mDuo13

Talking with my friend Dakanya for the first time in a while, I heard that he's been studying for the JLPT2 in December, which is a pretty lofty goal. It does, however, make me feel like I should at least be aiming at something. I had planned on taking the JLPT anyway; I just needed to decide on what level. Being as Appu passed JLPT4 last year and I at least feel like I know more Japanese than he does, the JLPT3 should be within my reach. I just have to learn something like 300 kanji...

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In association with my resolution to work on my Japanese more actively, I have decided that my next project will be to play Little Busters! in Japanese, using Rikaichan and AGTH to help me out. I started out with Blitzwing's assisted reading setup, but quickly ditched Wakan in favor of a simpler Rikaichan-only setup. I also found it cumbersome to go and open all the different applications and things in the right order, so I wrote a Windows batch file that launches them in order. Here's how it works:

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I can't fully explain it, but lately, I've been going to through this thing fairly often where I just feel disinclined from doing anything. I wake up with a bit of a headache, get up to do something, maybe make it through an episode of anime or something else not too trying, and end up laying back down to sleep for another couple hours before repeating the process. I have things I want to get done, but somehow I have a lot of trouble working up the effort. I blame it in part on the heat. Nobody can get anything done when it's so hot out. But the rest of it, I dunno. All I can say is, it took me a long time to write this post because I kept having to take breaks.

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Well, I'm now breaking what I think is the longest streak of not writing any blog entries since I updated this site. And it hasn't been for a lack of things to write about; closer to a lack of time to write about them. In the time since my last post I've finished ARIA The ORIGINATION, Mobile Suit Gundam 0079 and a few other anime series, graduated from college, played Metal Gear Solid 3, gone to Fanime Con, started smoking, gotten married, gotten divorced, lost my job, gone to the moon, fought off cancer, climbed Mount Everest, and played a lot of mahjong. Okay, I admit, a few of those were made up. But really, a lot has happened.

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So here I am watching my friend's elemental shaman throw enemy priests off cliffs to thematically appropriate music after finishing a spectacularly placid episode of Akikan... yeah, it's been a slow day. That's okay, though. After my pleasantly uneventful spring break, I had a friend over to visit, so this past week has been a storm of three-Xbox, six-player Left 4 Dead ("Left 6 Dead"?) and other largely multiplayer pursuits... so it's nice to have some time to catch up on anime and a quieter form of leisure.

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Well, this first post of the new year is long overdue, but I've finally gotten around to writing it. (I did, however, make a rare post to my anime music blog, Nekomimi Music in the meantime.) And, though I have some other interesting thoughts to post, I'll be saving those for a while. Right now, it's time to talk about the new anime starting this season.

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