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coolohohIf I had to pick a 'word of the week', it'll have to be happenings. It's been a week filled with happenings really. Wanted to blog about them much earlier, but never managed to find time till today. Well its been a tiring week for sure. For one, I've not even watched last week's AnS, Aiba manabu, and Nino-san... AND then this week's VSA is out already. Not to mention that I have like... two months of TSD to watch.
But wells... Weekends I was busy with subs. So was Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday night. Heck even this morning I spent some time translating before I left for work. But its FINALLY completed now. A surprise release, so I'll talk more about translating this episode when we finally release it. And believe me, I do have loads to talk about...
But the happenings! At work! First up on Monday... I reached the workplace to find that the canteen has suddenly closed down. So that means we have to go out for lunch everyday now. Though they did provide some gap stop measures like having a lunch bus come several days this week... but it'll be till Nov at least before a new vendor takes over the canteen, and there'll be no more lunch bus from next week onwards. Which sucks. Sure the building management's shuttle bus is now FOC, but still it’s a hassle to have to go out for lunch everyday.
Still on Monday... The boss - the big boss of the whole huge organisation, called for a meeting during lunch time. And I kinda pushed my luck with trying to finish my gas measurement before I head up for the meeting... and gosh it was a pretty eerie experience because I was the only one left in the lab. Yeah I was kinda late... There wasn't a single soul left in the labs... but hey I was far from being the last person to head to the meeting room. People were reaching there in droves after me XD. The meeting room wasn't really big... and it was totally PACKED to the brim because of the order for everyone to be present at the meeting. All the staff and all the students. The students - PhD students - actually made up the bulk of the crowd. Maybe two thirds? It was so much more roomy after they left and the boss spoke to the staff in private. Nothing that I'll like to say here about the meeting. Besides the fact that they announced a mid autumn festival celebration on the 4th of sept. They were supposed to send out emails, and I believe they have done so... BUT I'm not on the freaking mailing list. It was the same for the CNY celebrations last time! I had freaking no idea! And I went to have lunch when there was actually free food provided. Sheesh! I needa ask around to see who I'd have to bug to be put on the mailing list. Last time I wasn't even on the mailing list of the research staff. So all the stuff like equipment maintenance... I never got any of those! That was worst!
Well so that was Monday. No... not all for Monday. Well before the meeting actually... I was in a rush remember? I had to take samples form the fermenter too... and cos I was in the rush and that looong tubing was making it take from me to take the samples... I kinda just pushed the syringe down hard on the table... real hard and... WHOOSH! The tubing disconnected from the syringe and the sludge just shot out like a rocket. On my labcoat, safety googles... and then one big spat on the ceiling lights troololololol! No more rushing next time hahaha. And I'll hold the tubing in place while pushing the syringe hahaha. As I was advised to do before... :P hahahaha. Yeah, one thing that I'm glad for is the washing machine in the lab and all... they wash the labcoats regularly and make sure there's a decent supply, so you can change your labcoat anytime. And they just got in a new batch of shiny labcoats. Well not THAT new anymore - I've already sent three to the wash so far - but still, its very nice. To have such facilities. They do take care of such stuff pretty nicely here, you have to give them that.
And so that was Monday. Then Tuesday. I went to check on my fermenters as usual, and saw that... there was no gas production! The fermenters had all stopped running! At first I was like... what the heck??? They stopped the fermenters and didn't tell me??? But nope. It was a power trip. So we turned the power back on and tried a bit... and discovered that it seems like one of the reactors was causing problems. Which is bad. We are already at the last part of the experiment - an experiment that's been running for more than half a year! Sup called the engineer, and the guy came down after lunch. Sup went for national geographic talk though, so I had to stay with the engineer... I watched as he tried the stuff, unplugging here and there... and eventually just unpluging everything from the mains but... it still tripped! Which clearly means that the problem was NOT with our equipment. Long story short, we eventually found the culprit in another room that tripped the power as soon as it turns on. And gave off a weird smell too. So problem solved. Poor chap came down for pretty much nothing, and our fermenters had stopped running for close to a day.
