Japanese studies & the video games that help with them

Last night I read a guide to all the changes made to EarthBound (one of my favourite SNES games of all time) from its original Japanese version, MOTHER 2. It was an amazing experience; I learned the reason for some of the stranger, seemingly out-of-place jokes or lines in the games. After 20 years, I have answers to so many things that I've been wondering. It's such a new look at this yearly adventure that I take. The reason I say "yearly adventure" is because every summer, I start up a new save file of Earthbound and play the game through to the end. It's been a yearly tradition for me since I was in high school! I'm 35 now, so I've been doing this for a long time. Being able to see the game differently and understand why certain jokes are a little puzzling, or certain lines might seem a little 'off', is really quite an exciting feeling.

I'm trying to think of a better word than 'exciting'. Something a little more specific than that. But I'm at a loss! Some writer I am. :P 

Anyway, the guide was written by an official translator who actually worked on MOTHER 3. In the guide I was reading, he provided hundreds of screenshots of Japanese dialogue, so I got to read it all! The dialogue in MOTHER 2 is all in kana; you'd think that would make it easier to read, but I find the lack of kanji actually makes it more difficult. I'm sure to a native speaker it's easier this way; I mean, if you think about it, books aimed at small children, for example, are written entirely in kana as they haven't learned kanji yet. But as a non-native speaker who has learned over the years how to read many kanji (and I've got a looong way to go!) and gotten used to seeing them, it's so jarring to see 100% kana all of the sudden, and rather confusing. It actually slowed me down a lot. Sometimes I wasn't sure where a word ended and the next one began, for example. I've gotten so used to kanji being used for most nouns and verb stems, and I find it much easier to read that way. I wonder if native Japanese speakers feel the same.

ANYWAY. I read the entire guide and it took me over 4 hours. It was amazing though. In addition to being able to understand the game and its seemingly random quirkiness better (hmmm...random quirkiness...it's EarthBound. It THRIVES on random quirkiness! But some lines are just TOO quirky and now I know why), I got to practice my Japanese and realize that it's improved even more lately. I understood so many of the jokes in Japanese. For anyone who's reading this who studies other languages--you know how damn exciting it is when you start to understand jokes in another language. Jokes, plays on words, sarcasm, and little nuances...well, all of that occurred last night while I was reading the guide, and it was exciting as hell. I've understood some jokes and plays on words in Japanese for years now, but never so many, all at once, and never at this level. It was super motivating, and it definitely urged me to keep reading through to the end. 

What do I mean by nuances? All kinds of little things. For example, I could tell by the way some dialogue was written that it was supposed to be a country bumpkin kind of guy saying it. Or an old man. I could hear people's voices in my head as I read it--I could imagine what the characters' voices would sound like if they were actually speaking. The translator explained all this, but when I turned to read the Japanese myself, I could understand it on my own. I could picture an old man voice, an older lady, a creepy old monster, a mechanical being, etc. The voices jumped out at me off the page, because of the way the Japanese was written. And I understood it. I don't think I would have been able to understand it to this level a few years ago. 

Many years ago I was worried I had plateaued in my Japanese, but I've made a lot of progress these past few years. I know this sounds kind of terrible, but while I was sick, I had a lot of free time to do nothing but hang out at home (or at the hospital!), especially while I was neutropenic, during which I was pretty much under house arrest. So I watched a LOT of anime during that time. Like, a lot. Constantly. And I noticed after that time, my Japanese listening started to improve a lot, after it had stagnated for so long. So, as gross as this sounds---silver lining? :O 

(Hey, if you can find the good in the bad--it's great, right?)

Love & Distance

Me & Mike have been together for 10 years, we don't need to spend every second together. On weekday nights, we often do our own thing in separate rooms. But when he's not here, IT'S SO DIFFERENT. It doesn't matter if I'm alone in the bedroom for 3 hours with my music & the door closed; I *know* he's just over there in the living room. But when he's away on contract, bleeehhhh! I have SO much lesson-planning to do, you'd think less distraction is better, but...NOPE. I just feel lonely. :(

Hope-iclone XD

Dealing with my own cancer and forever worrying about how far I'll make it...now dealing with my mom's cancer too...all the "fuck cancer" shout-outs in the world wouldn't be enough.

