Promiseland

[Fetian]

Very predictably, I had a lot of trouble sleeping last night, even after taking a melatonin, so it's going to be a rough day.

 
Apparently I got distracted and didn't actually post this, which does helpfully illustrate the sort of day I'm having

[Fetian]

First day of class done! Embarrassingly, I showed up early to make sure the zoom link was working and ended up in the previous time slot's class. At first I was worried class had started early, or thought that the professor was just doing some exercises with students who arrived early, but then someone in the chat asked if that was the 4:30 class and someone else said it wasn't (after someone else else appeared to say it was). So I left and waited around for a bit and then ended up in the right class -- less embarrassingly, I obviously wasn't the only one, there were at least three people who did the same thing, and the professor didn't appear to notice, or at least didn't say anything about it.

Anyway, class went alright! We went over the syllabus, including the 'these are the things you should know from 401', which took long enough that she forgot she was supposed to give us a break at the hour mark, and instead gave us a shorter break at 5:45. When we got back she dropped us into breakout rooms in pairs and had us ask each other 'getting to know you' and small-talk questions in Japanese, and let the rooms go for much longer than was really useful (a lot of awkward silence by the end). My partner was kind of low-level but! Participated! And was mostly engaged in the activity! I did hear a fair amount of typing and think he was translating a lot of what we were saying while the conversation was happening, but eh. He did also try to keep the little "Ah, is that so" sort of discourse particles in Japanese.

After the activity she called on us individually to ask us questions about our partner, which took up the rest of class time, or close enough. We got let out a few minutes early, technically, but like, what are you going to fill those minutes with.

She wants us to review verbs from chapters 3-5 of the textbook, because on Thursday she's going to start teaching us te forms. She seems nice! Has a fairly thick accent that throws me occasionally but not as much as I'd worried. She has a fairly similar teaching style to the previous professor, but with a bit more 'forcing you to actively use the language', which is appropriate for an intermediate class.

I do have Opinions about some of my classmates but I'm going to sit on them for now, I'm sure that will develop.

I also have things to say about the other class but I want to go hang out with ash, so that will also get talked about later.

[Fetian]

Today I should:
-Record Arcadia parts
-put ash's keyboard together
-listen to assigned podcast episodes for history class (and look at the supplemental materials for them)
-watch videos the professor included in Japanese modules
-clean litterboxes
-empty the dishwasher

That's a pretty full plate but I'm going to live on the edge and try to get some more sleep anyway. If I have time and energy this afternoon I also want to get in the pool, it's supposed to be hot again and I could use the low-impact exercise

[Fetian]

Also here's the hot gossip for you from the history class:

We got an assignment to post a couple replies to a discussion board, just a little introductory thing to get to know our classmates a little and to give the professor an idea of where we're already at in regards to the subject - 'comment with answers to these questions and then reply to at least one other person's comment with a connection and a question based on their answers'. One person has responded using really really obvious chatgpt garbage, including more than one reply to other students. It's wild that they can't even be bothered to write their own replies, though I guess if they did the difference in style would be pretty obvious

I'm very curious if I'm going to continue to see that person in the class. I would guess no.

[Fetian]

I have some genuine nervousness about being accused of using LLMs to cheat at homework or classwork, because I know the systems for checking for that are very imperfect but also that many people would just blindly believe the results.

[Fetian]

Asian cultures as a subject really do bring out the weirdest people

[Fetian]

20240828201650_1.jpg

 
cumping area

[Fetian]

Today I should:
-Record Arcadia parts
-put ash's keyboard together
-listen to assigned podcast episodes for history class (and look at the supplemental materials for them)
-watch videos the professor included in Japanese modules
-clean litterboxes
-empty the dishwasher

[Fetian]

Day 2 of class done! We learned how to make the te form of the three kinds of verbs (including the five sub-kinds of one of those categories) and one of the uses for the te form (order/request). Then we practiced doing that for a while and then she taught us the kanji for north, east, west, south, and mouth, and then she let us out like ten minutes early.

Iiii have some issues with her teaching, mostly that she makes A Thing of it when you forget or don't know something, sometimes, which is just bad practice in my opinion! In any class but especially in a language class. She also has the homework due the day after class, which like, come on, give us Saturday at least, if not the whole weekend. I know it also takes teachers time to grade homework but, like. Come on.

There were some technical difficulties with class today, including that she couldn't get sound working when she was trying to play us a song, so instead she had us sing it, which would have been awkward even without doing it over the internet and having to deal with lag. Thankfully that was pretty short. One student did try to help her fix it, and if you picture 'guy who has been using linux for twenty years' you have probably pictured him. Unfortunately he was not able to get the instructions across to her in a way that made sense to her, but hopefully she gets it fixed by next week, or at least doesn't have any more songs she wants to play us. But the genki lessons are generally pretty audio heavy, so. Who knows! We will see.

What I'm going to need to do is study forward, and be prepared with what we're learning in a class having already read the relevant textbook sections &c, because her style is very, uh, fast-paced? That's not quite right -- but she goes over something and then expects you to just have it, kind of, which again is not super great for language learning. On this too we shall see how things go.

Alright, gonna go hang out! I will do homework and studying later, after people have gone to bed.

[Fetian]

Done three of four homework pages, continuing to make myself do words in kanji if the book includes them, hopefully this teacher is also okay with that.

Tomorrow I want to wake up early and see about getting to the store to take advantage of the labor day sale before they sell out of things -- main plan is to stock up a bit on soda but I should probably consider getting some other vitals, too. I'll try to make a list tonight, if I have energy. Homework wiped me out a bit but I might get some brain back before bed.

So I should:
-shopping
-clean pet food bowls
-keyboard for ash¹
-last page of Japanese homework
-read ch. 6 in Japanese textbook, probably also review ch. 5
-history discussion posts
-empty dishwasher

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_{¹What I'm running into for this is that putting it together is going to be noisy, so I don't want to do it at night while people are sleeping, but I also haven't had time during the day. I do need to get to it though}