School!

Finally, I can make a less pathetic entry!

After a 4 month break (SO LONG), school is finally starting again tomorrow! It's been a long time, and a lot of things have happened this summer, both good and bad. 

One of the worst things to happen was the death of my grandmother. It's still somewhat of a shock, and I don't think I'll get over it in the next few years either but I'm happy she's now with my grandfather up in the skies and watching over us. I'm happy that she's not suffering anymore from her cancer. I'll make you proud, grandma. <3 I love you <3

I'm saving up money, for my likely Japan trip next summer, because I really want to avoid taking loans and putting myself into debt. XD So this year, I'm determined to make lunch to take to school and eat that. In a way, it's also a really healthy choice.

I'm starting biking again, after the long hiatus (I fell of a horse in June, and kind of tore a ligament or something like that, so my ankle's still healing). I wanted to bike with school, 30 min~1 hr depends. At least 20 km, I think. Today and yesterday I biked 28 km. It feels really good to bike again, I love riding a bicycle. 

I've also gone down a size this summer, to a size 14. I hope to be a size 12 by this Christmas. I'd rather lose weight slowly, if you do it slowly, the weight will stay off rather than you starve yourself, stop dieting and eat normally again only to gain weight. 

This year, I got a "buddy" to help around Iceland. Basically, a buddy is a foreign exchange student. My buddy is Japanese, who speaks very good English, and I'm hoping talking to her might help me improve my Japanese. Since we're in the 2nd year now, I think we'll start to apply for schools in Japan soon, and I want to go to the Japanese embassy in Reykjavík to snoop around for scholarships and other things like that. 

I hope the future will bring all of you good things. <3 

Until next entry! 

Late update

It‘s been a long ass time since I last updated here, and then I was at a melodramatic low point in life (which happens less and less, but still does T_T). Still, I felt the need to update now. Better late than never, am I right?

This whole year at HÍ has been like a dream come true. Tomorrow‘s the final final exam of this year, an exam in listening. Later this month, our two lovely TA teachers, Matsuda-sensei and Kiyotoki-sensei will return back to Japan and in 2~3 months, so will our main teacher, Tanii-sensei, do as well. It‘s sad that we need to part with such amazing people, but we‘ve made promises (the class and them) to each other to see each other again in Japan. That would be so much fun. I can‘t wait.

Tanii-sensei has been so helpful to me, and opened a few doors for me. Just recently, she asked me to take part in „Háskólalestin“ (basically, the university travels to a couple of towns and promotes all kinds of things, including Japanese study). I accepted, and will go every weekend (from Friday to Saturday) with some Japanese folk, to promote Japanese culture. It‘ll be challenging for me, but also a lot of fun and I can‘t wait. A friend of mine wanted to tag along, and we had been told she could, but due to money problems, the school can only afford one student. However, there is one day she could come, due to the fact that it‘s only a whole day, and I‘m hoping she‘s allowed to tag along then. <3

Earlier this year, February-ish, us first years took an old level-4 JLPT test, because Tanii-sensei wanted to see how much we could get. Out of 400 points, I got 393 points. ... and I didn‘t even study for that/those tests. :< Tanii-sensei asked me if to take the old level-2 test, but at first I told her I was no where near that level and would probably do badly. She said that she knew I wouldn‘t do that good, but she thought I had vocabulary for it and wanted me therefore to try it. Another student in the 2nd year would also take it. Hearing that, I told her I‘d challenge it.

A week later, me and the 2nd year student took it. It was a really challenging test. The listening part was super easy, but twice I kind of zoned out, and missed vital parts of information that I needed. ;_; The reading part was.... interesting. Tons and tons of text. Both of us taking it were like „...... huh.“ But I did my best, I answered every question and left nothing blank. Afterwards, the teachers, us, and a couple of students having extra classes (including my friend) ate a delicious mango cake and macarons. The day after, we got our results.