Yummy sleeping pills make things temporarily better. (All hail Queen Zopiclone!) I plan on taking them forever. Why not? Why choose a life of not being able to sleep? A life of stress all day, and then stress all night too? And then, the lack of sleeping causes even more stress. So, a stressful circle of stress. Why would you willingly do that to yourself when you can just take sleeping pills and be done with all that harmful nonsense? (Plus they give you such a nice buzz that lets you forget your problems for awhile!) The addiction that comes with it sucks, and I imagine if I ever have to stop these meds I'd be fucked, but for now? I'll get close & cozy with these drugs for as long as I can, because why the hell choose the other option?

Zopiclone; it doesn't cure cancer, and some studies say it may even cause cancer. But oh. I can't help but appoint it as my temporary or indefinite personal saviour.

The 3-year-point

The memory Facebook wants me to share today is a post from 3 years ago that says this:

GUESS WHO'S IN REMISSION? THIS BITCH OVER HERE!!!!!!!!! Yup yup, the chemo WORKED!!!!! Less than 5% of leukemic cells left, I can go home TODAY. grin emoticon grin emoticon grin emoticon grin emoticon grin emoticon grin emoticon grin emoticon grin emoticon grin emoticon grin emoticon grin emoticon grin emoticon grin emoticon grin emoticon ROUND 1: COMPLETE!!!!!!!

lol @ the happy face coming out as "grin emoticon" when I copy & paste it over here. Buuuut, you get the idea. So I'm in 3 years remission as of today. I'm really tempted to share this post on Facebook, but at the same time, I really don't want to, as I feel like lately I've been sharing too much cancer-related stuff. It's hard not to; I've made it to the 3-year-point of remission, I point I wasn't sure I'd make it to. This is big for me. Apparently true remission is when you make it 5 years without a relapse, but 3 years is pretty good, too. I also found an old post (which I had shared) that was me talking about how low my chances were at still be alive in 2-3 years, yet here I am. Also, I recently went to see the movie Zootopia, which is a movie I heard about while I was sick and when I saw the released date, in spring 2016, I remember wondering if I'd even be alive for it. It was such a strange (and beyond awful) feeling, knowing that I might not be there for a Disney movie I'd really want to see, and that the world would just continue without me, making movies I'd enjoy but never get to experience. So getting to go see it felt like quite the achievement for me.

But I've been posting about all of this to my Facebook lately, and I dunno, I kind of feel like I might be overdoing it. Which maybe doesn't make that much sense, seeing as it's something super important to me, and to say it affects my life greatly is an understatement. I mean, other people constantly post political stuff daily; if they can do that, why shouldn't I post something that actually does directly affect my life, waaayyy more than any political rambling could affects theirs? So, I don't know. Maybe I'll change my mind in a few hours and post some stuff to Facebook. Maybe I'll change my mind in 10 minutes. But for now, I'll post here, as this is a blog I created specifically for this purpose, after all!

Anyway, all this to say...it's been 3 years that I've been in remission. Let's hope for at least another 3, as that'll put me in an even higher life expectancy percentile! *fingers crossed* :)

Today, I shall celebrate!

I thrive best hermit style

I recently posted on Facebook about how I'm currently living the life of a (relative) hermit and I just love it. What it boils down to is that I've grown to prefer my own company to anyone else's. I just prefer to be by myself than with anyone else. At least just for now. And I think that's totally allowed. I'm not going to get together with people just because it's their birthday, for example, or just because they happen to be in Toronto. I mean yeah, it sucks to miss seeing you for a special event, or if you've happen to be out here in my city, but if I don't feel like doing something with other people, why should I? How will it benefit them to hang out with me if I don't want to be out in the first place? And it's nothing personal; it has nothing to do with those people. It has everything to do with me. Like I started at the beginning of this paragraph, all it is, is that I prefer my own company right now. I'm in the mood for solitude and that's the road I'm taking, for the time being. 

People can be insulted, and that sucks. I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. But at the same time, I don't want to constantly drag myself around, making myself do things I don't want to, just to keep other people happy. I've done that for so long, and life's too short to do that all the time. It's time for some ~me~ time, and I really hope other people can understand that. I'd regret it if I didn't do it, I think. When I got sick, I was thinking of the things I'd like to change in my life. Thankfully, there weren't many; I've actually been living my life pretty much as I wanted to, with some exceptions--the other things I really want to do are just out of my control right now, as they cost so much money (such as TRAVELING). But other than things like that, there's not much in my life I feel the need to change. Generally, in life, if I want to do something, I'll just do it. "No day but today", a line from my favourite song from my favourite musical (Rent) is genuinely a motto I live by!

