So my Jet preparation is under way. Interview in a few days. Quite nervous. Haven’t been able to top my Kanji up yet, but hopefully the interview is a decent reason.
Been buying suits, practising smiling, English grammar, questions etc.
Started working in a school too. It’s been a hectic week, but when Jet is done plan on carrying on with my Kanji…otherwise force me!
Hehe will update once the mayhem ends. Well it never ends does it?
Running man episode 58 – “Stress”! For the reference…watch it!
So I have stressed myself out revising for jet, trying to learn how to spell (since jet is English teaching and there will be a short English test before the interview…). I’ve decided to stop stressing, or I’ll be depressed and beat up looking in the interview and they want happy cheerful individuals. So no more “Stress”!
Still gna revise spelling but going to concentrate on me and not cram lot’s of info about Japan into my head. There interviewing me after all not wikipedia. Just gta relax, suit up and feel sexy. I hope….ok I might stress a bit but that is normal..right?…
As for Kanji took a bit of a back-seat but stumbled through up to 600. 100 left and I can get back on learning it. Japanese tomorrow and a nice morning jog to start the day off. Woohoo.
So what I have noticed is that the further I go the less I know. The Anki revision helps me remember the older Kanji by repetition. Need to watch out for not remembering the keywords properly, and remembering the pictures…so not expecting heart + dagger to mean endure but actually picture something memorable (don’t ask me what), so I can remember the word endure.
I’ve also been preparing for my JET interview….so much to prepare. Interview questions (so many on the internet) and so on. Again, the more I seem to revise the less I feel I know…so started off very confident and now kind of scared. But hopefully I will get more confident as the time goes on, just got to make sure I put the hours in so I’m as prepared as I can be for the interview. Never prepared for an interview like this before….it’s like an exam.
I’m tired now. Looking forward to getting to 700 re-revised in the next two days so I can start learning my Kanji again 🙂 Although it will be a feta balancing those Anki sessions and interview prep. I can do this. I hope. Fighting!!!!!!!!
My revision week is going well, 400 under my belt. On schedule. Had a 4 hours interview today. Nan de?! So tired, but ofc wont be in bed till 2.
A bit tentative to announce this, since I made no fuss about it before, but I have just been invited to a JET interview in 2 weeks. Totally nervous, maybe will ask the dates to be changed…it’s too soon!?! For those that done know, JET is the Japan Exchange and Teaching Programme. I didn’t think I’d get it, since a girl was already invited in my Japanese class and I thought, well I didn’t make the cut. But got the email today. Nervous as hell.
I’ll try and make this blog not too JET-centric since there are many of them around…and probably nothing new to document..I’ll be reading up in interview tips. So…this should be interesting. But do put up with the occasional bursts of JET hysteria as it takes over my mind as the date draws near.
I need sleep.
Quick update: revised 300 Kanji, retention rate ~70%-80%, seems to get worse with the more recent Kanji. Also I struggle to recognise Kanji from pictures more…as Anki revises from keywords -> Kanji not other way around…otherwise my retention rate would be ~90%.
Interview 8:15 in the morning so in 8 hours, need to sleep. Passed stage 1 of my other interview…this is for a different job. Fingers crossed XX
Btw: Japanese class was awesome…and my grammar sucks so glad we have a lot of hwk 😀 Though people keep thinking I should be bumped into the more advance classes…
So I realised I been burning myself out. 700 Kanji to date seems impressive, but my recall rate is probably 80%, at least based off today’s revision. I plan to revise 100 Kanji a day till I get to 700, and then continue knocking them out at rapid pace. If doing full time Kanji revision, then the rate I was going was not a problem, but balancing life, work, interviews, etc just made me burn out.
I think my interview went well today, made everyone laugh a lot so that’s always good. Not sure if they will hire me but I will find out in a week. Going to get an early night today as have another early morning wake up. And Japanese tomorrow, YAY!
So I much needed break week, hopefully I can stay on target and revise my 2000 Kanji in 3 months, but I want to be able to remember them all too!
Let’s see what this every changing approach brings.
Most of the day I sent worrying about what “casual smart” meant form my interview tomorrow. Settled on more smart then casual.
Revised upto 700 Kanji but only had time to review till 670. Also I will spend a few days cementing the 700 Kanji before moving on as some of them have started to slip, since I opted for more auditory stories from 3-400+, only realising my mistake yesterday. In short if the Kanji aren’t visual, there isn’t any point in the Heis…method and your basically learning by rote. Thankfully I’ve caught my mistake and hopefully it will improve the situation now before it’s too late.
Interview today so relatively early night.
Fighting!
Although I did learn the days of the week, which was made easier by learning the Kanji. yay.
Today was not idea, only managed 20 more. Basically I did not revise during the day, which meant I tried to learn it all in my Anki session. The result? It’s 4am, and I’m only halfway through. The lesson? Revise during the day first!
To be fair, I been mending my laptop which had a few setbacks but is OK now, needs a new graphics cards but it will do for now. I’ll pester insurance people later. And my mother wanted me to cook with her (to learn), which took 2 hours or so. I’ve learnt…cooking takes more time then I’m prepared to waste. Raw fish FTW!
Got a busy day tomorrow, but will try and make up for the Kanji I missed today and aim near 700 or so. Need to ready interview clothes. Argh! Will post my “method” to date. Feel like I’ve got the hang of this now.
So 630 Kanji today. woot! All was going well with my Anki revision and then I realised coz I’m repairing my laptop my Anki didn’t synchronise, so I was repeating my revision from 2 days ago…ORZ….so had to syc it and it kinda continued in a fluid fashion but meant I only got to 610 Kanji,, so had to add another 20 or so to make 630 (there were also 5 extra not covered in the book).
So a long night of revision…03:18…my brother asleep so the light off in the room, laptop barely illumining the keyboard. Did finally see two primitives that I kept seeing but didn’t know what they meant, they were state of mind (can’t find an example of the primitive by itself), and 心 heart. Heart appears a lot in other Kanji so I’m glad it finally came up.
Another 35 tomorrow and need to pick out my interview clothes…smart casual w/o trainers. Sigh.
So I missed a post! Nooo. 600 Kanji last night, and today was a revision day. which went so and so as I only got through 50 or so Kanji, and that was on the bus home. But it was a nice break at my gf’s house, had I stayed over again I could have revised the last 100-200 Kanji but some family stuff came up so home I came.
Nothing new to add, 600 Kanji reached, no Idea which part of my head all the information is going, paranoid I’ll stuff in too many ridiculous stories and end up stranger than I am already but, well there’s only 3 ways to find out.
Also when I’m done with the Kanji I think I want to start reading the diary of Aya Kitou in Japanese. She started writing as a teen so hopefully it won’t be too hard (I know high school level is N2 which is 1000 Kanji and a heck of a lot more grammar than I know but hopefully by then I’ll be a bit more grammar savy). Reading Japanese novels is one of my goals with language mastery so I think I should try and make a start somewhere.
Also I learned a new phrase, Wakaranai which means “I don’t know”. I knew Wakarimasen which is like a formal version (I learnt it is as “I don’t understand”). Hopefully I can pull it off casually In Japanese classes next Tuesday and surprise my Sensei.
Sensei, wakaranai….
kekeke.
gaijinsunny 