Lazy Sunday

I woke up this morning and eagerly checked my mailbox for news of my new toy, not really expecting anything since we're not supposed to have a manager in on Sundays. But, the manager was here, as was a note saying that I had a package waiting for me in the office.

My first internet order in Japan! Somehow that makes it seem more exciting.

There it is, the ultimate quick reference for learning a foreign language. A writing pad for characters, variable speed text-to-speech, and tons of other useful things will make it a worthy replacement for the two dictionaries I've been toting around.

The only snag is that the interface is entirely in Japanese. This is Japan, after all; these toys are made for the Japanese to more easily learn and understand English, Chinese, Korean, etc. Still, it contains all the information I need to know, it's just slightly more difficult to learn how to use it.

With that in hand, I finally felt some motivation to do some homework. Even with the help of my new gadget, it's slow-going and difficult. There are a couple of new grammar items in there, and trying to figure them out with the usual English narration I'm used to was difficult. The guided compositions are also significantly harder than what I've been doing in Albuquerque, requiring a lot more creativity to do without sounding completely amateur. I have been surprised and pleased to run into and be able to use a lot of the new kanji I learned last weekend. Being able to remember them was also surprising, since I haven't been reviewing like I should since last Monday. I think that says a lot about the spaced approach Anki uses.

I took a break from my homework due to hunger, and fixed up some curry and rice. As an experiment, I sautéed an onion and added it to the beef curry sauce, then decided to throw in a healthy portion of crushed red pepper to give it some kick. The idea was sound, but the execution was flawed... I cooked way too much rice, and added way too much pepper. I really need to get these basic cooking things down so I can move on to learning how to make awesome Japanese things.

In other news, Typhoon Jangmi's position as of about 2 hours and 20 minutes before this post was about 100 miles southeast of Taipei, moving NNW at just shy of 14 mph--the eye is going to hit within a few hours of now, and the storm is already over the island. It's been 17 days since Typhoon Sinlaku hit Taiwan as a much weaker category 2, and caused massive flooding, moodslides, and agricultural damage from over 5 feet of rain. I doubt they've recovered from that one yet. This one is expected to hit as a category 4 and currently has waves around 30 feet. This is not going to be good.