However, I realized that I spend a lot of my life living to please other people, and even sometimes spending time around people whose company I don't necessarily particularly enjoy, just to spare their feelings. This needs to stop; life it too short for this. I need to come first. You know what they say; you gotta take care of yourself before you can take care of others.

I want to make it clear that I'm not adopting an attitude of "oh, too bad for everyone else, I don't care what they think!" I don't feel that way at ALL. In fact, I really do care what they think; it hurts to think that someone will think I'm an asshole for taking some time off for me. That stings. But ultimately I have to make a decision; what's more important to me? A.)Taking care of myself, or B.) exhausting myself to make others happy to spare my feelings lest they think I'm a jerk if I don't always myself available to them? I finally opted for option A. Even if it means dealing with my feelings possibly getting hurt, it's still the better choice here.

By the way, cheers to anyone who got the reference of the wonderful lyrics I used as my post's title. It's from the one & only lovely, talented, totally quirky queen Björk. :)

OK//not OK

Nah, forget what I said last post. Everything's definitely not OK. I'm not OK.
Well, the last post is still true. It's certainly easier dealing with cancer here than in Montreal, or at least it has been so far. But I'm not feeling great all the time. There's the bad days too.

I'm OK, I'm not OK, I'm OK, I'm not OK; it switches all the time.

I keep reading articles about cancer survivors. Apparently all my feelings are totally normal. I guess that's a good thing. There's people out there who understand.

I'm so angry and on-edge these days. I think one of the worst things anyone has ever said to me through this whole thing was once, awhile back, when I said I was angry all the time--one friend responded by saying "Oh, all that anger isn't very good for you." Not "oh I'm sorry you're feeling angry" or "I'm sure having cancer must make you feel angry". No, none of that; just a condescending "anger isn't good for you!", as if a) I wasn't already QUITE aware, and b) it were my choice and I could just switch it off. Like ohh, why didn't you tell me anger was bad? Guess I'll just stop being angry about cancer. Haha silly me. Anyway, it was so patronizing & unhelpful. I'll remember that comment forever. It's enraging.

Yeah, I really hate February. I think.

3 years later...

Well I no longer work at the SHIT JOB, so that's done with, at least. :P I still plan to make another post in which I finish writing down all the insanity that happens there. I haven't forgotten! ;)

For now I'm just thinking about the fact that it's February and my birthday is coming up in a few weeks. What's more important than my birthday itself is what it represents; I was diagnosed with leukemia around my birthday. Too sick to move the day of, slept for 24 hours straight 2 days later, and was hospitalized 3 days later. Oh, the horrid, horrid nightmare-tier memories. Now what's extra monumental this year is that I'm approaching the 3-year-mark. This is big news, to put it mildly, because with leukemia, your life expectancy exponentially increases if you can make it to 3 years without a relapse. I'm almost there. Well, to the 3-year-point of being *diagnosed*. I'm not sure if my life expectancy goes up after 3 years of no relapses from the point I was diagnosed (so, end of February), 3 years of no relapses from the point I went into remission (that'd be April 2nd), or 3 years of no relapses from the point I finished my treatments (so that'd be late in July). I have to find out. Still, I'm approaching the 1st step in this stretch. So that's something. But thinking about it is freaking me out still, because, well...why wouldn't it, I guess.

I have to say, so far I seem to be handling the freak out barrage of terror that February usually brings me, simply because I'm in a different location with different surroundings, here in Toronto. I don't have the snowy familiar street of Jeanne-Mance to look out at every day, which looked & felt the exact same way that time I was getting sick. I don't have the same balcony door whose window I desperately I tried to keep opening when I was getting night sweats from (what I thought was the flu), or the towers of La Cite staring back at me from the window, the same towers I would stare at from the hospital and think about how I could sort of see home just by seeing those towers, and how homesick I felt, so beyond homesick, as if a new word needed to be invented to describe that degree of homesickness.

Haha, it all sounds so dramatic, but it's true! Without all that here, and without the Royal Victoria looming out there in background as I walk down the street every day, it feels a little bit less like it's "THAT time of year again". It's only February 6th, so we'll see how it goes as time passes and I approach those horrid dates toward the end of the month. But I only wanted to say that lately, at least so far, the indescribable feeling of deja vu-ish foreshadow-tastic  impeding doom hasn't really been on my mind, at least not quite the same way it had been these past two years in Montreal when February rolled around.

