ヒドイ雨
Today I met up with ![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tadzilla in the afternoon, since he's currently on a trip to Japan. I hadn't seen him in like 3-4 years since I lost touch with the majority of the Seattle Bemani community, but he hasn't changed a bit from what I remember :) We wandered around Akihabara -- or more like, I went searching for things and he followed me. I spent a while in Yodobashi looking at cameras (I need a new point-and-click since my old Powershot is dying) and camera bags (for the d200) and lenses (oh GOD they had an 18-200 VR right there in the store but it was 88,000 yen). Aiiieeee! We played some Tetris in an arcade in Akihabara for a bit, and after that we went to Shinjuku and got completely lost looking for Kinokuniya, which was silly of me. I still have no clue how I've managed to get there efficiently in the past. I suck at Shinjuku.
Tada and I spent a good hour or so poring over JLPT prep stuff on the 7th floor of Kino. We're both planning to take the 2-kyuu next year but I think we have different weak points and study styles so it was a little difficult to figure things out. I found a four-book series that looks promising and I got the ones on learning grammar and reading comprehension. The other two are on kanji and vocabulary, so if the first two work out well I'll go for the others also.
For lack of anything better to do we went to Ikebukuro after that since Tada had never been there, but because most of Japan is on vacation right now it was just plain crowded, all the arcades were full of people and I wasn't really sure what the hell else to go do, so after sitting by the station exit for a while I was like "Well, it's 7pm and my back is killing me from lugging around books, so I think I'll go home," and that's basically what happened. The only funny thing about going to Ikebukuro was that since we took the Yamanote, which I almost never take anymore, I got to hear the station stop music in Takadanobaba and I noticed it's the Waseda University song. That made me giggle (and confused Tada).
On the way home I decided to eat food since I was starving and went to Kura Sushi over in Nishi-Kawaguchi. I discovered something else awesome while I was at it -- they just opened an ekimae Book-Off in Nishi-Kawaguchi! Sweet! I would have stopped by there on the way home, except the skies decided to open up while I was eating cheapo sushi for dinner and as a result I got completely soaked riding my bike home yet again. Argh.
So, while I was still all motivated and stuff about preparing for the JLPT next year, I went ahead and took the 3-kyuu test from 2006, from my 3/4 test book. This took a lot longer than the 4 did -- I ended up working on it for like 2-3 hours -- BUT the good news is that I got an 86% overall score. Even BETTER, my listening score was 83%, 19 correct out of 23. Considering that when I actually sat for the 3-kyuu in 2001, I got like a 55% on the listening (and something like a 68% overall), this is great to know. Maybe watching so many Japanese movies and doramas really HAS helped me learn something. Anyway, now I feel like I should actually try to take a previous 2-kyuu test just to see how I'd do. I don't expect to pass, but I also didn't expect to do so well at the 3-kyuu, so.
Wow, this year is ending REALLY soon. Yikes.
tadzilla in the afternoon, since he's currently on a trip to Japan. I hadn't seen him in like 3-4 years since I lost touch with the majority of the Seattle Bemani community, but he hasn't changed a bit from what I remember :) We wandered around Akihabara -- or more like, I went searching for things and he followed me. I spent a while in Yodobashi looking at cameras (I need a new point-and-click since my old Powershot is dying) and camera bags (for the d200) and lenses (oh GOD they had an 18-200 VR right there in the store but it was 88,000 yen). Aiiieeee! We played some Tetris in an arcade in Akihabara for a bit, and after that we went to Shinjuku and got completely lost looking for Kinokuniya, which was silly of me. I still have no clue how I've managed to get there efficiently in the past. I suck at Shinjuku.Tada and I spent a good hour or so poring over JLPT prep stuff on the 7th floor of Kino. We're both planning to take the 2-kyuu next year but I think we have different weak points and study styles so it was a little difficult to figure things out. I found a four-book series that looks promising and I got the ones on learning grammar and reading comprehension. The other two are on kanji and vocabulary, so if the first two work out well I'll go for the others also.
For lack of anything better to do we went to Ikebukuro after that since Tada had never been there, but because most of Japan is on vacation right now it was just plain crowded, all the arcades were full of people and I wasn't really sure what the hell else to go do, so after sitting by the station exit for a while I was like "Well, it's 7pm and my back is killing me from lugging around books, so I think I'll go home," and that's basically what happened. The only funny thing about going to Ikebukuro was that since we took the Yamanote, which I almost never take anymore, I got to hear the station stop music in Takadanobaba and I noticed it's the Waseda University song. That made me giggle (and confused Tada).
On the way home I decided to eat food since I was starving and went to Kura Sushi over in Nishi-Kawaguchi. I discovered something else awesome while I was at it -- they just opened an ekimae Book-Off in Nishi-Kawaguchi! Sweet! I would have stopped by there on the way home, except the skies decided to open up while I was eating cheapo sushi for dinner and as a result I got completely soaked riding my bike home yet again. Argh.
So, while I was still all motivated and stuff about preparing for the JLPT next year, I went ahead and took the 3-kyuu test from 2006, from my 3/4 test book. This took a lot longer than the 4 did -- I ended up working on it for like 2-3 hours -- BUT the good news is that I got an 86% overall score. Even BETTER, my listening score was 83%, 19 correct out of 23. Considering that when I actually sat for the 3-kyuu in 2001, I got like a 55% on the listening (and something like a 68% overall), this is great to know. Maybe watching so many Japanese movies and doramas really HAS helped me learn something. Anyway, now I feel like I should actually try to take a previous 2-kyuu test just to see how I'd do. I don't expect to pass, but I also didn't expect to do so well at the 3-kyuu, so.
Wow, this year is ending REALLY soon. Yikes.