a rest and digests all the new information I've been cramming into it. I guess I'm not the only one who has these phases, so maybe a thread where people can come to have their periodic mental breakdowns isn't such a bad idea.  

Anyway, I only just noticed Rin's reply to my post in the other thread, so I'll quote it here.. 

Feb 9, 2014 19:48:16 GMT Bokusenou said:

Yeah, and your Japanese is really good too! I think one of the things I learned from being a visual arts major, where we had critiques every week, is that there will likely always be someone better than you at something. The thing is to watch and learn from them, to see what could make your own [skill name] better, instead for feeling bad for myself for not being as good currently. I think my Japanese got better after I gave up comparing my skills to other people, and just focused on improving myself only.

That said, it's fine to take a break from Japanese if it turns out it's affecting you that badly. (Though I'm hoping it turns out to be something else) Or you could just put it in "maintenance mode" like I did when I was stressed out with college classes/midterms/finals, and couldn't devote much time to Japanese. I still did Anki reviews, and all my devices were still in Japanese, but other than that I only did Japanese stuff to relax. Watching anime or movies, listening to music, or reading books in Japanese. I only did those things once in a while when I had a little time, and only things I really liked. Things I would still read or watch if they were in English.

Hmm.. My Japanese really isn't as good as it should be though. Don't get me wrong, I know I've mastered the basics, and to a greater degree than many people manage.  I realise I have a reasonable vocabulary considering I started learning to read and write so late too. It's just.. for the effort I put in, I have very little to show.  It's not that I compare myself to my friends in a spiteful way. I always applaud my friends for their achievements. I just sometimes feel that they've managed to achieve so much more, in less time than I ever could, and I don't know why, other than that maybe there is something wrong with my IQ.  

There is a girl (she knows about this site, so I kinda hope she sees this ^^), who I hang out with IRL, and I just adore her. She speaks good enough Chinese that when we were at a Chinese restaurant recently, she was able to asked for assistance and so on, in Chinese and be perfectly understood. English isn't her first language, yet she speaks it so well, that recently, she asked me to proof-read a formal letter she'd written and I was bowled over by how eloquent it was. I honestly think few native speakers could use English so well. She speaks Japanese as a second language too. I can't remember if she said she's taken the JLPT before, but I know she told me she's around N2 level.. which is crap if you ask me.  I'm quite sure she's beyond that. She is shy and feels she struggles when she speaks, but honestly, she speaks so beautifully. I can't think of a single time when we've been speaking with our native Japanese friends and she had to ask for clarification. In fact, when I don't understand, she's usually the one who explains to me, in Japanese, then in English if I really don't get it, what's going on.

Yet, she is so humble, and I feel rather than stand above me looking down, she genuinely wants to lift me up on her shoulders and help me reach as high as she has.  She's nurturing, kind, supportive and far too complimentative. I see her like a big sister (although she's younger ^^), and there is no way I could be jealous of her. I couldn't bear to feel an ounce of bitterness towards this beautiful soul. Yet.. I see her, mastering 4 languages, at least 3 of which I know for sure are to advanced/native level and the 4th I've seen enough evidence to assume she has a bloody good command of. When I consider she's achieved all that, then look at my poxy intermediate pigeon Japanese.. I can't help but feel like I've failed somewhere. Like.. I've missed something in my study. Now and then, I do get upset about how slowly I progress, because I really don't think others have to put in the effort I feel I do. But hey, maybe others just don't shout about it, or maybe it's usually only the gifted, who find languages easy (like by s**t of a boyfriend ^^), who make it beyond the beginner level, and I'm just one of the rare few mere mortals who refused to quit when it got hard.  

Anyway, rather than step back from study altogether, I decided a change is as good as rest, so have entered another of my so-called 'Japanese boot-camps'  (in Japanese, this is also the first ever 9 character compound I learnt by heart: 日本語短期集中講座) . I've put a cross through the next 2 weeks of my study checklist and I'm just going to follow my speaking practice method. I think this is maybe similar to what you said you do Rin, when you go into 'maintenance mode'. Although this time I am letting myself study new grammar at the same time.  Work-wise, it's no better than before, but the focus is different, so it might make a difference. 


