To be Free

I guess I've been pretty productive tonight. Managed to write a few new pages for Nihongo Manabu... including an intro to japanese page. Decided to name the site Nihongo Manabu instead of Nihon Manabu... I think that'll show up better on the search engines too... and would be a more appropriate name for the site. I might change the url when we shift too... I really don't think I'll stay on wordpress.com for long. We'll see. For now... I have to write more content.

Been busy with the upcoming Australia family trip. Ah yes, I think I've not talked about it on LJ yet. I'll be in Aussie from the 6th till the 21st... and arghs... dad's sho-like detailedness in doing things just don't go well with me. And arghs... after so long we finally booked the hotel... the past whole week, every night... has just been bad. Even today too. Gah. Don't wanna elaborate more. But basically I was just busy. And like tonight when I'm not, I'm not even in the mood to watch any video, much less sub anything. So no, I'm afraid you wont see any update on DNA this week either.

I've got loads of plans for the Nihongo Manabu site... and there's loads of things I need to learn too. On both the tech side (things like SEO, using wordpress...), and the language side. I'll be writing lessons after all. Vocab lists are easy peasy. It's the lessons that's troublesome. Esp with that extra touch/idea that I have in mind. It'll take me a while to execute properly...

Gah... getting sleepy already. Guess I'll head to bed soon. Hope to have some update here soon... and see you on Nihongo Manabu perhaps? XD

What a busy weekend.

And I never do get to do any of the things I should have done.

Tweets not posted - heck I still have two tweets to translate.

Postcards not written, and gifts not sorted and posted.

Holiday photos too. Maybe I'll post them on work time...

All I did get done was THAT subs. Which... not sure if J has finished working on it yet. And I gathered a whole, long list of words from that one episode, maybe if I'm free this afternoon I will sort them out and post them. Got more mail in my inbox to reply to too.

Meet up with my sec sch CCA mates last night and we had great fun. We basically just talked and talked for like... almost 5 hours? It's been so long since the three of us last gathered together. It was crazy fun. Talking about then and now. And politics... and what not. We talked till it was past 11pm... before we finally decided to go before the trains stop. I'll like to hit them up again soon. Maybe a couple of times a year would be great.

Finally cross posted my recent fics here... it's been like two weeks since I last posted anything? And there was so many fics! Hahaha! So far so good in terms of keeping up with my one fic a week resolution. In fact last week I had two. I'm still keeping that 1 week piority on RNA though, please check Random Nutty Arashi out if you have no already! Membership is open! XD Octavia writes some really good fics there. And in a completely different genre and style from me! I really like her cracks, they are first class I tell you. And if you are in the mode for some dark stuff, she writes a lot of that too! XD 

Good:
Cleaned up a part of my room - and that's the most difficult part to clean up, I think.
Wrote two fics for Sho's bday. I think I'm getting better at writing now? I can write fics faster... Yet at the same time I still have trouble finishing fics... ><
Finished up AnShi subs. Finished it on Sat as planned.
Finally managed to post day 1 and 2 holiday photos.
Watched Aiba manabu, Tokyo live, and Nino San from the week before
Actually copied down a bunch of noteworthy words from AnShi. And it was really well received so I'll definitely keep it up.

Bad:
Didn't read anything last week. Got two library books that I need to read! I can't return them untouched again!!!
Didn't read any of my Japanese guide books or story books or Manga. Still! And I just vacuumed off a layer of dust from those books yesterday...><
Still nowhere near done with my holiday posts. I really need to finish those posts up... Because it's been one month already and the longer I wait the more I forget! And really... I need to write these posts so that in a couple of years I'll be able to read it and actually remember the trip.
Didn't get a chance to watch last week's vsa and ouroboros. Of course, everything else after that is unwatchable as well.

I'm been missing from LJ for a long time! It was another busy period for me again! Last week in particular was crazy! Did a grand total of 14 plates of qpcr. Together with gel electrophoresis and stuff. Gotta do another 3 plates tmr...

Last weekend was spent packing... so much so that I didn’t have time to read aya's fic at all! And I had promised her to beta it last weekend. Sigh. Tmr is gonna be a bad day. I needa finish those 3 plates AND still have to go to the health services for my hep a/b vaccine. Went today, paid but, and then the nurse tells me they have no stock. Says the stock will be here tmr. They are so freaking disorganized. Seriously. The first time round, the nurse wasn't around and I had to go back the next day too. ZZZZ! So freaking troublesome! And I'm on leave from Friday till next year! Going on holiday this Sunday till the 29th Dec, going to Beijing and Harbin! It's gonna be cold! So yeah, been buying stuff for the trip and all.