I had thought that... I might be more free now that my parts have been more or less finished but... nope. I spent a lot of time running around the lab still. Helping my RFs with their work and such... today I actually did have some time in the evening, and I decided to check on my favourite authors and... lo and behold! Three new books from two authors! Two from Terry Brooks and one from... what's the guy who wrote the CHERUB series again? Well and so I ended up reading Lone Wolf. The latest book in the Cherub series. I love that series. It provides nice inspiration for my Spy Arashi fic. XD And well, I was reading till chapter 40 and contemplating to just read finish before I head home (it was past 6pm already then), or to head home already... when suddenly someone messages me on FB! It was a fellow Arashi fan whom I met on mixlr asking about my JLPT results. Speaking of mixlr... I've not broadcasted at all this week! Been too busy with the subs! But well we both took JLPT N3 this yeah, and I was like... what results? I've not gotten it in the mail yet. And she kindly reminded me about being able to check the results online, and that the password for logging in was in the sign up form. I've totally forgotten about it. And I totally don't know/care about the online results checking thing. For N4 I just waited till the results came in the mail hahaha! Well for a person like me, I'd definitely not remember stuff like the day the results is out for sure, even I had not completely ignored that online results checking. But well. The great thing about being someone who's so lazy like me was that.. I've been carrying around all that JLPT registration form with me FOREVER. Since the day I've signed up. Literally. It's just in a little plastic pocket file that I always carry around in my bag and I've never bothered taking it out. So there! I could check my results there and then in the office! And lo and behold. A for vocab and A for grammar. I passed of course. With a score of 160/180. I was like... 'is that score good?'. And went rummaging around that same plastic file again. And found my score slip from N4. Yes! That thing is also, still, in my folder. HAHHAA. From the start of the year! Anyway. So here's my results last time.
N4
Language Knowledge (Vocab/Grammar) + Reading: 90/120
Listening: 60/60
Total: 150/180
Vocab: A
Grammar: A
Reading: A
And this time...
N3
Language Knowledge (Vocab/Grammar): 46/60
Reading: 59/60
Listening: 55/60
Total: 160/180
Vocab: A
Grammar: A
So I was like... ahhhhh I actually did better this time than the last! Yeah, I do remember thinking last year that... 150/180 is an A? They kinda have lax rules for getting an A right? I mean like... 150/180 percentage wise is only 83.33%! Well this time round I scored an 89.89%. Slightly better. But no 90%! Bleah. For N4 and N5, the Lang knowledge and reading scores are lumped together, but its separated for the N3, N2 and N1. Looking at my scores this time... Well my vocab and grammar definitely improved. But my listening! No longer a full mark. Meh. But I did know during the test. There were some questions in listening that I didn’t fully comprehend. Meh. That sucks. Ahhhhhh! Well at least reading I did well... But as expected. It's still the vocab and grammar that I need to improve a lot on. Esp if I were to take N2 this Dec... *gasp* its reaching Sept soon already! And the sign ups will open really soon (or has it opened already?) so I have to make a decision fast on whether to take N2 this year or wait till the next. If I sign up it'll be when I go down and collect my cert. Its kinda troublesome. I have to go down after work to collect since you can't collect the cert on weekends!
Well. You can totally hate me now if you like. Cos really... I do feel like Akaiwa in Yowakutemou sometimes. Like in my secondary school days. When I aced all the science exams without studying. When all my friends will be frantically flipping through their notes and what not... and my friend tried to test me something and I was totally clueless. But clearly the stuff they studied was... irrelevant? cos 1) it didn’t come out in the exams and 2) I scored way higher than them. And looking at my JLPT results, I couldn't help but laugh. Laughing at those people I saw with thick stacks of notes and flipping through them before the JLPT exams. Like seriously notebooks, printed handouts, handwritten notes... And what was I doing? Nothing. I didn't even read all the grammar books I bought. What I found ridiculous was... quite a lot of China nationals were there, and they were the ones with all the thick notes. And I'm like, dude! Why do you even need those notes? Your Chinese must be a 10000000x better than mine, and even with my noob noob Chinese I can understand those stuff, are you sure you can't? Esp all the kanji. It's either simplified Chinese, or traditional Chinese, or a mutation of either. And hey we don't even need to write the kanji in JLPT. You just need to recognise them! Sure kanji is hard for non-Chinese/Japanese.... but hey? Girls from China? Aw come'on! You gotta be kidding me! Okays. I have no idea how well they did. They probably scored full marks or something. But the rest of the Singaporean Chinese... who clearly went for Japanese classes together, cos they were all gathering around and discussing their notes and stuff. And its like... after the exams they were gathering together and talking about how hard the paper was, and all the questions they couldn't do but were... very easy to me. And it's easy cos its simple kanji/Chinese. And I was like... don't you people know Chinese??? Like... hello! You couldn't guess the meaning from the words? Well you don't even need to guess the meaning, it’s the same as in Chinese!