*I ordered a light box that was small enough to take to work with me, and it arrived today, so if it's my work schedule, hopefully this thing will help.  Apparently light boxes have a powerful enough affect on the body, that they can trick male reindeer into growing antlers in the winter for Christmas, even though in the wild, they shed them late summer and don't grow them back until spring, so if it's lack of daylight, this thing should help me. 

[Jembru]

Blah, having one of these phases again somehow! I'm usually pretty well motivated to study but this last week I've been slacking off. In fact, looking at how few video journal entries I've made for September (only 5, and none were particularly good), I'd say it's been a little longer than just a week.

I'm writing my own rota at work now and finally getting decent breaks. This means I can finally start doing all those decorating and maintenance jobs that this poor flat has been screaming out for. I guess that's taken away my attention to some extent. I'm still using Japanese, although only managed 3 conversations with real human beings in the last 2 weeks (plenty with my imaginary friends but honestly, don't tell them I said this, but their Japanese isn't much better than mine...)

Due to practicing handwriting, I've added lots of kanji compounds to anki and I guess this has caused me to learn a job-lot of new vocabulary. Whether or not they're useful words is another matter, but they at least contain the characters I'm practicing. That makes them easy to remember, but there's still a lot of them and that still takes up brain power. I guess then, with the demands of decorating and the fact I'm overloading my brain with more new words than I'd usually try to handle, I need this quieter time study-wise. Or maybe that's just an excuse for being so lazy ^^

It's just.. I had it all planned out what I'd like to have completed by January. It looks like I need to accept that I'm going to be a bit behind schedule. Sigh.

[Bokusenou]

Don't be too hard on yourself! Having gotten some of your schedule done is better than none, and it sounds like you're making progress with kanji.

Also, I wouldn't care that much if words you learn are useful or not. Learning useful words is good, but you'd be surprised at how many times I added a word because I thought it was interesting, but I figured it wouldn't be that useful, only to see it come up a few days later in a tv show or book.

[Jembru]

for a few months now I've been trying to only write upbeat and positive things here, because I truly believe that if you speak and behave in more positive ways, your mind will eventually follow. It seemed to be working too, but something happened a few days ago that has shaken me up. I deliberately didn't post here on the day I crashed because it would have been darker than I intended, but I definitely need to offload somehow. To compensate though, I will follow this by posting in the 'study highlights' thread. I haven't used that nearly as much as I'd intended, and it felt like a great idea when I set it up.

So, it all started when I met up with a good friend on Wednesday afternoon. She is Japanese and it was the first time since her birthday last year, that we had hung out just the two of us. I had turned up early, but got the wrong cafe, which meant I ended up downing a large latte in a minute or two. However, Miyo just called me and asked for directions to the cafe I was in, so I didn't have to leave after all (but had downed my drink anyway). I got another large latte and a water. This IS relevant btw, or at least I think it is.

We got to chatting and it was very nice to catch up. However, I soon discovered that without a third person to take off some of the pressure, I really struggle as conversations start to get deeper. I then went quiet. I do this even in English, so it's not necessarily just my Japanese that caused it... after all if you come up against Japanese you can't follow, that should generate conversation in itself, as your friend explains the words and you ask questions about the context it can be used in, making example sentences as you go. Yet sometimes I just can't think and struggle to keep a conversation flowing. There are people at Gaiwa who have had verbal conversations with me in English, and they could probably all tell you that I am very quiet, just waiting for them to say something and then not really giving them a response they can lead off from. It's like pulling teeth (so far this has only ever happaned once when I've spoken to Bokusenou though, so she reassures me that there are some people in the world who can make me speak ^^).

I put this to Miyo.. and she told me that she has the same problem. She says there are some people who, no matter what the topic is, they can talk about it. They have opinions, or questions, even some background knowledge. Yet there are other people like us, who just don't know how to talk about things outside of our frame of reference. My interests are Minecraft, animals and Japanese. I'm not as articulate as I was when I was at uni. My active (English) vocabulary has definitely shrunk, and very little interests me. I don't watch TV, I don't watch movies, I don't watch documentaries. If I watch TV at all it's only to watch QI (and even then I forget half the facts).

My world has closed in at some point without me even noticing. Maybe confidence plays a part too. I've been chasing the goal of learning a second language in the hopes it would finally give me something to be proud of. Maybe I've gone about it the wrong way though. Maybe I need to work on my confidence first. I've been told I come off as arrogant about my Japanese ability by someone I met through youtube. This has fascinated me, because when I look at my online persona I just see a whiny emo kid constantly complaining about how unfair it is that she can't just click her fingers and magically get what she wants. Sure I discussed language points with this guy that he wasn't familiar with, but only because he asked me to. Besides that though, 'winey emo kid' is surely a more dominant online personality than 'arrogant know it all' or at least that's how I feel when I read over my posts.

