Promiseland

[Fetian]

aaaaaaaa

[Fetian]

今日はクラスが始めます、四時半から六時半五分まで。少し疲れています、でもいいクラスを持ちましょうよ！

 
Class starts today, from 4:30 to 6:35. I'm a little tired, but let's have a good class!

[Fetian]

暑いね。今日はとても晴れだ。でも、先週のほうが暑いだった。

 
Hot out. It's very sunny today. But it was hotter last week.

[Fetian]

Okay!

So, class:
I've set up to attend the zoom meetings through the in-browser web-app instead of the desktop program -- I frankly don't believe the professor is tech-literate enough to attempt to record student's screens, but I don't want to risk it and I don't trust zoom itself as a corporation to not be gathering data on me. In-browser webapps are pretty silo'd because web standards were designed before everything went to complete shit, so websites are incapable of knowing about anything happening on your computer outside the browser environment.

And it worked well enough so I'm going to continue doing it.

I joined the zoom about ten minutes early and was the first one there, but not by very long, and -- crucially -- I didn't accidentally drop in on the prior class before they let out. We had fourteen students attending, which is a problem because the dean or the department head or whatever has been telling the professor that the class is on the verge of getting cancelled due to not enough students -- she did clarify later that she had talked to the whoever, who is a temporary whatever and doesn't have a lot of experience here, and told them that advanced language classes generally get fewer students and the whoever said they didn't know that and seemed to be okay with things continuing, but the professor seems to have gathered that if the class gets fewer attendees than the 'fourteen or fifteen' that it was getting signed up during enrollment then the class will get cancelled. That would be very unfortunate, and does make me wonder about the 412 class, which is the next level after this one.

Anyway, so she went over the syllabus with us and just general, expectations and &c. I was surprised to learn that we're going to cover chapter 12, the last chapter in Genki I, before moving on to Genki II (Genki being our textbooks), I kind of just figured it would be left as a 'study it on your own time' since it is a little weird to be doing a single chapter at the end of the book. The professor seemed to have some opinions about the 402 professor not covering chapter 12, like I believe the word "refuses" was used.

So we went over the chapter 12 kanji and then had our break. Earlier in class it came out that one of the students uh, should not be in this class! He was under the impression this was an introductory Japanese class and seemed to have been told to take this class by a counsellor? Anyway during break she walked him through joining her 401 class, so that got sorted but does mean we're down one enrolled student, and the professor also seemed to think a different student who didn't attend but had communicated with her over email, had intended to be in 401 instead of 411 as well.

Also during break, Problem Student arrived! An hour late, and when he got there he turned his webcam on, made some extremely upset faces into it, turned it back off, and told the chat he was confused and didn't know what was happening. I am admittedly a little BEC with him but I do feel like it shouldn't be that hard to figure out that the class is on break if you arrive pretty much exactly halfway through the class and no one is talking or has their webcams on. Later, he continued his habit of trying to show off his advanced Japanese in the chat, and at the end of class when the professor happened to look at it, she corrected his grammar. He also was misusing the grammar point we were learning (almost like he wasn't actually paying attention because he thinks he already knows all this) and made several faux pas in the process. Oh, and he also did the 'I'm using casual forms because I want to be chill and be friendly with everyone', so I think we can pretty safely say he hasn't actually learned anything since the previous class. I would bet he has continued to just learn from watching anime.

After break we went over a couple modules from chapter 12, and then the professor technically let us out a little early but also hung back to answer questions. We do not have a zoom meeting on this coming Wednesday, and next Monday is a holiday, so our next class is Wednesday next week. She says she knows classes can be stressful and hectic at the beginning of the semester and wants to give us a bit of a break from that, though we do still have assignments due so not like, a vacation. Problem Student asked her about a couple of Japanese synonyms that had nothing to do with what we learned today, which I mean at least he didn't interrupt class time for it. He did have his (virtual) hand raised for a chunk of class and the professor forgot to ask him what he wanted, so it's possible he intended to interrupt class with it.

But yeah that was class! The modules were on 〜んです (~ndesu) as an explanatory construction and 〜すぎる (~sugiru) meaning 'too much'. I think we also got to 〜ほうがいいです (~hou ga ii desu), which is a construction for giving advice and which I attempted to use to insult Dave but I knew he was going to google translate it and google was very intent on changing my intended subject for the insult¹. I did just send my last attempt, of course, after explaining that google was fucking it up. (I've also now sent the last last attempt, where I did find something google wouldn't turn around on me)

I don't quite remember how far we got because I was reading that part of the textbook before class, but if we did hit 〜ほうがいいです I am pretty sure we didn't reach the one after it (〜ので (~node)).

I am in fact feeling better about the class! Immediately this professor's teaching style works better for me than the 402 professor, and I'm feeling pretty comfortable and confident. Though, there are more obnoxious students in this class (expected, unfortunately, for an advanced Japanese class) but somehow I'm still the one doing most of the talking and responding. I am being careful to give others a chance to participate, and I think the professor did more calling on people than waiting for people to jump in, this class. Hopefully as class goes more people get comfortable with spontaneous participation

What I am particularly worried about is getting paired up with Problem Student during group practice, but that's probably unavoidable. Fingers crossed and touch wood, though.

After class, ash and I ate dinner and watched most of a Taskmaster dance-related-tasks compilation that got uploaded yesterday, and then a Worst Cooks in America. We've been talking for ages about watching that latter, and finally started doing it a couple days ago. We are on season 1 and neither of us particularly like the blue team head chef, but aside from that we're enjoying it. I do like the kind of reality competition show where the contestants aren't pitted directly against each other and people don't get all backstabby and cutthroat. People are always helping each other out on Worst Cooks even though only one of them is making it to the final episode and getting the grand prize, and I really like that. There's something about them being 'on teams', where their competitive impulses can be directed at the other team instead of their 'teammates' even though their teammates are more accurately said to be their competition.

