Disaster, Fulbright Scholars, Life

Forgive me for this random and late update. I'm currently in my anime club's meeting and people keep tripping over my power cord. I feel they should stop dragging their feet since they tripped passing one way, so the cord isn't expected to have disappeared on the walk back. 

So I've been spending my time lurking on Yahoo again... and today I found out that Fukushima was hit again by yet another earthquake. This brings me back to the question I posed in my last blog post. How is Japan going to hold the 2020 Olympics if they aren't getting support from the rest of the world for Fukushima. Sure they might actually be getting help, but the American audience really isn't sure because they're distracted by a lot of things such as the conflict with Syria.

I've actually been busy trying to finish my Fulbright Scholars application which has been consuming all of my life, time, and sleep. I can't wait to be done with it because then maybe I will be able to spend some time sleeping instead of being a crabby, sleepy grouch who has to do everything all at once or fail miserably at life. I'm almost finished with the application but I still have a few tedious things to do. I'm so anxious and I was advised to apply to more than just Fulbright because they're very picky. I hope the board committee at least likes my subject, even if they don't choose me. Hopefully they will though.

Well, I'm going to give my eyes a short break before I resume working on this application. I really need to shut down my computer and take a rest before I pass out on this keyboard. Thanks for reading and have a good night. I'll keep you all updated with the things you are interested in most. If I get any feedback, I will definitely write more about those subjects so please, please comment me.

Thank you and have a good night~

More Disaster Information

So there is more news from Japan about how severe the radiation leaks have been. According to Yahoo, Japan is surprised that the radiation had leaked into underground water which found its way to the sea. More likely than not, the radiation had already been leaking into both heavily. Now, we can only watch helplessly as Japan struggles with containing this high quantity of waste. There is no news on how the social stigma of being from Fukushima is affecting anyone (besides farmers) in Japan yet. Because people are still distracted by the president's issues with Syria, there may not be help soon enough to save Japan or anyone within distance of the Pacific Ocean.


At the same time it is a surprise that Japan won the competition of hosting the 2020 Olympics. Their stocks jumped upwards as soon as the final decision came out which is great news for the economy. I just think that it is a bit ironic that people will be sending their most physically agile and physically fit to Japan during this time of internal and international crisis. How will Japan be able to protect the world's athlete's and their fans from the radiation that will undoubtedly seep into the local food and water. Surely the radiation has spread heavily, but nobody knows how far it has spread yet. For all we know the water in Okinawa already has traces of the radiation from Fukushima and the water from Fukushima could shower over Tokyo. I don't mean to knock Japan, but this is both a godsend and a potential death sentence depending on how they deal with Fukushima and whether the world decides they are enough about their fellow man to help out.

Pending more information, so please keep your eyes open.

Language, Disasters, Slang

Learning Japanese via online help can be super difficult because one doesn't know what information to trust and to ignore. For example, Sharedtalk is a great start, but once you talk to other non-native speakers... it can get a little more than confusing.

Using Anki can only help you get so far because it doesn't give you grammar or speaking practice. It is a great was to increase one's vocabulary and reading kanji skills.

Line is supposed to be a common way Japanese people instant message, but if you don't have the skills to understand 25%, you could easily get lost if they can't meet you half way with languages.


The rapidly growing Radiation Problem is obviously way less important to our current president than starting a war with Syria. Who needs the West coast when we have to wage war?! And to make it better, Tepco has decided that they want to build an Ice Wall to try to stop the problem as if fish haven't already been bleeding from their eyes in the middle of the ocean due to radioactive exposure. As if Japan wasn't already in massive amounts of dept, Tepco wants to spend $470 Million to build their ice wall to at least delay exposure. I wonder how the Japanese people are dealing with this and whether they know that the problem is way more severe than originally thought. On top of it, I wonder whether people in Fukushima will have to cope with inequalities just because of the the nuclear plant being in their prefecture. I can only imagine that more social problems may arise as a result of this.

Yesterday I was thinking, does this blog make me a weeaboo? I don't think it does because I admit my country sucks. But I don't think Japan is the greatest thing ever. I like different aspects of both, but I what I really like is the way the cultures have become quite interwoven through media influences and yet still remain vastly different since World War II. I don't like the politics of either one too much, but then again... it is politics. I really enjoy the differences of recreation and views on things. I feel that if I were just a weeaboo this blog might be a bit more... focused on one thing instead of trying to cover a wide variety of topics, including Japan/U.S. relations. And no, I don't think that I have great Japanese (I often screw up pronouncing train station [eki] for some reason, but do fairly well overall on pronunciation, granted my grammar is definitely not the best). And please forgive me for not going as in-depth as I have in earlier posts on a single topic. I've been really busy this summer and haven't been thinking too much about these things lately. Hopefully when classes start, I'll make better posts.

In case you don't know what a weeaboo is~

Word of the Day: Weeaboo

A non Japanese person who basically denounces their own culture and calls themselves Japanese. They try to learn Japanese through the anime they watch and usually end up pronouncing it wrong and looking like a complete idiot.

KEEP IN MIND: that a non-Japanese person can like the culture, watch anime, speak the language and RESPECT THE CULTURE, while still keeping in touch with there own. Which keeps them from being a Weeaboo, Japanophile, etc.

Weeaboo's basically disrespect the culture and make complete asses of themselves.