I've come to realise that what I'm attempting is to be able to do something in Japanese that I can't handle in English. After leaving the cafe I decided I had to work on my conversation skills. I posted a reply to Gaiwa from my phone while waiting for the bus, but it was once I was on the bus that something happened. It was rush hour, so the bus was packed. Someone took the isle seat next to me and then more and more people crammed in. I sometimes get travel sick so I checked my bag for tablets. I didn't have any. We started moving and I felt stuffy. I noticed my hands were tingling and my head was ringing. I took off my hat, then my scarf, then my coat. I tried closing my eyes like they do on tokyo trains.. thinking if I could just drift into a nice mental space I'll survive. Everything started closing in around me and I felt my heart racing. I couldn't breath. I was literally sucking air into my mouth at this point, trying to get enough oxygen. I noticed everyone was looking at me, so I just grabbed my belongings and ran off the bus at the next stop.

I was miles from home. My phone had hardly any battery left at this point but I tried to call JP. His phone was dead. So I called my mum, her phone was either off or had no signal. I tried my dad, who I rarely call. He answered and was able to calm me down. I went on to take 2 more buses before I finally got home.. each time getting off when I felt uncomfortable. A 30 minute journy took more than an hour. I had wanted to cry so much when I was outside, that when I finally did get home I just cried and cried. I spoke to my mum and she reminded me about the palpitations I was having last year. I had put it down to the anxiety I felt over my Japanese, but it was traced back to how much coffee I drank. The caffeine made it harder to concentrate too and then I'd feel dizzy, feint and panicky. This is exactly how it had started.. I couldn't focus properly in the cafe, then I felt short of breath on the bus, finally turning into a full blown panic attack. There seems to be a connection between drinking too much coffee, and how bad I feel about my Japanese too. The combination produces the panic, which is why I had originally blamed Japanese for the episodes.

So I need to stop drinking caffeine, especially while studying or speaking Japanese, and I also need to work on my conversation skills. I remember watching otsuta to tenjiro last year. That series included conversation skills, so maybe as I get deeper into my course books, they'll cover the same things. I probably need more than that though. I've found hypnosis pretty useful in the past, so I think I'll start by designing a session to help me with confidence. My mum has been going to confidence classes and says I can have her course notes when she's done as she has often recognised me in the discussions.

Finally, I need to learn to be interested in things. All kinds of things, so I can find things to talk about with others. I especially hope I can learn to care about Japanese culture and popular media, because frankly, I don't right now. I don't dislike it as such (that's not strictly true.. there are aspects of Japanese culture that make me extremely uneasy and I think affect my enjoyment of everything else; but this is for another time), I just don't care enough. Of course, I really love the textbooks I'm working through and they're showing me a side of Japanese society that I really like. I'm seeing a different way of thinking that has so far never really come through when studying through textbooks and so on (I imagine it would do if I could read novels though). Maybe the more I'm exposed to this new way of processing the world, the more 'Japanese' I'll think. Maybe that would lead me to discover new passions and interests. If not though, I might just have to give up on the anime, drama and music side of things. I don't often watch drama, movies or animated shows in English, nor do I read novels very often. So again, I think I'm trying to do things in Japanese that don't come naturally in English..

For now my focus is going to be on confidence building and improving my people skills in general. The rest can wait for now.

[chocopie]

I'm sorry to hear that happened to you. I have a similar problem with caffeine. I recently had way too much in the morning and I went for a meeting with my supervisor and realised my hands were so shaky and sweaty I couldn't hold a pen properly. I pretended my work had gone for the week and made a quick escape to get a drink of water and calm down. In my case though I knew it was the two massive coffees I'd had that morning so it didn't worry me. I just got extremely annoyed at myself for having that much coffee...

I put this to Miyo.. and she told me that she has the same problem. She says there are some people who, no matter what the topic is, they can talk about it. They have opinions, or questions, even some background knowledge. Yet there are other people like us, who just don't know how to talk about things outside of our frame of reference.

