december already?

One of my goals for before the end of the year -- done:
I finally got through putting up all our travel journal entries from this year (and a few post-travel entries that stayed in draft state until now) ^o^

I also picked out and customized a new look for the travel-only blog since the last one was so hurriedly put together. I really like the result, so much so, that I wanted to change my look here to it as well. But, it's probably better to keep the two looking different T_T


I can't believe I've been journaling here since '05! It wasn't consistent, but yay anyways! Since it's been awhile, I thought maybe I should run Xenu Link Sleuth just in case, and I'm glad I did... a bunch of the links in those old posts were broken >_<

Another goal for before the end of the year:
Put up all our travel photos from this year and *finally* look at those R-Y and V-S wedding pics from last year ^-^;;

Are you a banana-person?

I attended my second meeting for one of the Chinese conversation groups today. It was an Intermediate+ meeting and had more than three people -- yay! ^o^ Six people, actually: the organizer, me, a British guy and his wife from Shenzhen, a Caucasian guy who started learning Mandarin in the 70's (!), and a Thai-American guy in his 20's who just came back from nine months in Nanjing.

I think random conversation will help in filling in my active vocabulary gaps. I can study new vocabulary all I want but that doesn't directly translate into being able to actually use those words when I need/should/want. I already experienced the conversation today reviving words that used to be part of my active vocabulary but fell into passive state from non-use... words like 水平 (shui3ping2, when talking about my level of Chinese) and 税 (shui4, when we were talking about higher taxes in countries like Norway being a trade-off for extended social programs). Of course, I also learn new words... like 粵語 (yuèyǔ, Cantonese) and 國際關係 (guójìguānxì, international relations).

My word of the day has to be 香蕉人 (xiāngjiāorén). Huh? 香蕉? Banana?

The Shenzhen person asked Alex, the Thai-American guy, if he was a 香蕉人 (banana-person) when they first started chatting. Both Alex and I were quite confused until she explained it. It's used to describe someone whose appearance indicates they're from one culture but who internally is really of another culture. For example, many American-born Chinese fall under this category.

香蕉人 -- I like! ^o^

language learning revisited: Chinese + Kanji/Hanzi

Chinese... is in a sad state. I can feel it deteriorating more and more as time goes on >_< I think getting to a more native level with my Chinese is desirable simply because I *am* Chinese and I'm far from starting from scratch. I don't know if that's enough motivation to keep it going in the long run, but we'll see.

I started listening to my old stash of cpod's Upper Intermediate and Advanced lessons again. Unfortunately, cpod is now entirely subscription-based and for my casual learning style, I don't think it's worth the $$. I also started reviving my Chinese vocab anki deck. It's hard to really feel motivated when there's hundreds and hundreds of cards due, but I'm trying to chip at it bit by bit. I never did continue reading the HPs like I had planned to, so I'll make that one of my goals for 2010.

In my search for a Japanese conversation group, I realized maybe I should also look for a Mandarin conversation group. I found two local ones, both a 20-minute drive away but in opposite directions. Both meet once every other week. For one, the meetings alternate between Beginner and Intermediate+ for each meeting. For the other, the meetings alternate between Beginner and Advanced.

The whole meeting-new-people-and-practicing-language thing really stresses the introvert side of me out, but I did attend one meeting of each group so far. What's funny is that it seems I scared everyone else away! Both times it was only three people total -- organizer, me, and one other person for one, and organizer, asst organizer, and me for the other! The other rsvped-Yes's didn't show >_< I have yet to find a Japanese conversation group.

I'm finally maybe getting 'serious' about learning Kanji/Hanzi, the initial reason being that I felt stunted not being able to read Japanese well.

Main resources:
- Heisig's RTK to learn the jouyou Kanji in a semi-sensible order according to shared components
- DeFrancis' Hanzi readers which teaches 1200 traditional characters by character frequency.

