Four days to go

And I am so excited, you don't even know. It's going to be a long week, but the end is finally in sight.

Unfortunately, I hurt my right shoulder today taking boxes of inactive files down to inactive storage and then shelving them/reorganising the room to make all the new additions fit, and my mum is insisting that I file an incident report. This is definitely a Do Not Want because that sort of thing is a pain, but I guess it'll give me a chance to give my supervisor some feedback on T. So not a total waste of time, right?

In news not related to the Job From Hell, today I found uploads of Asakura Daisuke's entire Quantum Mechanics Rainbow series, along with a couple of his other solo projects, and some Kenichi Ito. So my DA Family album collection has grown and I now have the two QMR albums that I was missing (Orange Compile and Green Method), not to mention more K.Ito! This brings the album count up to 11 DA, 6 Iceman, 2 K.Ito, 1 The Seeker, and 2 Access singles.

I think I'm good for awhile.

Moving right along, I've finally written a reply to my host family (I say that like it didn't take me two months last time), in which my response to their saying they want to attend my graduation was actually pretty complex grammatically. What I wrote is: 大変な分かっているけど，なんとか卒業式に来てもらうませんか？　みんなくれば、嬉しくなります。でも，無理だったら、大丈夫です。心配しないでください！(Basically: I know it's tough, but somehow could you come to my graduation ceremony? If everyone comes, it'll be happy. But if it's impossible, that's fine. Please don't worry!)

Um, I'm going to pause for a minute for anyone who's interested in Japanese to note that the grammar in that first sentence is really, really, really valuable. Not the first part so much, that's pretty basic, but the question is very practical.

The structure is: nantoka [verb, te-form] moraemasen ka. 'Nantoka' is like 'somehow' and when combined with '-te moraemasen ka' it becomes a way of making a request that you (and the person you're asking) know is probably impossible. So, it's a polite way of asking someone for something, while giving them an implied way out. I tacked on the additional 'I know it's tough, but...' to drive home that I don't really expect them to come, but I'd love to see them if they really want to travel 5,000+ miles.

So, yes, that's something you should learn if Japanese language proficiency is something you're keen on.

Actually, as a final, related note, I'm thinking about doing Japanese entries (or partial entries, anyway) every once in awhile, as writing practice. Reading and writing are still my weak points, so anything I can do to improve is for the best. But, then again, no one is going to be interested in reading anything like that, so maybe I'll make yet another blog just for my continuing Japanese adventures. That way, anyone who wants to take a look can, but wading through text you may or may not be able to read won't be necessary. I'll have to give it some thought.