You said you went quiet but from the above it doesn't seem that way, you made your quietness into a topic of conversation and pushed on!

Finally, I need to learn to be interested in things. All kinds of things, so I can find things to talk about with others. I especially hope I can learn to care about Japanese culture and popular media, because frankly, I don't right now.

I don't have much of an interest in pop culture in general. When it comes to tv shows I know what I like and that is mystery solving so any tv/anime/drama I watch tends to be crime drama. What kinds of things are you interested in? You could try non-fiction (by this word I mean non-drama/anime etc. I can't think what the right word is...) videos. In the end you just want to express yourself in Japanese. Let me share some videos and channels I like!

The Making no narration, just subtitles of how everyday items are made in factories. Each video is about 14 min.

SeikinTV A guy who does a variety of things, but my favourite videos are the ones where he reviews cute kitchen gadgets. Each video is less than 5 min.

marumita Two guys who go around visiting places in their local area. 

田舎へ行こう！TV Videos taken around Fukuoka Prefecture to promote tourism. No talking, some subtitles and you get to see different places in Fukuoka.

書道・美文字チャンネル Japanese calligraphy channel. How to write nicely with a pen or brush and some information on individual kanji

nanapi Lifestyle tips, I guess like a Japanese lifehacker?

人生の楽園 I AM A MASSIVE FAN OF THIS PROGRAMME. It's basically about what people do when they've retired. Each episode follows someone/a couple and sees what they've done. Generally they move to the countryside and start some kind of new business like a bakery, a cafe, tea-farming etc. I find it very relaxing to watch and it makes me wish I was old and could retire to the Japanese countryside... Each episode is about 25min long I think

Just change your youtube country setting to Japan and then search for your interests!

I suppose what I want to say is that pop culture changes all the time and isn't that meaningful if you're not invested in it. If you were in Japan, you'd absorb it by osmosis anyway because you'd be bombarded with it everyday through advertising, music played in shops etc. I think in daily life, Japanese culture boils down to the way people live their lives so the nitty-gritty of is may be hard to learn about. Something like 人生の楽園 (seriously please watch this and then we can discuss it) help though as it's all about people's daily lives. 

[Jembru]

Thank you so much for your kind reply Chocopie. It really meant a lot to me, especially as I generally expect people not to read my rants in this thread. I'm really touched.

I have started using a self help book (and of course treated myself to a special notebook that I can do the exercises in ^^). It's early days but I'm hopeful that this book, and the literature my mum dropped off for me, might help me to retrain how my brain handles social interactions. 

Feb 28, 2015 17:52:59 GMT chocopie said:

I'm sorry to hear that happened to you. I have a similar problem with caffeine. I recently had way too much in the morning and I went for a meeting with my supervisor and realised my hands were so shaky and sweaty I couldn't hold a pen properly. I pretended my work had gone for the week and made a quick escape to get a drink of water and calm down. In my case though I knew it was the two massive coffees I'd had that morning so it didn't worry me. I just got extremely annoyed at myself for having that much coffee...

Yeah, I really felt stupid for drinking so much. These were large lattes from Cafe Nero, which uses espresso shots like starbucks. If regular instant coffee was causing me trouble, what on earth did I expect from 2 large Cafe Nero lattes? There was one point where I was looking at Miyo and all the colours were overly sharp around her, like a hallucination or something. I felt like I was just staring into her and I couldn't think straight. It was a horrible feeling and looking back, I wish I'd just mentioned to her that I'd had too much caffeine and felt strange.

Feb 28, 2015 17:52:59 GMT chocopie said:

I put this to Miyo.. and she told me that she has the same problem. She says there are some people who, no matter what the topic is, they can talk about it. They have opinions, or questions, even some background knowledge. Yet there are other people like us, who just don't know how to talk about things outside of our frame of reference.

You said you went quiet but from the above it doesn't seem that way, you made your quietness into a topic of conversation and pushed on!

