Promiseland

[Fetian]

Like, it's commonly accepted knowledge that to learn a language you want to start, as soon as possible, to think in that language, instead of translating everything into your native language to understand it. That is, instead of seeing "aka" and thinking "that means 'red'", just knowing that "aka" means the same thing that "red" does. Duolingo puts effort toward training you in that direction, and I think some people do benefit from just getting the sort of vague 'it's used in this context' meaning, that they find it easier to shift into thinking in the language under those circumstances than they do when told literal translations

I don't.

Not being able to break phrases (or words, in some cases) down into what each part of it means means that I'm always going to be thinking 'this means that' instead of internalizing that "dōzo yoroshiku onegaishimasu" means "I want kindly please /respectfully" means "Please treat me well, sir" means "Nice to meet you". Without being able to break it down, I just see a big mass of letters that I can kind of pronounce and oh- right- this is the one that means "nice to meet you", just like this other one that means the same thing for some reason, and this other one that's much shorter and means the same thing for some reason.

[Fetian]

Oh, also, re USPS nonsense, got this email today

Hello,

I do apologize for any inconvenience. The GPS location of this scan was at the correct location. The carrier did go out to double check all the mail boxes but was unable to locate this item. I recommend contacting the sender for recourse. Once again I do apologize on behalf of the postal service.

[surejan.jpg]

Very convenient that when the carrier was sent out to "double check all the mail boxes", the package suddenly appeared in said mailbox. I sent a reply saying as such, though I probably shouldn't have. I just don't think this is something that should be written off like this -- this is either malicious or wild incompetence, the best-case-scenario here is that the package got scanned delivered, fell somewhere in the truck, and just sat there for a week while the USPS shrugged and claimed repeatedly they didn't have it.

Hopefully by being this much of a pain-in-the-ass over it, I haven't drawn the ire of our mailcarrier and doomed us to yet more lost and/or damaged mail. But there's extremely solid odds that if I hadn't made such a fuss the package would have disappeared forever, so.

[Fetian]

Also this idea that I can just "contact the seller for recourse" like, why should they have to pay for this? They did everything right, it's not their fault the package went missing. It's your fault the package went missing, you should have to pay to replace it. But that isn't going to happen because the USPS has immunity against being held liable for missing mail, which is Wild.

[knightofcups]

Ages ago, Lee got a fancy cat toy thing and asked me to put it together, and I have proceeded to fall into a pattern of forgetting it exists, moving it to a new location where I will hopefully notice it when I have time and energy to put it together, and going right back to forgetting it exists. ADHD! It's a hell of a drug.

I forgot about this too. Sigh. Brains.

[Fetian]

See, memrise has just taught me that when using a polite register you add "o" to the beginning of inanimate objects, duolingo was just having me do that sometimes with no explanation to the extent that I thought these words just started with "o"

[Fetian]

Do not get me wrong, memrise isn't anywhere near perfect, itself, and I do not recommend it by itself to learn any language. If I'd started with it, I'd have bounced off immediately -- the individual parts of the lessons are given in a random order, so you really often get words with letters in them that you have never seen before (inside of the course, anyway). It's working so well for me because I've gotten such a solid foundation with using duolingo. The two courses are propping each other up, for me, the one is strong where the other is weak and vice versa.

The Japanese course is also very high quality -- I think professionally done, probably commissioned by the people who run memrise -- but many courses on memrise are user-created, so quality is going to be hit-or-miss. I've tried a few that weren't very good, and I have a few that I still use, so. If anyone takes this as a recommendation to go looking through memrise courses for something to learn, know that there is rough among the diamonds. And just general limitations with how the software works.

That said, I don't think any single resource is a good thing to use as a standalone for language learning.

[Fetian]

Got one final email (probably) from USPS

I will speak with the carrier. Have a wonderful day..

Like-

There's extremely little recourse for a customer when they're stuck with a carrier who just refuses to do their job properly. Like, I can't go out and get a new mail carrier if this one keeps misplacing my packages, or keeps delivering our mail to the wrong address, or keeps refusing to take back mail delivered to us by mistake. And people will argue that I'm not their customer but I would argue the USPS has more imperative to keep me satisfied than the people originally mailing the mail, not less.

I like the USPS! I would prefer it continue existing, and I would very, very much like for them to have enough funding and resources to allow their employees to work decent hours under as little stress as possible. But I also want my fuckin' mail, and it's frustrating that if the person who happens to be assigned to my mail zone is a dipshit then all I can do is be a Karen and still end up accomplishing almost nothing.

[Fetian]

That was not the final email from the USPS, because this morning I got another one of these:

Hello,

I do apologize for any inconvenience. The GPS location of this scan was at the correct location. The carrier did go out to double check all the mail boxes but was unable to locate this item. I recommend contacting the sender for recourse. Once again I do apologize on behalf of the postal service.

So I guess that's a form letter, too. Neat.

 
Meanwhile Oz decided at seven o'clock this morning that it was time for breakfast, and has been waking me up every few minutes since then.

[knightofcups]

I genuinely love USPS, and want to be able to support them, and be nice to them, and... But holy shit did they fuck this up with you.

[Fetian]

The idea that it's impossible for a carrier to scan a package 'delivered' but then not put it in the mailbox is absurd, and that's what they're trying to tell me. It's common knowledge that carriers very often scan packages early? And that they often then don't actually deliver them the same day they were scanned? If I'd called the day the package hadn't arrived they would have outright told me that and to wait and see if it showed up the next day