日本語の勉強時間は全然探せない

We started this particular Sunday morning extremely early. Having watched "Harry Potter & The Order of the Phoenix" last night with friends, we returned home to rest. The movie itself wasn't as bad as I had initially expected. I'm not a big fan of the series, and I thought the last Harry Potter movie sucked, so I wasn't too keen on watching this one. However, I felt the pacing and plot of this movie was much better thought out than the previous one.

We took some pics and also videos of Misa-chan this week, and I've uploaded one of the clips here. We've been living with her for around 2 months now, and she's gotten a little plump due to all the good food that she's getting on a daily basis. She's getting friendlier with us nowadays, and will jump onto our palms whenever we bring her out. Still, she's very scared of leaving familiar territory and will tend to stay rooted to a same spot. Well, easier for us to take care of her this way.

I've got these Death Note figurines yesterday. For those who read the manga or watched the anime, you'll undoubtly remember these figures as the ones Near used to explain his theories to the others. Having these figures sure make crime solving much easier. :)

Linked up with Sze Huat at Chinatown Central today and got the stuff which I had ordered. Remember last week's post with all the figures and candy toys? They're all part of my collection now. Costed me a bomb but after some calculations by yours truly they still cost less than Mabel's clothing expenditure. Hehe.

I've tore open all the boxes and placed the figures into my 2 glass cabinets. I'll need to take a pic of my collection one of these days. Anyway, I've got not much room left so I took out the Bleach and Naruto figures and squeezed them together with my Gundam models. The old gotta move to make room for the new, eh.

My Japanese term exam falls on this coming week. I've not been revising at all, and will have to rely on the assignments to have a crash course on Sunday night and Monday evening. I'm not too worried though, as passing or failure does nothing much except for boosting my morale. As for the oral presentation, I chose the topic "日本語の勉強で大変なことは何ですか。そのために何をしていますか", which means "What problems are you facing during your Japanese studies right now? What are you doing about it?". Here's my answer:

最近、日本語の勉強時間は全然探せない。理由はたくさんあります。今から説明します。昇進したので、仕事はどんどん少しで増えて行きますから、毎日家へ帰った時体も心も疲れました。たとえ時間があるし、どちらがといえば日本語を復習するよりインタ―ネットをサーフしたい。以上、たくさんアニメ番組や映画を見ていますから、時間は足りません。

毎週、日本語のクラスで新の語彙と文法は段々難しくなっていくそうです。分りにくいことは多いですけど、これは正常です。残念ですが、私もよく先生の質問に当惑した。

結局、たとえ最後に分かりましたが、私は必ず一週間に新覚えた文法と語彙を完全忘れちゃった。運良く、私の記憶力は望みのない。それでも、否定さない実際はたった一つ。私は本当に日本語が大好きです。たとえ何が起こっても、私は決して諦めないつもりです。

日本人のように話すできるに成りたいと言っても、こんな純真な理想は無理です。できるだけ、私のゴールは辞書を使わないで日本のテレビ番組と歌を理解できる。日本人と話すとき、日本語をちゃんと使うできるになりたい。これは私日本語を勉強するの目的。これも私の夢です。

この作文を書く時、上手に成ることにしました。いくつか得点を決めました。さあ、見せてやります。

一つ： 毎週の宿題は全く完成します（できるだけ）
二つ： もっとたくさんアニメを見たり、音楽を聴いたり
三つ： 日本語の相手とスピチを練習します
四つ： 簡単な日本漫画を買う、真面目で読みます
五つ： いつでも問題があるとき、先生に聞きます

来年のJLPT2を合格のために、ここから一生懸命勉強する外の方法はないと思います。困ったですよね。でも、私はとても興奮した。日本語を習ってとき、ぜひ嬉です。夢へ頑張ります！

I went for a course called "The Psychology of Learning & Motivation" in National Institute of Education (NIE) this week. I learned some new things such as human behavourism, psychoanalyis and theories from Skinner and also Freud. On the last day of the course, I gave a presentation on Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP). I chose this topic because I didn't want to do a topic on motivation like the rest of the students did. Here's a summary of what I presented.

NLP is a model that examines how the human mind processes information. It states that for practical purposes, information is processed through the senses. It is strongly tied into, and influenced by how memories and perceptions are processed within each sense, in the mind. For most people, 3 of the 5 sensory based modes dominate in mental processing:

• Visual thoughts - sight, mental imagery, spatial awareness
• Auditory (or linguistic) thoughts - sound, speech, dialog, white noise
• Kinesthetic sense - somatic feelings in the body, temperature, pressure, and also emotion.
• Taste & smell are closely associated, often less significant in mental processing, and are often considered jointly.

Even a simple questions such as "Do you like this dress" will trigger a series of activities in your brain, as you try to process the information. Refer to the chart on the right (yes I know it's too small, click to enlarge).

A common style of processing, where eye flickers in directions seem to tie into mental processing. Such processing is associated with sensory word use. For eg. a person asked what they liked about the beach, may flick their eyes briefly in a direction (visual memory access, often upwards), and then use words that describe it in a visual sense ("The sea looked lovely“). Refer to the picture below on the different types of cues given. Remember different people might have different cues than suggested by NLP, but what's shown is the norm for a right handed person.

So why is NLP important? Well, some tasks are more optimally performed within one representational system than by another. For eg. In education, spelling is better learned by children who have unconsciously used a strategy of visualization, than an unconscious strategy of phonetical "sounding out". When taught to visualize, previously poor spellers can indeed be taught to improve.

Will be away for another course this week, but it's work related so it's not going to be all fun and games like in NIE. Hopefully I'll learn more interesting things and to share it here too. I'll also be catering time for runs in the evening, so that I can train up for the upcoming half marathon. I've only clocked up to 10km in my last run, so I'll still need to go for some long distance runs. I don't want to repeat the same mistake of not conditioning my body enough like last year. That's all for this week. Bye!