The Japanese test from hell.

[icarus]

Oh my god, that was rough.

She tested us on stuff that was not in the books, punishing those of us who missed days where she presented material orally.

I was one of those people. Shit, shit, shit, I was sick that day (re: I was up all night studying for my Philosophy test and crashed).

I got three of the extra credit questions right, I believe, so that's three points. But the vocabulary I didn't know cost me, I think about six points at least. Add that to my usual three points of mindless/stupid mistakes (I didn't have time to doublecheck since I was scrambling to figure out from context what the unfamiliar vocabulary meant), of 100, the best I can expect is 90-93, and it potentially could go as low as 85.

Ouch. I needed a good score on this test.

Good news though. I got that Philosophy test back: 49/50.

Now I have to do is read then write two pages on Aristotle, read then write a couple pages on that Hindu scholar, read and write a paragraph each on Singer and whatshisname, legibly write out the definitions of fifteen pages of legal terms, and memorize a speech in Japanese.

The legal terms are due Tuesday, (I may have to do a make up test for Law as well).

The killer Philosophy test is on Wednesday.

The Japanese speech that has to be memorized this week (repeat, repeat, repeat) and presented orally on Thursday at 8am.

Oh. And I have to work both Monday and Tuesday.

*runs screaming into the street*

Then I have to study for a math test.

Comments

[taramasu.livejournal.com]

Congrats on your philosophy score and good luck with your other tests. :)

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

All I can say is "glug, glug." I want to go home and finish all of it today, so I can actually have a weekend. But I have to work till 1:30pm

No, it's not possible to finish it all in one day. But I can dream, can't I?

Icarus

[mad_maudlin]

Oh, my dear, I sympathize muchly--in the same boat. My last final is even the same day as your speech.

We shall conquer! Or perhaps just cross our fingers and hope for the best...

[dryad-duinath.livejournal.com]

... dude.... You're smart..

Best of luck, though it seems like you're doing fine :)

[mousapelli.livejournal.com]

*pets you and cheers you on*
i feel your pain, i just had a Greek sight translation where i made up an awful lot of the verbs...

good luck, good luck, good luck!

[cordelia_v]

Congratulations on the good Phil grade; and if you scored over 90 on the Japanese test, be proud: it's a tough language.

But re your work load for the next few days . . . well, I hate to sound heartless. But it's only a warm-up for grad school, you know.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

But re your work load for the next few days . . . well, I hate to sound heartless. But it's only a warm-up for grad school, you know.

You are quite right. :D I really ought to stop whining, because usually I have papers to write and don't get much sleep for the last few weeks of school. But writing is more natural and something I get very wrapped up in -- regardless of the subject, I don't actually want sleep or food. Law, Japanese and Philosophy have had a great deal less writing, more discussion and a lot of memorization in the case of the first two.

The Japanese is more frustrating because I haven't had nearly the verbal practice I need. I know what I'm learning here is going to leak out like water through a collander; I've had enough experience with foreign languages to know when it's not going in - has less to do with the tests and more to do with the ability to bring the words to your lips.

Icarus

[cordelia_v]

Well, if you enjoy reading (the research sort, I mean) and writing, you'll be OK in grad school. One gets very fast at producing written analysis, after a while. Those fandom essays I write, that people seem to think are well-constructed? They take less than an hour to knock out, and take much less thought to produce than my professional writing. They're just fluff, for fun.

Fiction-writing appears to be a more mysterious process, to me. I can think of possible plots all day long, and of course I've mastered the basic mechanics of writing. But I would never be able to hear the characters speaking in my head, or experience them as leading some sort of independent life in my imagination, as fiction writers refer to their characters as doing. That sounds like some sort of magic, to me. The only person living in my head is myself, unfortunately; my own voice is too powerful to leave room for others'. I can perceive what a deficit that is.

Anyway, it occurred to me that you may be a bit hard on yourself regarding your difficulty with learning Japanese. I do apologize if this sounds harsh, but perhaps your age is slowing you down? I studied three languages before I was 22, and learned them all much more rapidly than I could learn Russian, which I didn't begin until I was 40. Of course, I had often heard that one absorbs a new language more rapidly when at a young age, but I was just astonished to see how much my language acquisition had slowed down, with age.