After dinner and TV we each headed to bed, and then Dave and I did our game night

So, Satisfactory:
Quite a while back, now, I set up a train line going from the main lines to Avalon, but that's a very long stretch so I did a slightly halfassed job of it by making the line bidirectional. That means there can only be one train on it at a time, or the trains will crash into each other, and that means you can't have too many trains running the line or it'll slow everything down and potentially back up enough that the line becomes unusable. I have two trains on that line and that worked okay, but I knew that some day I would have to redo it.

Today turned out to be that day.

It happens that the line goes basically straight under the south leg of the skybridge, very near to where the bridge touches ground. I want trains that will take you to the four skybridge legs, and the Avalon line is an obvious choice to connect a station back onto another track. To begin with I just made a fork and connected it to a new station at the skybridge entrance but then the trains got sad because they didn't know how to handle the fork. I fixed that, and then figured I should go ahead and get the line ready for more trains to end up on it.

I've previously made a pseudo-bidirectional line by stacking one rail on top of another and I decided to do that again, just making a rail floating above the already-existing line to turn it into a loop. I went through all that trouble, finished, and thought I was done and went on my merry way to resume my other project of covering the skybridge in conveyor belts.

Some time later we get a message that the two trains on the avalon line had crashed into each other.

'Ah', I thought, 'Since the line was originally bidirectional, it must be that one of the trains ended up on the new loop facing the wrong way. I'll go rerail the trains and turn the backwards one around.'

Unfortunately, what I found when I got there was this:

20250825235450_1.jpg

 
This was an extremely upsetting situation for the trains, apparently, and one of their collision boxes was several feet away from where the train appeared to be. When I tried walking into it, it pushed me back out, and when I jumped into it uh, the train, exploded and flew a few miles away and into a canyon.

It took some doing to get the trains unstuck from each other but I did eventually manage and I got them safely stopped at either end of the loop so I could -- sigh -- undo all my work and redo it, but right this time. I'd actually noticed the rails got very close together in some places and said, and I quote, "The trains will clip through each other a little sometimes, it's fine"

Apparently not

So! I redid the rails, still one stacked on top of each other but with much more clearance between them, and the result did look nicer and I should have just taken the care to do it well to begin with.

Somewhere in there Dave and I also finished the last main objective of the game, so we've now beat Satisfactory! Though as far as I'm concerned the game is not beaten until we kill every single god damn animal on this planet because christ am I tired of being griefed by these assholes.

Aside from that I did get a chunk of conveyors laid -- and tested it a few times, and it did not launch me over the edge of the skybridge because my safety railings successfully kept me safe, and then it did launch me over the railing and the edge of the skybridge and to my death. So I may need to make some adjustments on said safety railings, but that was when we were wrapping up for the night so I'll need to do it next week. If I do. It depends on how the game handles turns

And it's gotten late! I'm gonna eat more dinner and go to sleep. Not a bad day, I think!

 
***
¹Attempt 1: ディックを食べたほうがよくて、おしりの中で持ってきます
(dikku o tabeta hou ga yoku te, oshiri no naka de mottekimasu)
Intent: "It would be for the best if you ate a dick, and put it in your butt"
Google: "I'd rather eat a dick and have it in my ass"

Attempt 2: お前ディックを食べたほうがよくて、おしりの中で持ってきます
(omae dikku o tabeta hou ga yoku te, oshiri no naka de mottekimasu)
Google: "You better eat my dick and take it in my ass"

Attempt 3: お前ディックを食べたほうがよくて、おしりの中でお前の持ってきます
(omae dikku o tabeta houga yoku te, oshiri no naka de omae no mottekimasu)
Google: "You better eat my dick and I'll take yours in my ass"

There were other attempts, but these are the ones I remember. I know I'm getting things wrong but playing with language is how you learn it and what better way to play with language than to cobble together vulgarities out of words you happen to know? Anyway I may be getting things wrong but that doesn't excuse google inventing participants out of whole cloth

(In particular the latter clause is better translated as "bring the dick into your butt". I did consider "return the dick into your butt" but liked the other one better)

Wait I've got it
ディックを食べたほうがよくて、おしりの中で持ってきましょうだよ
(dikku o tabeta hou ga yoku te, oshiri no naka de mottekimashou da yo)
Google: "You better eat dick and take it in your ass"

[Fetian]

Today's hot take is that audio commentaries should come with subtitles

[Fetian]

  Hidden text. You are not a member of the groups to which this text is available

[Fetian]

Been pretty chill the past few days -- I played Firewatch and got partway through the audio commentary, and I discovered yesterday that 3D Pinball Space Cadet is in the linux software center so I went ahead and downloaded that and have played it a few times. I need to buckle down on some Japanese study -- homework is due Sunday night and I'd like to finish my chapter reviews before class on Monday. I pushed myself a little too hard when exercising at the beginning of the week and I've had some muscle soreness/fatigue. Also been pretty sleepy for much of the week.

Tomorrow evening, ash and I are going to Daiso and then to pick up mongolian noodles for dinner, but he has a full day before that so I'll have most of the day to myself. We don't have set plans for monday, but potentially we go to a museum or something.

About time to feed the cat, so I'm going to go do that

[Fetian]

Oh also I'm ending the month under budget! Woo!

[Fetian]

Poured milk into a glass and food from the dishwasher floated to the top

[Fetian]

I'd like to finish my chapter reviews before class on Monday Wednesday.