Finally updated the masterpost on RNA with the fic octavia posted days ago, and finally did the membership requests on DNA. J's been doing some for me, thanks J! So yeah, with the holiday, I wont have any new projects out for DNA till next year...

Right... that's all for now I guess!

Because you know, I'm a sucker for stats.

In three days DNA will be 4 months old.

And so far, as of writing, we have...

4,921 comments received.

458 members.

61 entries.

20 video releases, totaling over 5 hours.

15 translations, of varying lengths.

12 random posts.

Well if octavia finishes up and posts the random post she's been working on since last week, it'll be 13 random posts.

I'm glad for all the comments our members have given. For all the people who enjoy my translations, and choose it as the version they keep. It's really... tough... Hmm. How should I put it?

Subs is like news. And yes no matter how I try and sugar coat things, I still am competitive. I like it when we release things fast, first. But unlike some, I value quality as well as speed. I won't say I value quality more because... well, somethings I'd probably never be able to get, or by the time I figure things out it'll be weeks later, if at all. I give up on some stuff because otherwise we'd never be able to release anything. And as much as we are perfectionists, we aren't THAT anal about things either. Like if we spot a mistake after encoding is done, I'd rather put it as a note in the post than make J re-encode the entire thing. Which takes really, really long, unless it's a super short video (like 1 min or so) then I guess she'd just re-encode.

Well you can say that we are balanced perfectionist? Ha did I just make up a new term? We take into account things like timeliness too. Some clips needs to be subbed fast. Strike while the iron is hot. E.g. News of Arashi say... going to host kouhaku. Everyone would have read the news a million times otherwise. And then you'd lose your audience.

Even though we have gone underground and now our membership is closed. Ha.

I guess it's because even since I got on the Internet that's what I've been doing. From the time in primary school when Neopets was all in the rage. How do you make your shop stand out? How do you attract people to look at your pet page. Or the website you made? Granted I wasn't thinking much about how to actually get an audience then... but you bet I was when I managed the Heroes Lounge in the Warrior's Hall of MapleSEA forums. Or when I made guides. Or sales threads. Or managed Facebok pages. Or helped in the HiddenStreet database. Timeliness is an extremely important thing.

But when it comes to long videos. Of their regular shows... I just can't do it fast. Or fast enough. My stamina is getting less and less in fact. I guess I'll always be slow when it comes to those. Yet I can do things like the PV making and do it pretty fast too. So are we fast, or slow? I'm confused myself as well haha. I'd think, 'yup, sorry, it's a one man translating operation so we are slow'... but hey we can work fast at times too. Even when we aren't as fast as I would have liked, we were still faster than the rest. Which makes us fast. Sometimes you don't have to truly shine. You just have to shine in comparison. In fact, it's pretty darn hard to be the brightest out of all the stars in the universe. You just have to shine the brightest out of whoever you are comparing yourself with.

I've been wanting to write the following for a while now... and since I'm *still* not in a mood to sub, I'll dive right in.

There's so much competition in the subbing arena now. Granted, groups have gone on official, or unofficial hiatus, however at the same time, more groups are springing up. Still springing up. They say when the competition gets tough, the tough gets going. Indeed. It just means I need to up my game. And me trying to read stuff in Japanese - news, Jweb entries, any random thing, and then translating them, is part of my efforts I guess.

Some people give the advice that, you should always work in aplace where everyone is better than you are. When you get there, learn from others, work hard, become the best. And then leave for somewhere in which you are the worst amongst all the rest again. So true indeed. Especially for someone like me. It's both a good and a bad habit. I automatically adjust my game according to your game. Of course there is a limit as to how much I can adjust, but it's only when I'm at my upper limits, and pushing at it, that I improve. It was certainly the case in weiqi last time. If my opponent sucks, my game sucks too. I merely play well enough to win and that was that. I don't bother putting in more effort than needed. Why waste the energy?

And so it was really a good thing that I need get into my secondary school. Where just about everyone was smarter than me. I can't even began to tell how much I learnt out of it. My English used to be disastrous in primary school. I can't spell, I can't write, I can't even speak it properly. Then enter secondary school. Where everyone spoke English. And I found that I loved fantasy stories. I visited the school library so often, and borrowed so many books. My reading speed - for fantasy stories at least - improved greatly. I could finish a Terry Brooks books in a day. Well, sort or a day? From the time I get home after school and have lunch - that'll be late afternoon, till the wee hours of the night.

