Day 3 - First Completed Item

I finally get to bold an item today! It's this:

#41 - Complete 2nd grade kanji (160 characters)

I may as well bold it here too--it just looks better. -_^ Some background info: Japanese was my second major in college and I studied abroad in Osaka for a year. I love Japanese and gets lots of opportunities to speak it at home with my boyfriend. So while my listening and speaking are pretty good my reading and writing need some work. In order to pass Level 2 of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (#47, wouldn't you know it) you have to know 1,000 kanji, or written characters. That's about half of what Japanese people learn in school, or nearly every character from first to sixth grade.

I've studied a lot of kanji in the past, and at my peak I probably knew close to 600... but being two years out of practice really puts a damper on things. I'm closer to 400 now. My current study strategy is to read level appropriate material (3rd-4th grade at the moment) and go through the characters systematically by grade level, brushing up the ones I know and fully learning the ones I don't. So--second grade kanji, done. Third grade kanji, you're next.

To go along with this I've been going through a textbook I recently got called 小学３･４年社会自由自在 ...it's a social studies book for third and fourth graders. Not only am I learning new words ("Oooo, harbor! Breakwater!") but it's also great for getting Japanese culture and common sense into my head. There's a section on Japanese map symbols, which are totally different from ours. Another chapter gives a geography lesson about each prefecture and what goods it's famous for (Niigata = rice, if you ever wanted to know). It's the stuff that every good Japanese should know, and every bumbling American needs help with. It's been satisfying study, not to mention #48 on my list.

Okay, enough about Japanese, it's time to ask the question I know is on your mind--did I take my vitamins today? Yes. Yes I did. One more to #26. I also finished reading this week's New Yorker, but I'm not putting #10 in italics. I'd rather it feel unofficial. The moment it feels real, like an obligation, I'm going to drop the ball. Right now it's just an... experiment. ^_^

Related to #8, I called the people at a radio internship I applied to and they said decisions will be made this week. When I called the really nice guy on the other end was like, "If you don't get it, do reapply". That made me think two things. One, does he already know if I made it or not? And two, maybe this is more competitive than I thought. It was encouraging, though. New internships come up every few months, and this isn't something I'm going to give up on.

Okay, this long entry dearly needs a picture. Here's that first completed pair of socks I mentioned, for #1:



Comfort Socks in Trekking (color 62) on size 1 needles. Plain Jane.