Despite many of the reading passages being very outdated (1977!), I think DeFrancis is a pretty good approach to increasing literacy. It's strange no one's published more updated readers using the same good approach. I guess it takes too much work.

The passages being outdated means I learn some, um, *really* useful vocabulary in the process, like 原子 (yuan2zi3, atom) and 原子能 (yuan2zi3neng2, atomic energy) in the current lesson!

language learning revisted: Japanese

Last month, I decided to get 'serious' about my language learning again. It must be one of those 'up' times in the rollercoaster phases I tend to go through with each of my interests. But when I compare my 'serious' study with those who are actual serious language learners on the HTLAL forums, it simply doesn't compare. I think however I go about it, I'll always be a casual language learner. Maybe it's just my style.

Japanese... has been on and off since April last year, but I do consider it my overall main language focus long-term (for now). The graphs from my anki deck give a rough feel for when I was more focused: Apr-08 to June-ish, maybe the beginning of Sep-08, late Nov into maybe Feb-09, and last month until now, a total of approximately seven or eight months maybe (though the total number of hours would be more interesting for me to know). I finally finished the passive phase of Assimil, which started off my Japanese studies last year, and am well into the active phase now ^o^

I think my original goal for Japanese was being able to fully understand anime and dramas without subs (Having a 'goal' is probably the reason I didn't stop after we came back from our KJ trip). That implies an entirely passive understanding of Japanese, which I no longer think is the full extent of where I eventually want to be with it. I can now understand a small percentage of anime without subs when I'm focused and it's not too complicated and the vocabulary isn't too specialized (specialized means parts of Yakitate (food processes), FMP (military or weapons-specific), etc.). At this point, I don't have a good idea of what my goal *is*, which is probably not a good thing >_<

Passively, I'm still listening to jpod101. I've caught up to their current podcasts, but I think I'll go back and do more work with the old lessons, too. That, anime, and I've recently discovered Drama CDs. Drama CDs are right along the same lines as those "Mission Europe radio adventures" I was so psyched about, but these are actually in a language I'm studying! I found drama CDs for HnG and FMA so far ^o^ I also came across a really cool podcast in which they read children's stories in Japanese, *and* each story has an associated transcript ^o^

Aside from Assimil's active phase, I just started posting on lang-8 to help with the active portion. I made my first post last month and will probably make my second this weekend. In reality, I think I need a *lot* more writing and speaking practice if I want to move forward. Ideally, I'd like to post once a week on lang-8, but I'm not sure if I'm disciplined enough to keep at it consistently >_<

I think I should probably also open a grammar book soon (the horror!) and follow some sort of structured approach to learning grammar, or something.

nomad

It *does* feel good to be home. But, at the same time, I could have definitely gone on for even longer. K says he wasn't quite at his limit either. Those months passed by quicker than we ever thought they would!

I think it's partly related to momentum. We were so used to being nomadic, packing up every several days and just living out of our little suitcase. Before we even knew it, we were on our flight home.

A lot of things are simpler on the road. One of the things that struck me after I "got over" the comfort of being home is that we have so much stuff! Do we really need all this?

It doesn't help that I'm a pack rat, keeping every little thing of possibly *any* sentimental value. Those flight tickets to Fuzhou from 8th grade? Check. Movie tickets from high school? Yea, they're faded in that box over there. Any letter that I've ever received since middle school? How sad if those were to die in a fire or flood! I'm happy for the digital world; at least being a digital pack rat takes up much less physical space, though backups, maintaining data integrity, etc, etc. take much more effort. That is, if you care (I do).

On the agenda:
- de-clutter
- plan our next set of travels

the end.

in numbers...

months -- 3.5

days -- 100

currencies -- 13

languages -- 19

countries -- 21

cities/towns/locations -- 53

transport via...
boat -- 7
minibus/van/ambulance -- 5
air -- 12
bus -- 16
rail -- 36

homes/beds away from home -- 38

memories -- countless

the end. for now.