Would you believe me if I tell you, languages are one of my weakest point? I sucked at English, (yes, even then, my school results were just bad, bad bad) I sucked even worst at Chinese. There I was, thinking that all those other students coming from an English speaking family would suck at Chinese. I couldn't be more mistaken. They were good. Very good. Most of them were way better than me. And they were not the 'memorize the guidebooks' type of good. They genuinely mastered the language. They could speak it well, converse well, write well. Listening is a given of course. Me? I could only speak. Writing? Epic fail. Just like my English. Or Japanese for that matter. Everyone was just freaking good. It was natural for me to be just listening in awe of their achievements. And seriously that was something that would not happen elsewhere. That did not happen in uni for example. I had a reunion with two of my juniors last year, and really, the things they talked about... it was so nostalgic, the feeling of being back in secondary school again, listening to other people talk about their achievements that was nothing to them, but will never be achievable for me. Perfect GPA in uni for example? That's absolutely nothing to them. And where was I? "Struggling to make ends meet." Scholarship holders and what not. That's their world. And the world I used to be in too. But then I couldn't make it. A failure among all the successes, that what I am. Well... whether this failure turns successful in the end is still a story in progress... let's hope we get some sort of happy ending in the end eh?

I guess that's why I'm doing things like subs... maybe that's why I played maple so much last time too. I need something to occupy my time with. All that brainpower needs to be spent somewhere, on something. And no I don't like looking at cat photos or random vine videos.

I guess that's why I left my previous company too. Even if those fights did not occur, that place could not keep me there. I was too good for that lousy company, the director too useless, too unscientific for me to learn anything from. Heck, she was nothing. Not a scientist, and an even worst businesswoman.

Now in my current job, certainly no such problems. People are experts in their fields. They clearly know what they are talking about. And the Prof/director. He's good. Learnt so much from him even though the only contact I've had with him was just a few meetings. But he knows what he's talking about and I truly respect that. He has that... aura, the charisma needed of a leader. That cranky lady from my old company? None of it. Just a false pretense that gets broken through really fast.

I think it was a real privilege to have been in my secondary school. There we could be whoever we were, however bright you want to be. Sure people do say things like "wah you're so smart" and all... but all out jealously? No. Do they ostracize you? That would just be plain stupid, because everyone else is equally smart, if not even smarter. And because everyone else is smart too, there's really nothing to be jealous about. We say things like, "X person is really smart, and very consistent with her work too. I heard spends an hour revising her work everyday that's why she's the top of the cohort... it's a really good habit but I can't do that." So there you have it. Jealous? Sort of? But then again, we can't bring ourselves to revise everyday. Or even start revision a month before exams. We don't put in as much effort, so what's there to complain about?

Maybe I'm just lucky. My batch, the people I knew, were nice and genuine. I don't know how the current students are like for sure. But you know, it came as a total surprise to me when I found out, in my last year of education (that's the 4th year), that one of the prefects was the grand daughter of the then Sg president. And only because the school invited the president and first lady to our school's 125th (I think?) year anniversary, and they forced her to present the flowers to her grandmother. She didn't even want to do it. Well I wouldn't either if I were her. That'll be just so awkward. Ok, now I can't remember if that took place in sec 3 or 4 anymore. But still. Even though we were in different classes... She clearly didn't go around boasting her status. Nor did that girl from the next class, whom I even did internships with. Only years after graduation, when my sister was in the same class in JC as her younger brother... and my sister realized after a while, and from others, that the said boy was the son of one of the well loved ministers in Sg... and I went to check his facebook... and lo and behold my friend's face was there. In their family shot. I checked with my best friend later and she told me she knew, but that girl doesn't like spreading it around. That's the kind of people you have. Those who are smart aren't boastful either. Nor those who are rich. A lot of them you can't even tell they are rich. They still take the bus home themselves... when in truth they stay in landed properties and hire chauffeurs. Chauffeurs! Or those with houses bigger than community centers. Crazy rich. And on the other hand we have all those living in HDB flats, studying in the school on bursaries and scholarships. I was, well still am, the sandwiched middle class. And as far as I encountered, we all got along well with each other. Nobody was ostracized because they were poor. Even when picking restaurants for our annual class gathering we picked affordable places. We ordered pizza and ate in the shopping center rooftop with our extra class funds. And no we don't pay exorbitant class funds, nor did we pay it frequently. We seriously suspected that the class treasurer paid out of her own pocket for the pizzas. Because I only remember paying twice to the class fund in the whole year, and it was something like... 2 bucks, 5 bucks each time? And the funds was collected because it was being used for something, though I can't remember what anymore. Could the leftovers really feed everyone pizzas? I don't think so... Granted, she's rich - she had a 400 bucks pocket money monthly in sec 1, which was just about 5 times more than what I get. But still, that was nice of her.