Meh.
Speaking of which. I think the parts that killed me were the kanji to hiragana parts? Idk... I don't really remember which parts the paper has now hahaha! Bleah. Slacker to the max. I don't even know the types of questions they come out with! Maybe I should buy/otherwise grab hold or a past year N2 paper and actually try it before sitting for the exam. I need to buck up a lot on listening though. Bleah. I should go download those Sho NewsZero clips and watch them. And actually read those grammar books. Instead of just having the books to decorate my table and collect dust or something. Meh. I always talk but take no action! :P
Well... I guess while it's true that I don't actually sit down with a text book and study... I do spend a lot of time coming into contact with Japanese. All the shows I watch, the reviews/translations I do... especially now with the translations. Each time there's an unknown word I'll check the dictionary. Even if I know the meaning of the word, I still check it out sometimes because it'll help me to find the right English word to translate to faster. Instead of my having to grope around for the right word to use. A suggestion from the dictionary makes things easier, especially if my brain is already half frozen up or something. Like in my secondary school days I guess. I never mugged for the exams, but I'm interested in science, so I read up a lot. Like by the time I was secondary 2 I finished reading the whole secondary upper sec chemistry syllabus already. So I guess it's like... I do still study, but in a different way, a different form.
But ahhhh... I'm delighted. Happy and relieved that I did manage to do well as expected. After all that talk and complains about translations by a certain other group... it would be pathetic if I didn't do well hahaha. Yeah. I'm competitive. I removed myself from the competition in JC and uni, cos I've had enough.... but deep down I still am competitive. I like to prove to myself, to others that I'm good. I may not be the best, but I'm good and I know what I'm capable of. And I do like it, being confident that way. Because I know I have the capabilities... And yup... its that competitiveness that makes me want to sub a certain video that mascot has been begging me to sub... And I'm hoping to finish subbing it before them. Even though they will never know that we 'won', and only about 400 people will get to enjoy it. And really since we just finished the other video today, I have less time to translate, plus I'm working. But meh. That's just how I am... let's see if I can do it faster this time round. Competition = motivation hahaha!
But wells... Weekends I was busy with subs. So was Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday night. Heck even this morning I spent some time translating before I left for work. But its FINALLY completed now. A surprise release, so I'll talk more about translating this episode when we finally release it. And believe me, I do have loads to talk about...
But the happenings! At work! First up on Monday... I reached the workplace to find that the canteen has suddenly closed down. So that means we have to go out for lunch everyday now. Though they did provide some gap stop measures like having a lunch bus come several days this week... but it'll be till Nov at least before a new vendor takes over the canteen, and there'll be no more lunch bus from next week onwards. Which sucks. Sure the building management's shuttle bus is now FOC, but still it’s a hassle to have to go out for lunch everyday.
Still on Monday... The boss - the big boss of the whole huge organisation, called for a meeting during lunch time. And I kinda pushed my luck with trying to finish my gas measurement before I head up for the meeting... and gosh it was a pretty eerie experience because I was the only one left in the lab. Yeah I was kinda late... There wasn't a single soul left in the labs... but hey I was far from being the last person to head to the meeting room. People were reaching there in droves after me XD. The meeting room wasn't really big... and it was totally PACKED to the brim because of the order for everyone to be present at the meeting. All the staff and all the students. The students - PhD students - actually made up the bulk of the crowd. Maybe two thirds? It was so much more roomy after they left and the boss spoke to the staff in private. Nothing that I'll like to say here about the meeting. Besides the fact that they announced a mid autumn festival celebration on the 4th of sept. They were supposed to send out emails, and I believe they have done so... BUT I'm not on the freaking mailing list. It was the same for the CNY celebrations last time! I had freaking no idea! And I went to have lunch when there was actually free food provided. Sheesh! I needa ask around to see who I'd have to bug to be put on the mailing list. Last time I wasn't even on the mailing list of the research staff. So all the stuff like equipment maintenance... I never got any of those! That was worst!