I'm one of those people who has very few friends, but those I do have are very close. Of course, I know more people through the conversation group, but few of them meet me, or exchange with me outside of events. Miyo is one of my closer friends though. I think this helped me to keep talking, but I was definitely speaking less than I usually would. I remember we'd been chatting a while but I suddenly realised that all I was saying was things like 'そうね～' '多分ね' 'あたしもそう思う'..usually, even if my head wasn't processing Japanese, or I lacked the vocabulary, I'd just switch to English and keep the conversation flowing, but that day, I couldn't think of anything to say, English or Japanese. I think it wasn't the language that wasn't there this time, but the content. I reacted the way I do with people I don't know well, even though Miyo is a friend I've known for several years and usually feel comfortable around. Was it all the coffee's fault, or was it also that I was so used to being fully functional in Japanese, because of the situations I'd been using it in, that I was taken off guard when I suddenly found 1:1 to be too intense? Either way, poor Miyo... But yeah, apologising for being quiet at least helped the conversation to pick up again.

Feb 28, 2015 17:52:59 GMT chocopie said:

I don't have much of an interest in pop culture in general. When it comes to tv shows I know what I like and that is mystery solving so any tv/anime/drama I watch tends to be crime drama. What kinds of things are you interested in? You could try non-fiction (by this word I mean non-drama/anime etc. I can't think what the right word is...) videos. In the end you just want to express yourself in Japanese. Let me share some videos and channels I like!

The Making no narration, just subtitles of how everyday items are made in factories. Each video is about 14 min.

SeikinTV A guy who does a variety of things, but my favourite videos are the ones where he reviews cute kitchen gadgets. Each video is less than 5 min.

marumita Two guys who go around visiting places in their local area. 

田舎へ行こう！TV Videos taken around Fukuoka Prefecture to promote tourism. No talking, some subtitles and you get to see different places in Fukuoka.

書道・美文字チャンネル Japanese calligraphy channel. How to write nicely with a pen or brush and some information on individual kanji

nanapi Lifestyle tips, I guess like a Japanese lifehacker?

人生の楽園 I AM A MASSIVE FAN OF THIS PROGRAMME. It's basically about what people do when they've retired. Each episode follows someone/a couple and sees what they've done. Generally they move to the countryside and start some kind of new business like a bakery, a cafe, tea-farming etc. I find it very relaxing to watch and it makes me wish I was old and could retire to the Japanese countryside... Each episode is about 25min long I think

Just change your youtube country setting to Japan and then search for your interests!

I suppose what I want to say is that pop culture changes all the time and isn't that meaningful if you're not invested in it. If you were in Japan, you'd absorb it by osmosis anyway because you'd be bombarded with it everyday through advertising, music played in shops etc. I think in daily life, Japanese culture boils down to the way people live their lives so the nitty-gritty of is may be hard to learn about. Something like 人生の楽園 (seriously please watch this and then we can discuss it) help though as it's all about people's daily lives. 

Nice! Thanks for those links. Both my mum and my closest friend when I was in uni, like crime drama, and both are 引っ込み思案 like me, so maybe this is something I could get into too.

When I was younger, I couldn't wait to reach my golden days. JP is still this way (he's a 70 year old man trapped in a 23 year old body ^^), but I'm starting to worry that the age of retirement is changing so often, that I'll be dead or senile long before I'm able to enjoy my retirement. Still, based on the fact that I used to dream about being old, I think I'd really like jinsei no rakuen. I'll definitely check it out... -promise! I think I'll enjoy 'nanapi' too. Oh and that calligraphy channel. I think my friend Tannya would like that too. She's really passionate about kanji. (Tannya's another one of those people who broke through my hard cold shell into my warm squishy heart forever ^^ although she also broke it a little by moving back to Indonesia...).

One of the first things my book made me do, was to describe who I am with a series of leading questions, and some questions encouraged me to think back to my school days. We seem to know what we like better when we're young. I was crazy into dinosaurs back then and knew an insane amount of information about them. I especially loved learning their names, and then when I discovered that modern animals had scientific names that followed the same conventions as dinosaur names, I started learning them too. Then of course, in my late teens I started liking pokemon, I think for the same reason.. it was a continuation of this love of taxonomy I'd developed (too bad I only ever really knew the first generation.. I'd have made a great pokemon fan-girl). This morning, JP gave me a deck of dinosaur trivia cards, to see if it would help me to relearn what I once knew. I thought that was really sweet of him, especially as he'd have had to be actually listening to me. Kinda like how nice it was that you replied to my post here, meaning you'd actually read it! Again, I thank you for that. 