The Russian vocab just leaked out like water (wonderful simile!), and I had to stop to think in order to conjugate verbs. I've acquired a passive understanding of it, but Russian will never come to my lips very well, I think. Not like German, which is a second skin for me, and which I could never lose. I adore German. I open my mouth and it flows out like water. I swim through it like a fish, intoxicated by how beautiful it is, how different from English in its structure, and how it feels in my mouth. And I think that the reason for this difference in fluency is that I began to learn German when I was 11, and Russian when I was 40.

Probably all this has occurred to you, already, however. Keep plugging at it: reading knowledge or passive understanding is all that's called for in grad school, anyway.

[nataliadarimini.livejournal.com]

"*runs screaming into the street*"

where you almost bumped into me, where I was trying to get run over by a car.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Didn't that flesh wound I gave you help? Or should I get out the .38?

Icarus

[goseaward.livejournal.com]

If needed, feel free to bug me about math, as always. I've got finals, but I'm a good test-taker; the only think I need to worry about is electricity and magnetism. So this is like holiday-week for me. :)

[goseaward.livejournal.com]

I should mention that this comes after a week of a four-hour-a-night sleeping schedule, so it's not as good as it sounds!

[ragnhildholm.livejournal.com]

I'm sure you'll have done ok on that Japanese. Well done for that philo test, that's great!

The non-mystery of the creative process

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I had a response to a previous comment of yours that was lost -- twice -- in a Livejournal blip. Something about the creative urge is like catching a wave and surfing it.

My first novel, attempted at the age of fifteen, I plotted carefully. I created scenery and a world... and the characters just wouldn't live. I would tell them what to do, and they'd march around obediently like little toy soldiers, but their dialogue was stilted, and the moment my plot sagged, they did.

I threw it away. (It really was awful.)

I didn't do any more creative writing until I was in my mid-30's. I had a really, oh, incredible life story by then and I was considering writing a book about it. (A professional reporter wrote it instead. Several, actually.) I read a book by Orson Scott Card called Characters and Viewpoint that really changed the way I looked at characters.

Well, a couple years passed and I didn't write a thing, just occasionally stared at a blank page and sketched out some broad, dead theory.

Crumpled it up. Threw it away.

I started writing Lord of the Rings essays instead. Revitalized my ability to structure and build to a point. Debated with some fairly sharp Lord of the Rings scholars, particularly a very religious politician in New Jersey, and a level-headed attorney in New York. Our arguments were hot and heavy, and we had to drop our essay-length responses on the board quickly, or else the topic might shift.

Then I discovered slash.

I started writing Lord of the Rings fanfiction and... I found myself trying to control the characters once again, killing the story. I knew it wasn't good. How hard could it be to get Frodo and Sam into bed, really? I am the all powerful author. But they felt rather wooden. And not in a good way.

I remembered something Orson Scott Card had said: if you don't know what a character will do in a particular situation, ask them. Interview your characters, he said. So that's exactly what I did. I visualized Frodo (feeling very silly, and no, he didn't look anything like Elijah Wood) set him across from me, got out my pen and paper and asked under my breath:

The non-mystery of the creative process - part II

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

"So. What do you think about homosexuality?"

"I beg your pardon?" he said. Strangely, my imaginary Frodo had answer. More strangely, it wasn't one I expected.

I suddenly realized that Frodo was not exactly open to the idea. No wonder I was having so much trouble maneuvering him into bed with Sam!

He was very polite however, so I couldn't tell if he was repulsed or simply confused.

So I explained, "That means having a," I sought for an equally polite tone, "physical relationship with someone of the same gender."

"We don't really discuss such private matters here in the Shire." He seemed nonplused. "But I've never really thought about it." Well, this wasn't getting anywhere; but fortunately he took a breath and kept speaking. "Why would anyone want to do that?"

Trust Frodo to turn the tables and answer a question with another question.

Hmm. This could either mean that he was hopelessly straight, or he had never imagined homosexuality. Perhaps the Shire was an awfully straight-laced sort of place. I tried Frodo's technique (and marveled at how good he was at evasion):

"So you've never heard of such a thing?" I feigned surprise, as if everyone who was anyone had. It stung his pride. By this point the character Frodo was quite vividly a person.

"No. Well," he hedged, "it's not unheard of. But one's private life is exactly that: private." He gave me a firm look and I knew the conversation was over.

I never really got my answer, but I learned a lot about him in the process. And I knew that for him, a gay relationship would have to come out of the clear blue sky, and would have to be utterly private. In a sense he was more vulnerable: he'd never considered it enough to recognize the signs. He was so terribly solitary.