Well so that was Monday. No... not all for Monday. Well before the meeting actually... I was in a rush remember? I had to take samples form the fermenter too... and cos I was in the rush and that looong tubing was making it take from me to take the samples... I kinda just pushed the syringe down hard on the table... real hard and... WHOOSH! The tubing disconnected from the syringe and the sludge just shot out like a rocket. On my labcoat, safety googles... and then one big spat on the ceiling lights troololololol! No more rushing next time hahaha. And I'll hold the tubing in place while pushing the syringe hahaha. As I was advised to do before... :P hahahaha. Yeah, one thing that I'm glad for is the washing machine in the lab and all... they wash the labcoats regularly and make sure there's a decent supply, so you can change your labcoat anytime. And they just got in a new batch of shiny labcoats. Well not THAT new anymore - I've already sent three to the wash so far - but still, its very nice. To have such facilities. They do take care of such stuff pretty nicely here, you have to give them that.
And so that was Monday. Then Tuesday. I went to check on my fermenters as usual, and saw that... there was no gas production! The fermenters had all stopped running! At first I was like... what the heck??? They stopped the fermenters and didn't tell me??? But nope. It was a power trip. So we turned the power back on and tried a bit... and discovered that it seems like one of the reactors was causing problems. Which is bad. We are already at the last part of the experiment - an experiment that's been running for more than half a year! Sup called the engineer, and the guy came down after lunch. Sup went for national geographic talk though, so I had to stay with the engineer... I watched as he tried the stuff, unplugging here and there... and eventually just unpluging everything from the mains but... it still tripped! Which clearly means that the problem was NOT with our equipment. Long story short, we eventually found the culprit in another room that tripped the power as soon as it turns on. And gave off a weird smell too. So problem solved. Poor chap came down for pretty much nothing, and our fermenters had stopped running for close to a day.
I had thought that... I might be more free now that my parts have been more or less finished but... nope. I spent a lot of time running around the lab still. Helping my RFs with their work and such... today I actually did have some time in the evening, and I decided to check on my favourite authors and... lo and behold! Three new books from two authors! Two from Terry Brooks and one from... what's the guy who wrote the CHERUB series again? Well and so I ended up reading Lone Wolf. The latest book in the Cherub series. I love that series. It provides nice inspiration for my Spy Arashi fic. XD And well, I was reading till chapter 40 and contemplating to just read finish before I head home (it was past 6pm already then), or to head home already... when suddenly someone messages me on FB! It was a fellow Arashi fan whom I met on mixlr asking about my JLPT results. Speaking of mixlr... I've not broadcasted at all this week! Been too busy with the subs! But well we both took JLPT N3 this yeah, and I was like... what results? I've not gotten it in the mail yet. And she kindly reminded me about being able to check the results online, and that the password for logging in was in the sign up form. I've totally forgotten about it. And I totally don't know/care about the online results checking thing. For N4 I just waited till the results came in the mail hahaha! Well for a person like me, I'd definitely not remember stuff like the day the results is out for sure, even I had not completely ignored that online results checking. But well. The great thing about being someone who's so lazy like me was that.. I've been carrying around all that JLPT registration form with me FOREVER. Since the day I've signed up. Literally. It's just in a little plastic pocket file that I always carry around in my bag and I've never bothered taking it out. So there! I could check my results there and then in the office! And lo and behold. A for vocab and A for grammar. I passed of course. With a score of 160/180. I was like... 'is that score good?'. And went rummaging around that same plastic file again. And found my score slip from N4. Yes! That thing is also, still, in my folder. HAHHAA. From the start of the year! Anyway. So here's my results last time.
N4
Language Knowledge (Vocab/Grammar) + Reading: 90/120
Listening: 60/60
Total: 150/180
Vocab: A
Grammar: A
Reading: A
And this time...
N3
Language Knowledge (Vocab/Grammar): 46/60
Reading: 59/60
Listening: 55/60
Total: 160/180
Vocab: A
Grammar: A
So I was like... ahhhhh I actually did better this time than the last! Yeah, I do remember thinking last year that... 150/180 is an A? They kinda have lax rules for getting an A right? I mean like... 150/180 percentage wise is only 83.33%! Well this time round I scored an 89.89%. Slightly better. But no 90%! Bleah. For N4 and N5, the Lang knowledge and reading scores are lumped together, but its separated for the N3, N2 and N1. Looking at my scores this time... Well my vocab and grammar definitely improved. But my listening! No longer a full mark. Meh. But I did know during the test. There were some questions in listening that I didn’t fully comprehend. Meh. That sucks. Ahhhhhh! Well at least reading I did well... But as expected. It's still the vocab and grammar that I need to improve a lot on. Esp if I were to take N2 this Dec... *gasp* its reaching Sept soon already! And the sign ups will open really soon (or has it opened already?) so I have to make a decision fast on whether to take N2 this year or wait till the next. If I sign up it'll be when I go down and collect my cert. Its kinda troublesome. I have to go down after work to collect since you can't collect the cert on weekends!