[chocopie]

Feb 28, 2015 20:33:10 GMT Jembru said:

One of the first things my book made me do, was to describe who I am with a series of leading questions, and some questions encouraged me to think back to my school days. We seem to know what we like better when we're young. I was crazy into dinosaurs back then and knew an insane amount of information about them. I especially loved learning their names, and then when I discovered that modern animals had scientific names that followed the same conventions as dinosaur names, I started learning them too. Then of course, in my late teens I started liking pokemon, I think for the same reason.. it was a continuation of this love of taxonomy I'd developed (too bad I only ever really knew the first generation.. I'd have made a great pokemon fan-girl). This morning, JP gave me a deck of dinosaur trivia cards, to see if it would help me to relearn what I once knew. I thought that was really sweet of him, especially as he'd have had to be actually listening to me. Kinda like how nice it was that you replied to my post here, meaning you'd actually read it! Again, I thank you for that. 

Firstly, first generation = best generation. That's all I have to say about that.

Secondly, (sorry if this is overloading you with links!) if you like dinosaurs why not try watching 地球ドラマチック 「恐竜はなぜあの姿なのか？～進化が生んだスゴイ機能～」? Actually if you like natural history in general it's definitely worth checking out the other 地球ドラマチック episodes that are available. They have a couple of other programmes on dinosaurs as well. 
恐竜はなぜ滅びたのか
本当のティラノサウルスを知っていますか?

Or there's even this documentary タイムスリップ！ where the guy goes back in time to see the (CGI) dinosaurs.

Just stick with stuff you enjoy and do it for fun, not just for learning! 

[Bokusenou]

Jembru
Sorry to hear that Jemma, and I hope you're feeling better now! The most caffeine I can have is a few sips of tea in the morning, any more, or any later, and I can't fall asleep at night, so I tend to just take along some salted nuts or something else to have when I need to keep my energy up. Hopefully you'll find something like that which works for you.

As for media suggestions, I'll list some I like, and hopefully some of those will be useful.

I Googled QI and it seems like a trivia show, so you might want to check out Japanese trivia shows. The last one I followed was トリビアの泉 Though it's gone off air, it's still pretty well known, and there are lots of clips online.


TokaiWalker is what I leave on in the background a lot while working, but it's also pretty fun to watch. They go to different places and talk about them. The one I linked to is the dinosaur one (Oddly enough, I also really liked dinosaurs growing up. Especially T-Rexes. ^-^).

If you want to try a crime drama, Galileo is pretty fun. A physicist solves crimes with the power of science.

おおかみこども雨と雪 is a beautiful film, both content and art-wise.

キノの旅 is good if you like shows which leave you thinking. I haven't seen anything else quite like it.

ものの怪 is a bunch of dark stories involving youkai, and it's drawn like a moving Japanese woodblock painting.

夏目友人帳 is an episodic, relaxing series about a boy who can see youkai. Simple, but well done, and I sometimes re-watch it when I need to relax.

[Jembru]

chocopie, Bokusenou Thanks so much for the kind words and awesome links! You're such good senpais! ^^

Mar 1, 2015 10:16:31 GMT chocopie said:

Firstly, first generation = best generation. That's all I have to say about that.

I almost entirely agree, although my very favourite pokemon, 'Jelly-pig'* isn't first gen. Mind you, I'm not sure if it's really the pokemon, or the fiction I've created around it that I like so much. 

Mar 1, 2015 10:16:31 GMT chocopie said:

Secondly, (sorry if this is overloading you with links!)

No no, link away! I don't spend long enough at my PC to allow me the time and effort required to dig out shows I might enjoy. I've started going through the links, but because of work, I've been mainly playing them in the background rather than paying proper attention it looks like I would need to look up vocab to really appreciate some of these, so it will need a proper 'sit down and study' session. I've bookmarked everything though!

Mar 1, 2015 10:16:31 GMT chocopie said:

Just stick with stuff you enjoy and do it for fun, not just for learning! 

This is meant to be my philosophy and it was working. I just have these little dips. I'm pretty sure I still will even when I'm reasonably fluent. I know even my native speaking friends living here, can have days where their Japanese won't work for them. I'm still not nearly as optimistic as I felt 2 or 3 weeks ago, but I even commented at the time that I knew my high mood meant I'd be crying about how bad my Japanese is any day now. I'm sure I'll be back on a high in no time!