..... Out of 400 points, 260 were needed to pass. And I got 280. I still can‘t figure out how I did that. To this day, it still amazes me. I thought I was nowhere near the level of being able to pass this test, but I did. It upped my confidence so high, I felt like crying. My teachers were surprised and very pleased with my test. The other student, albeit very good at Japanese, got under 200 points, and he studies almost every day. It is strange that I passed, but I have to thank my brain, out of all things. I think a big reason why I passed is also Arashi. I watch their shows, dramas, etc, without subs most of the time, and I‘ve forced myself to understanding them. Through the shows, I learn many new words, kanji and grammar and it‘s also a really fun way of studying.

A couple of weeks ago we held a „mini“ speech contest for the first year students. We were divided into two groups, and each group had 3 prices. We also had Japanese people listening in and giving us points, or writing down thoughts on each student‘s speech. It was very nervewrecking, but I did my best. The speech we had to perform was actually an essay Tanii-sensei wanted us to write, about an interesting family member. I wrote about my father. When we were announcing, the people in my group were a lady that had been introducing to us an university we could exchange to, and Japan‘s ambassador‘s wife, as well as two Japanese exchange students. I was really nervous, and it was probably very audible, but I really did my best. And I guess it was good enough, because I got first prize in my group. Not long ago, we got the comments from the judges and most of my comments said that my Japanese sounded very natural, that they heard that I had rich vocabulary and high grammatical capability and that my pronounciation was great. One even wrote down that I excelled the others. This also upped my confidence, and made me feel proud of myself.

Basically, these teachers have made me feel so appreciated as well as helped to improve my confidence in myself. I really cannot thank them enough. This year so far has been more than wonderful.

I will update sometime soon, hopefully, as well as during the summer.

I'll never feel beautiful

I hate my moments of feeling so melodramatic over the truth.

:(

Introduction post

I haven't blogged here at all. I'm very bad at blogging, but I want to try my best at blogging once I get to Japan in 2013. And even before that, so I want to start with a kind of self-introduction.

Currently, I'm studying Japanese at an Icelandic university, and having a blast. I‘ve made a ton of new friends who share my interest, and every lesson is fun with my great teachers. My interest in Japanese started when I was around 13, I think. I got into manga, and later some anime, but have fallen out of that now. I have 300 volumes of manga though, and there‘s one series that I still follow, both the anime and the manga, and that‘s One Piece.
I think my interest dwindled after I gained more interest in Japanese music and culture, „collecting“ as many songs in Japanese as I could. From there, I came across this Japanese idol group called Arashi, through videos of their escapades in their tv shows on youtube.