Well. You can totally hate me now if you like. Cos really... I do feel like Akaiwa in Yowakutemou sometimes. Like in my secondary school days. When I aced all the science exams without studying. When all my friends will be frantically flipping through their notes and what not... and my friend tried to test me something and I was totally clueless. But clearly the stuff they studied was... irrelevant? cos 1) it didn’t come out in the exams and 2) I scored way higher than them. And looking at my JLPT results, I couldn't help but laugh. Laughing at those people I saw with thick stacks of notes and flipping through them before the JLPT exams. Like seriously notebooks, printed handouts, handwritten notes... And what was I doing? Nothing. I didn't even read all the grammar books I bought. What I found ridiculous was... quite a lot of China nationals were there, and they were the ones with all the thick notes. And I'm like, dude! Why do you even need those notes? Your Chinese must be a 10000000x better than mine, and even with my noob noob Chinese I can understand those stuff, are you sure you can't? Esp all the kanji. It's either simplified Chinese, or traditional Chinese, or a mutation of either. And hey we don't even need to write the kanji in JLPT. You just need to recognise them! Sure kanji is hard for non-Chinese/Japanese.... but hey? Girls from China? Aw come'on! You gotta be kidding me! Okays. I have no idea how well they did. They probably scored full marks or something. But the rest of the Singaporean Chinese... who clearly went for Japanese classes together, cos they were all gathering around and discussing their notes and stuff. And its like... after the exams they were gathering together and talking about how hard the paper was, and all the questions they couldn't do but were... very easy to me. And it's easy cos its simple kanji/Chinese. And I was like... don't you people know Chinese??? Like... hello! You couldn't guess the meaning from the words? Well you don't even need to guess the meaning, it’s the same as in Chinese!
Meh.
Speaking of which. I think the parts that killed me were the kanji to hiragana parts? Idk... I don't really remember which parts the paper has now hahaha! Bleah. Slacker to the max. I don't even know the types of questions they come out with! Maybe I should buy/otherwise grab hold or a past year N2 paper and actually try it before sitting for the exam. I need to buck up a lot on listening though. Bleah. I should go download those Sho NewsZero clips and watch them. And actually read those grammar books. Instead of just having the books to decorate my table and collect dust or something. Meh. I always talk but take no action! :P
Well... I guess while it's true that I don't actually sit down with a text book and study... I do spend a lot of time coming into contact with Japanese. All the shows I watch, the reviews/translations I do... especially now with the translations. Each time there's an unknown word I'll check the dictionary. Even if I know the meaning of the word, I still check it out sometimes because it'll help me to find the right English word to translate to faster. Instead of my having to grope around for the right word to use. A suggestion from the dictionary makes things easier, especially if my brain is already half frozen up or something. Like in my secondary school days I guess. I never mugged for the exams, but I'm interested in science, so I read up a lot. Like by the time I was secondary 2 I finished reading the whole secondary upper sec chemistry syllabus already. So I guess it's like... I do still study, but in a different way, a different form.
But ahhhh... I'm delighted. Happy and relieved that I did manage to do well as expected. After all that talk and complains about translations by a certain other group... it would be pathetic if I didn't do well hahaha. Yeah. I'm competitive. I removed myself from the competition in JC and uni, cos I've had enough.... but deep down I still am competitive. I like to prove to myself, to others that I'm good. I may not be the best, but I'm good and I know what I'm capable of. And I do like it, being confident that way. Because I know I have the capabilities... And yup... its that competitiveness that makes me want to sub a certain video that mascot has been begging me to sub... And I'm hoping to finish subbing it before them. Even though they will never know that we 'won', and only about 400 people will get to enjoy it. And really since we just finished the other video today, I have less time to translate, plus I'm working. But meh. That's just how I am... let's see if I can do it faster this time round. Competition = motivation hahaha!
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(no subject)
Date: 2014-08-29 05:12 am (UTC)Yay for doing well on the tests! ...I have no idea how to study, myself. I never needed to before, but when it comes to things I have no clue about and isn't easy to reason out...fail. LOL
*hugs you*
(no subject)
Date: 2014-08-30 10:56 am (UTC)*hugs*
(no subject)
Date: 2014-08-29 05:56 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-08-29 05:57 am (UTC)