Uni crunch time.  It’s happened before.  It’s happening now.  It will happen… err… one more time, then I graduate.  But alas it is happening now and it doesn’t get easier.

It’s weird… Because I think i’m gonna be on top of all my assessment and feel as though I got this but bam! Out of nowhere I’ve got an Artificial Intelligence assignment due in 4 days and I’m a little too far from completion for comfort!  So lately Tim and I have been pulling all day’ers trying to get our AI projects under control but it really is proving to be a massive dickhole of a task. The majority of time i spend pulling out large chunks of hair (with far too much ease) and Tim has seizures on the floor.  Not the most efficient way to program, I know, but it isn’t our fault.  I would like to credit the software OpenSim for the  full retardation of the project with special thanks to our lecturer who is forcing us to use it (when there are better software out there to serve the purpose we are trying to achieve).

Congratulations OpenSim, you are the winner!  Here’s your trophy! I believe this trophy adequately represents your usability, practicality, and overall awesomeness.

OpenSim, your trophy is special.  Soccer trophies have a soccer ball on top, golf trophies have golfers on the top, but your trophy carries an extra chromosome on top.  The chromosome is wearing a small hat with a propeller.  It also drinks out of a sipper cup.  Your trophy also sports heavily detailed  drool easing its way down the side of the it.  Your trophy does not have a flat base so that you may be able to sit it on your mantlepiece, instead the base is made of vomit and is irregular. There are no obvious handles to your trophy.  If your trophy were to pass GO, instead of collecting $200, it would murder small children.  Your trophy promotes cancer and violence against women.  Also, excluding the sections of your trophy that is made of vomit and a chromosome, your trophy is made of poo.

So I’ve had my first week of university – and it’s good to be back.

First thing i’d like to mention is my Japanese classes.  I was awesome enough to miss my first class on Monday – i got my times mized up… *facepalm* However, I managed to turn up for the second class.  It was scheduled to be a 2 hour class, but when I turned up the teacher (who didn’t actually tell us her name) handed out a test and told us to complete the test, then have a 1-on-1 consult with her, where she would mark our tests and give comments, then we could leave.  I had no idea we had a test! ARGH! However, i’m sure its safe to assume that I would have known had I turned up to class on Monday…

Anyway, I looked at the test.  First page: Translations.  I looked at the 5 phrases I needed to translate and immediately felt like an idiot.  I translated a grand total of 1 out of 5 phrases.  Not at all off to a good start. It was quite simply due to the fact that there were kanji in these sentences that i’d never even seen before – Ever.

Second page was grammar. No problems with that.

Also on second page, a thank you letter to a friend in Japan who sent me a Christmas present. No problems again (apart from an embarassing katakana error… guh… so out of practice).

In my last post i mentioned that I was going for my “Japanese Placement Interview”.  The word “Interview” was the word used by Dr. Nagata and so i prepared myself for an interview.  I went through some listening excercises, went over some grammar and vocab…. I didn’t bother with too much kanji practice as I figured speaking would be the primary focus in this interview. I’m already pretty confident with my pronunciation.  And generally, with vocab and grammar fresh in my mind i’m generally pretty ok at speaking, i mean, i’m sure to the Japanese I probably speak like a 5 year old child – a 5 year old JAPANESE child! And so i’m happy enough with that for the time being.

I was set, I was pumped, I was only a wee bit nervous, and really, most importantly, I was open to whatever result I would receive.  So I turned up, there were a few people in the room and so I immediately thought that this must be like a group interview thing.  I didn’t know if I should wait before going in or what, and there were some people sitting down outside so I took a seat and waited for a bit.  I also had a bit of a chat with the people outside, they were also there for either the interview or just to gather some information.  One girl had already lived in Japan for a year, and one of the guys was fresh out of highschool and had never studied Japanese before.

I walked in and told one of the Japanese professors that I was there for the interview to which she replied (in her Obaachan-like Japanese accent): “Oh, you’re here for the test!” then she hands me 2 bits of paper and tells me to sit down and get started (politely of course).

The week or so has been quite eventful – although the events themselves seem super lame.

I was meeting my darling Amy at a restaraunt the other day, i was running late and i had to put my shoes on, so what did i do? Put my shoes on WHILST driving! Achievement! … … *cough*

New blog design is in progress, concept #1 completed,  aaaand…. scrapped. It won’t do.  Onto concept #2.

Oh i also bought a hat the other day, turns out it was a girls hat – and i wear it with pride!

Met a few new people who ran into my blog, hopefully they are enjoying it – big shout out to them.  Especially you Chris, my fellow gentleman who can’t breath whilst sleeping lol

Ahh… wow today was probably one of the best days I’ve had in a loooong while.

Today marked the day I finish Uni this semester – heck the last day I finish Uni in Austraia for 2009!!! No more uni till Kansai Gaidai! And, oh, was it a wonderful day.

So I woke up this morning after a pretty good sleep – which doesn’t happy very often due to a sleeping condition I have – and I dived straight into study for my final exam for the semester: Japanese.  And what a way to go out!

got owned…

Ok so today I had my first Japanese listening test, and to be honest – I was freaking out.

Mentioned a million times before: I test well.  I’m good at exams, comfortable, never nervous, and it’s what I do best at.  However this was different.  I was freaking out!!! I felt severely underprepared.  The thing that was letting me down was definitely my vocab – which is terrible! I have SOOO much trouble remembering/recalling different vocab.  Obviously this would be a problem. Even if i know what they said – i wouldn’t know what they meant.  It’s the thing i have the most trouble with!

So today I had the pre-departure information session.  Things were looking good until something was discretely brought to my attention.  I, Jace, master of this here blog you read this very moment am NOT going to Kansai Gaidai!