Then I knew what my plot would have to be, what situation would work for him. I wrote it down fast, before the impulse of the story disappeared, surfing it like a wave, shaping it as I would an essay but instead of it being my ideas that I was shaping, I was shaping what has sprung out of my conversation with him. That was the difference.

I hope this is helpful.

These days I rarely have to interview my characters unless they are OCs (I've interviewed Torvald and a few others), but that process awakened a child-like quality of playing make-believe. The characters have come to life. Sometime inconveniently, sometimes astounding me.

Icarus

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

As for the loss of ability with language, I have a greater problem: Due to my allergies my hearing is not doing well.

I have to go in to the doctor, but I have the constant sensation of being underwater and occasional ringing in my ears. I haven't had the dizziness and disorientation that I encountered earlier in the fall, but not being able to hear clearly without intense concentration has been a real problem.

The age-affected issue has been my memory. I still have a good memory, but not the quick grasp I used to have.

I don't think I'll ever have the feel for Japanese that I have for Tibetan and German, I agree. German I started in kindergarten, and Tibetan in my late teens. I wish I could do both German and Japanese - in German I'm just on that cusp of fluency. I just need the extra push, and review of the structure. Tibetan's not quite as far, but I have the same 'feel' for the language.

Waldorf believes that one need only study two different types of language in childhood - a 'harsh' gutteral tone one and a 'light' or nasal tone one - to be able to develop the palate to form words in other languages. That I believe is tne main difference. I think this is true, but Asian languages have a few sounds European languages don't prepare us for. Thank goodness I learned a tonal language (Tibetan) while I was still pretty young. I don't think I'll ever get the Japanese l/r.


Icarus

Re: The non-mystery of the creative process - part II

[cordelia_v]

I'm flattered that you took the time to respond at such length and in detail to my comments, esp. considering how busy you are right now.

And I'm both bemused and impressed by the fact that it occurred to you to interview your characters. Perhaps this is a tribute to the sort of strengths that a Waldorf education builds in students? You come at problems from angles that never, in what passes for the wildest flights of fancy in me, would ever enter my head.

OK. I'll try anything once. So I did an interview with Snape in my head. It turns out that my Snape is very canon, and a much harsher, unhappier person than yours is (or most Snapes I've read in fanon). Your Snape is capable of affection and attachment, particularly if it sneaks up on him unawares. Mine couldn't be taken by surprise like that: he's terribly self-aware, in the way that very reserved people often are, and I doubt he could feel warmth or strong affection for anyone else. I'm not really sure I'd want to spend the amount of time inside his head that would be required to work up fiction about him.

But I'll think about doing it, when I have the time and impulse to try something that would be very new, and a real stretch for me. That would be in late July, 2005 (given my current publishing commitments). But for now, my time is fully taken up by my children, my profession (teaching), my craft (writing history), and my art (singing). I like singing precisely because it isn't verbal; as an exercise in perversity, I posted an essay last week on my lj that attempted to capture in words an art that by its very nature resists words. I was halfway satisfied by what I wrote. But it made me aware that I need an art that's not wordy.

Actually, I'm considering tapering off with the hp essays, after the New Year. For you, it was an entree into writing fiction. But for me, it's like academic analysis lite. I'm using the same gifts and approach I use for historical sources: breaking down fanon/canon into small pieces, rearranging it into new patterns (or pointing out common fanon patterns to the reader), and sucking all the juice out of it.

That's fine for my historical subjects. Most of my research/writing is about people who chose to affiliate themselves with rather evil social processes (I generally write about people who were Nazis, or close to the Nazis). I rather enjoy demystifying them, breaking down their rhetoric and actions, and sucking the juice out of their mythologies and rationales. But I'm beginning to wonder whether I really want to do that with hp fanon.

Hmm. If that's what I really think, then perhaps I should switch to trying fiction, even though I know I couldn't do that as well as I do essays. You know, even my Snape could develop some sort of odd relationship with another person, if he were put in a position where he was compelled to do so.

*pauses. Thinks about the fact that she just yesterday agreed to write yet another historical piece, due in May, on top of the other publication commitments she foolishly agreed to for next semester. Reminds herself that she is very fortunate to have publishers (and readers) who want her to write history for them*

Maybe not. Not until I've sent in my big ms., due July 1st.

Cordelia V