You could say I kind of fell in love, haha. They‘re such dorks, and I call them „my“ boys, or the boys, as strange as that may sound. I „fell“ into the fandom in 2009 and have been a steady fangirl since then. <3 They make my life shinier, happier and fuller as well as help me better my Japanese skills each and every day. I think I should be honest here, since this is a somewhat „personal“ blog to state that I don‘t really like myself, my appearance that is. I think my personality is alright, though I wouldn‘t know. I know that this is something I shouldn‘t say but deep inside, I feel it and it can make my life miserable. I don‘t like seeing myself in pictures, and there have been many instances where I cry just looking at myself in photos. I wish I could fix this and just not care, but I can‘t. I lack confidence, and I know it. I am overweight but not obese, and even knowing that I still feel like the grossest thing walking this earth sometimes. Just before New Year‘s Eve, my mom wanted to buy some pants and a blouse, in case we‘d go to family gatherings or something like that, and in the dressing room I cried a little before I could pull myself together. I feel horrible in anything but jeans and a sweater, but even wearing those I can feel bad. It‘s horrible how much I attack myself with everything. I don‘t like my face either, and the glasses I wear don‘t help at all. In every picture I look like an (fat, ugly) idiot, so I always try to not have pictures taken of me. Whenever I see a camera, you could say that I basically run away in the opposite direction or hide behind someone. I wish I could stop doing this to myself, I really do, as well as gain confidence, but I can‘t seem to be able to do so. – end whining – I‘m sorry I put you guys through that, but I guess I needed some sort of outlet, despite my views of myself being stupid and immature. I‘ll turn to something „happier“ now. On the 5th, I‘ll be going to a endocrine specialist and have him look at my thyroid gland, for it may be underactive or overactive. I‘ve had this „problem“ with it for years now, can‘t even remember how long, but finally we‘re going to a specialist to have it looked at. I went to a doctor 2~3 years back and he said my thyroid was working well, just slightly bigger than normal, but me (nor my mom) accepted that outcome. Normally it stands out pretty obviously, but sometimes it expandes and makes it slightly... different for me to swallow anything. I‘m also losing a lot of hair, some days I lose more and some days I lose less. It‘s most obvious when I‘m showering, when I stroke my hands through my hair, my hands come back tangled in dozens of strands. The shower clogs often, and it‘s usually my hair that does it. I‘m also fatigued almost all the time, even though I slept for 6~8 hours. I also have anxiety problems and, though not so sure, depression problems. I‘m always stressed, one of the reasons being that I want to do well at school.... and I don‘t really think that helps with fatigue. After this test at school I got kind of depressed for at least a week. I felt tired, I didn‘t feel like doing anything, or just feel anything. It was strange. Apparently weight can also relate to thyroid problems. I don‘t really eat a lot each day so it‘s mysterious as to why I can‘t seem to lose the weight I want to. Meh. There are probably more things I can mention but I don‘t think yapping about them here helps. :/ On to much more happier stuff: Japanese, Japan and the boys! I love languages, and I fell in love with the Japanese language some 7 years ago. My mother tongue is Icelandic, and I managed to grasp the English language quite early in my childhood. But the interest in Japanese came at age 13, when my interest in manga and anime started as I mentioned earlier. Somehow it moved me, and I felt this kind of strange connection to it. I don‘t know what it was. I studied the language by myself for these last, almost 8 years before majoring in it at my university. I mastered the two alphabets, hiragana and katakana, and was able to read up to at least 400 kanji/kanji compounds before my enrollment. But I did „slack off“ the first 4~5 years before I really started willing myself to learn. One of my dreams is pass N2/N1 someday and become fluent at speaking and understanding. I hope I am able to believe in myself enough to do so.

The boys help me so much, they really do. They help me aspire to gain fluency and to become what I can become, as sappy as that may sound. They make me want to become what I can, and try to laugh at myself and not take myself as seriously, as hard as that will become for me, they make me want to do it. There are times when I feel such extreme happiness that I just want to give in and cry, as stupid as that may sound, hahaha. I just feel like I don‘t deserve the happiness that they give me, and their smiles, their antics and jokes, and everything makes me happier just by looking at them, watching their shows, listening to their music and participating in the fandom.

I had the great honor of being accepted a grant to go to Japan for five weeks in the year 2010. I chose the 5 weeks rather than the 5 months so that I could gratuate at the right time and enter university, I just wanted to start learning Japanese right away. In the first days without a host family, I was placed in the intermediate Japanese study group, and felt proud of myself for knowing that much by learning by myself. The host family, Oshiki, I bonded with right away. They were one of the nicest people I had ever met, and more than happy to teach me the Japanese way of doing things, showing me around as well as teaching me historic facts, allowing me and joining in to watch shows with the boys and taking good care of me. I feel really thankful to them and I plan on meeting them again in Japan. Our only way of communicating now is through emails, or regular mails, and still they send me pictures and teach me things. Whenever I receive something from them, I feel happy, and I keep all the letters I have in a box. <3

I think I have run out of things to say at this moment. It seems that way. :P But I‘m hoping I can post here my advances at Japanese, school related stuff and then Japan stuff once I‘m there as a foreign exchange student. <3

//edit: it seems that the text above the Arashi image refuses to seperate even though there are breaks in the "edit post" part :< Sad.