Mar 4, 2015 4:29:51 GMT Bokusenou said:

Jembru
Sorry to hear that Jemma, and I hope you're feeling better now! The most caffeine I can have is a few sips of tea in the morning, any more, or any later, and I can't fall asleep at night, so I tend to just take along some salted nuts or something else to have when I need to keep my energy up. Hopefully you'll find something like that which works for you.

I've switched almost everything to decaf now, although I can't find decaf earl grey, so I'm mixing one earl grey and one decaf teabag in my teapot. I water it down with water from a flask so it lasts longer and isn't so strong. I'm starting to wonder how many study sessions I've sabotaged by drinking coffee. I'm pretty sure I'd posted somewhere last year, that I suspected coffee was doing more harm than good when I studied. Funny how I managed quit smoking more than 3 years ago, yet the caffeine addiction still held me so firmly.

Mar 4, 2015 4:29:51 GMT Bokusenou said:

I Googled QI and it seems like a trivia show, so you might want to check out Japanese trivia shows. The last one I followed was トリビアの泉 Though it's gone off air, it's still pretty well known, and there are lots of clips online.

The only Japanese trivia type show I currently watch is gyouten news. It's almost exclusively medical related (or weight loss related). Some of the longest words I know came from this show. I'll check out your link, although as I said to Chocopie, I'll have to wait until I have time to sit and look up keywords.

Mar 4, 2015 4:29:51 GMT Bokusenou said:

TokaiWalker is what I leave on in the background a lot while working, but it's also pretty fun to watch. They go to different places and talk about them. The one I linked to is the dinosaur one (Oddly enough, I also really liked dinosaurs growing up. Especially T-Rexes. ^-^).

That's some serious genki right there! I thought I was hyper at times, but she makes me look pretty mellow! Then again... maybe I'd be just as hyper if I were so close to real live dinosaurs (they're real, right?).  T.Rex is awesome! When I was about 14 I got an origami dinosaur set for Christmas. It was my first encounter with origami and I went on to create my own models, eventually making life-sized velociraptors out of sheets of wallpaper. I had to hold the folds down with staples, and I made them out of 3 sheets (5 if you include the two small sheets I used to make the claws), but they were my pride and joy for months!

*This is tabunne/audino. I thought it was a pig when I first saw it, and call all pink pokemon 'jelly-suchandsuch' (jelly-dog, jelly-cow, jelly-balloon and so on and so forth), so I usually talk about my 'jelly-pig'. So much so that I had to look up its English name just now, because the information files in my brain have it listed as 'Japanese = tabunne; English = jelly-pig'. ^^

[Jembru]

Mar 4, 2015 4:29:51 GMT Bokusenou said:

I Googled QI and it seems like a trivia show, so you might want to check out Japanese trivia shows. The last one I followed was トリビアの泉 Though it's gone off air, it's still pretty well known, and there are lots of clips online.

Woohoo I'm off work today! I need to sleep, but I'm staying up late so I can enjoy my new desk.. I'm already feeling quite at home in my new study area. I've just checked that show out.

QI is a trivia show. It mainly aims to debunk common misconceptions, although has interesting 'show and tell' type sections too. What is unique about it is that is is in the style of a panel show, so all the 'contestants' are comedians. It makes you laugh and think at the same time.

It's interesting you should have chosen that particular clip btw, because QI also did the vortex cannon! 

[Bokusenou]

Jembru Really? That is interesting...QI looks like a fun show! I don't have the time to watch the whole thing right now, but from what I skimmed, I really like how it mixes entertainment and trivia well! It kind of reminds me of another Japanese trivia show:タモリのジャポニカロゴス, which is kind of what you get if you mix the lectures from 日本人の知らない日本語 with a trivia show. Unfortunately that one also went off the air, and I haven't heard of any other Japanese language-themed trivia shows, but there are still videos around if you search.

[Jembru]

Mar 12, 2015 22:20:05 GMT Bokusenou said:

Jembru Really? That is interesting...QI looks like a fun show! I don't have the time to watch the whole thing right now, but from what I skimmed, I really like how it mixes entertainment and trivia well! It kind of reminds me of another Japanese trivia show:タモリのジャポニカロゴス, which is kind of what you get if you mix the lectures from 日本人の知らない日本語 with a trivia show. Unfortunately that one also went off the air, and I haven't heard of any other Japanese language-themed trivia shows, but there are still videos around if you search.

Sitting here at work doing my kokugo assignments with this show playing in the background (it's dead here right now). It does look like something I could get into watching!