Oh, there was loads of cultural diversity too. We have Malays, Indians, people of mixed ancestry, loads of scholars from China (and many others from China who weren't scholars)... quite a handful of Malaysians, a number of Indians from India (i.e. not locals)... I had a classmate who's a scholar from Thailand...

But where they came from really didn't matter. Well I'd bug them with questions like how they find Singapore, where are they staying (which hostel)... but well. What else? Sure, some of those from China had bad English initially. Then they got special English classes every freaking day after school. I was so jealous. Like hey? I NEED those English lessons too? Indeed. In what, one year? One of my friends under that special classes program scored better in her English comprehension than me. Like... !#%%U!#%!$185*&!)$!$2!!!!!

Seriously. Country or background didn't matter. Everyone had good English. Everyone was better than me. It didn't matter if they came from Malaysia, Thailand, or China. They were freaking good. And better than me. So I really don't judge people by their country. Because I know of people from many developing countries who are seriously, way better than me.

But of course. Just because the top people in that country is good doesn't mean everyone is good I guess. Reality check in uni once again. People from other countries with really poor English, some even admit that they don't understand a single thing the lecturer was saying (she spoke accented English. Some European accent... which was fine for me to understand, except that she doesn't know how to use the mic properly, and she mumbles, so most of the time I can barely even HEAR what she's saying.) That poor guy didn't even bother going for the lectures. At least I can understand what she's saying when she speaks up and I can actually hear her.

Again, you get reality checks whenever you're not with groups of smart/understanding people. Being smart is both a good and a bad thing. People hate you for being so smart. They get jealous, and they give you the cold shoulder. Yeah, I've got an ego. I love flaunting at times. But really, normally in real life I'd prefer that you don't know anything about my history at all. Because once you do, you'd start judging. You'd think I'm so and so. Which may or may not be true. You'd think I'm really smart, aced all my exams so on and so forth. But in truth I did a lot worst than the rosy picture you automatically have of students from that school. I feel that I'm a failure. But how could I tell you that? You already think the world of me. I'd say I did badly in my A levels, which is true, but you won't believe me. "How could it be? You're joking right? You're from XXX school after all." *shrugs* True I do believe I'm better than a lot of the people out there, the general public. But I wasn't even half as good as you'd imagined exams wise. Well I just suck at exams. But that's all that mattered in Singapore isn't it?

Better that you don't know at all. And better that I just keep it to myself when I think whatever problems you are having is really trivial, and can be easily solved. Better that I just pretend and nod when you say a particular science concept is really hard to understand, but really, I learnt it all in secondary school already. In this aspect, it's probably easier to be dumb than to be smart. You won't know my true self unless I judge that you won't judge. You won't know unless we are close enough. For the longest time everyone on the MapleSEA forums thought I was a male, which was exactly what I wanted them to think. It's fine. I'd rather things be that way.

Looking towards my future... I don't know. Where can I find that place where my light shines the dimmest? Where can I find a place where everyone is smarter, and more hardworking than me? I have a feeling that the answer to this question lies outside of Singapore.

Just yesterday, the PI gave me that lit review to do, and in searching I kinda missed my usual lunch timing. So I went and took the same bus as the PI did - she was eating lunch with another RF. And during their conversation she mentioned me. The other guy was lamenting about having to write proposals, and she said that he should stop complaining, and she was even getting me to write a proposal - well she isn't though. But I wouldn't mind if she did, or trusted in my ability enough to do so. The other guy was like, but she's just a young little girl (well it's their way of expressing things in Chinese). She said 'But she's really good though, she knows what I want, not like other people who just come back with a pile of rubbish."

So that's it. Demystified. She's using me because she likes that work I did. Well on hindsight I guess that's pretty obvious right? You won't keep asking the same person so do random task for you if they did a bad job. But I didn't think I was doing an exceptional job either. I didn't even do much? Nor anything really that important? And for all I may know she was only picking me because I'm sitting right next to her. She only has to stand me and look over the partition to ask for my help, which was exactly what she did. Who's to say that she wasn't just calling on me out of convenience? Or because, as it happened with the lit scan, the other person(s) she was looking for was not in the office yet?