We'll see, we'll see. I understand I can have good days and bad days. But so far? Much better than usual. Change of location has seemed to have helped so much. Fingers crossed!

My stupid job (as opposed to my awesome one)

One of the places I work at right now is a really sketchy place, and I absolutely gotta look for a new job. The thing is, I consider the job hunt more stressful than a shitty job itself. Back in October, when I was desperately seeking employment--that was just awful! It's so hard to psych myself back into that mode. I'm going to have to though.

As I mentioned, it's one of the places I work at. I have two jobs. One of those two jobs is actually quite awesome, but unfortunately I only work there 4.5 hours a week. Sadly, the bad job--the sketchy one--is the one where I work most of the time. And I'll be talking about the sketchy one here.

What happens at the sketchy one? Well, I'm a receptionist at a "school" in Etobicoke, and the reason I put school in scare quotes is because it's....it's not much of a school. They have me doing several different things. I do reception but I also teach when they need me. It's pretty messed up, because they do things like tell me I have new students 20 minutes before class, or cancel one of my classes the day of. But that's not as bad as when they "take away" classes from teachers they're not impressed with, or tell me I'm getting a raise (when they're already being beyond insulting by barely paying me above minimum wage) and then decide to change their mind.

My manager is awful and talks bad about everyone. To say it's a toxic atmosphere is being kind. As the receptionist, I have access to a lot of files and all the emails (responding to emails is naturally one of my many jobs as receptionist) and I've read countless emails of her bitching about so many teachers. She's very negative and dramatic, and dealing with her daily is truly bizarre. I can only imagine what she says about me! She and my boss threaten not to pay people if they don't do things properly. Ummm, I'm preettyyy sure you can fire people if they don't do tasks the way you ask, but you can't withhold pay.

Not that they pay us that often to begin with. They only pay us once a month, and even on that one single pay day per month, we don't always get our paycheques. Sometimes we do, but sometimes we're asked not to deposit them right away. If someone quits or someone is fired, they might not get their last paycheque for months. Emails from them will be ignored while their paycheque just sits in the desk for no reason. Yeah, I'm thinking of a specific case here, but it still happened, and I saw it happen!

Also, they sometimes ask the teachers in for training seminars and such but don't pay us for it. They ask us in on weekends, or in a recent case, when some teachers were on their week off. Their week off! And not get paid for it! And this building is all the way in Etobicoke. It's not like it's in Toronto proper and easy to get to (not that that would justify not being paid). It's deep in Etobicoke too, in the middle of nowhere. And traveling there and back is beyond exhausting. Yeah, that has nothing to do with it being sketchy, but it makes everything worse when I show up already drained because it took me an hour and a half to get there, and I'm stressed in advance because I know I have another hour and a half to travel home. At night. Because I work in the evenings. But in the daytime too, when I'm teaching. (Or doing whatever.) Plus, it's in an industrial area along highway. So I have to walk along the damn highway to get to & from the bustop every night, and it's so windy and awful I can't quite find the words to describe it. 

My boss barely speaks English and honestly needs an English teacher himself. It's impossible to understand him more than half the time and this adds to so much confusion and miscommunication it's ridiculous. It's like living a punchline to some kind of sitcom, except it's actually real life.

Recently they gave me a book to register for my students, and I had to take a code from the inside of the book and register it on the website to access the teacher's materials. To get the code, I had to scratch a silver sticker off the inside. But the whole sticker came off, making the code unreadable. Instead of simply ordering another book, my manager kept telling me I destroyed the book, the book was garbage, and emailed me repeatedly over the course of an entire week with really vague, confusing, and rather aggressively written suggestions of how to maybe attempt fix the situation...but no real solution in the end. She tends to send me commands and requests with absolutely no instructions and when asked for clarification, will either not respond or reply with equally confusing advice, usually followed by the words "I guess". She once told me to "make a student enrollment contract." I told her I didn't even know what that meant. She told me to read other contracts to get an idea of how to make a contract. Yeah, great directions. 

She'll accuse me of not telling her things, and when I patiently resend the emails where I carefully explained the exact things she's accused me of not telling her, she'll just change the subject and never bring it up again. I'd never get an apology, that's too much to ask for!

All right, that's all I can think of for now. There's TONS more, but that's all I can think of off the top of my head, and all I have the energy to write down at the moment. I just wanted to at least start to write these things down, or else I'd never get around to it!