And no, I don't think she purposely said that to flatter me. The tone and flow of the conversation and her character. It's all good then. Somehow I've been able to make my tiny mark. I found some footing. The life sciences student in a sea of chemistry and civil engineering grads might actually be able to find her place after all.

Better still. She revealed that I would actually be working on that new project together with one of the sups in the old project. That project that she asked me to do a lit scan of. This is it. I really hope it'll work out well. That I won't be dragged into another project as I initially thought I would be. This would be it. My time to shine. The experience I'd get from following a project from inception to the end would be phenomenal. Rather than being thrown into a project halfway as it happened previously. I'd actually know exactly what is going on. I really hope I'd be part of the proposal writing process and all. I want to be a part. I hope there's no rule that only RFs can do those things. Because I frigging want a piece of that pie. It excites me till no end. Knowing the entire story, doing the lit scan and being able to read up... I'd actually know what's going on, and I'd actually be able to contribute stuff. I might even be able to think up of some side experiments that could lead to a paper. I want that. With this previous project... everything was just a half effort. Even the qpcr. On my end I've done my best, but there were too many things out of my control. The protocols, the kit used... it was all taken from the PhD student, from what the group had been doing before. And now that I've learnt a little more, I certainly don't agree with the way he carried out things. The results... aren't really reliable...

But well... from what little lit scan that I've done... I think there's quite a lot of bio, life sciences to be had in that project. My field. Even if I'm not really well versed in it. But still, it's my field. And I can always learn. That project could end up being really good for me. Let's hope things turn out well.

Sigh. So I finally started trying to catch up on my Arashi shows... was watching the 11th of Sept VSA, and guess what? They mentioned V6's butai, and that was when Nagano asked Arashi about watching the concert. Seriously! If I'd watched it I would have lesser problems with the Music Station subs! Sigh. After this Hawaiian stuff I really need to catch up! And I shall try not to lag behind so much again!!!

Right now, I shall just start uploading my mirrors and then get to bed! Oyasumi!

Found an ebook version of The Devotion of Suspect X. Yay! Now I can start reading the Japanese version while comparing with the English version. *wonders when I willa ctually get round to doing it*

In other news. This is what happens when I don't spend sufficient time cleaning my LJ inbox for two weeks.

Gotta get cleaning soon... >< Have not replied to comments on DNA in quite a while T.T

Watched kenshin today and it was good! Loved it!

Great news. I finally drew a Nino Arashimikuji lot. Bad news, I'm too tired to translate anything now.

In other news, I managed to hit almost 50% of abunai last night!

Not too bad...

I *might* actually be able to finish it on Friday night or something.

This is bad. I'm only 1/3 done with that dangerous work. And I have another half done episode. And another episode that I'm about 5 minutes done. And another episode that's one minute done. Seriously... arghs.


The good news is that I'm a little free at work now. Because I don't have any pending experiments to do till my sups get back to me... the bad news is, I can't do subs at work. The other bad news is, I will probably have properly work kind of work to do soon.

Ah. No luck with the jweb entries still. All I'm getting is repeats now. Not even new entries from the members! I think after 4 or 5 days I only got a single new entry on a first day, and the rest were all repeats. Sigh.

Maybe I could try working on some fics. Or some translations. We'll see.

I'm tired. And kinda feeling like a zombie. But I guess I should make the obligatory bday post so here it is! Well... not that I did make one for Nino but anyway... I just suck at remembering ppl's bdays ok? And I don't have anything special to post anyway. Not even a screenie...

But well... I do want to update a bit about my week, and post some photo spam (mostly food). But tmr I guess? Too lazy now. And tired. I slept almost 9 hours last night but I'm so tired. Tch! Forever #notenoughsleep.

Well Nep league did eat up quite a bit of my sleep time last week... maa. I still have a short clip that I planned to do today... so ja ne! I think I should slow down a little. Suddenly my random mafias are drowning me with requests. That's why we don't take requests from members. We don't need to! I feel that I'm releasing a lot! Maybe its just an illusion hahaha! But hey we have over 3 hours worth of videos subbed now!

Ah... got side tracked and watched bits and pieces of the nep league we did... J did a great job with the type setting! Love it! <3

Okays... bath, then subs...!