Yeah, I need to get better at this. Kinda bein a dick with it. The whole thing I mean. What can you do.

I’ve applied for the N4 level of the JPLT. Turns out the grades are pass/fail. Hadn’t looked that far into it before, I was thinking about get a good score on the thing (or very bad score). But I won’t really know, I’ll just do well enough or not. Well, shit. There’s old tests floating around . Pretty sure I can pass the N5. I figure it would be crushing to fail the N5, but less so the N4. Which I shouldn’t, but N3 would be pushing it. You gotta factor in the taking of the test itself, which I’m totally unfamiliar with, is a handicap. But I’m also thinking, you start something like this, you wanna go to the top level. Since it’s a yearly test I gotta knock off one year if I can. Better to take the 4 twice than waste a year of the easiest one.

So that’s what I’m thinking. I’m not getting back to where I want with Anki, but I’ve now got it stuck at a max of 2 days. I can keep it there easy at this point, but it’s got to get down to a max of 1 day and stay there to make good progress. Been going back to Jpod101 too. (I have several old Berlitz and Pimsleur courses but they don’t get very advanced.) I joined Jpod a while ago and for a while I was hating myself for paying for the premium service but if I hadn’t I doubt I would be going back to it and it is kinda good if at times grating.

Signed up for a travel alert and got a dead cheap price today, but not cheap enough. That’s not happening any time soon. But thinking long-term I feel I’ll end up living in North Jersey somewhere and visiting from there. I don’t think I could do the moving to Japan and teaching english thing. Pretty sure I’m too old for an entry level position and would be terrible teaching kids. Maybe I could teach in North Jersey, like ESL tutor. Maybe do freelance translation or other writing but I’m thinking it’s not going to be enough. That’s almost the same as trying to make a living off art/music. I still have this idea of getting a restaurant/bar job right away and say fuck it for a while because I need to be living on my own asap, but I’ve never been able to get that kind of job. One time in art school out teacher laid down the harsh reality that most of us would give up art of have to work as bartenders and just do art on the side if we were so serious about “real art”. Now, I wish he had said “work in fast food…” because then I’d think, maybe advertising isn’t that bad. I thought ‘bartender’ sounded pretty punk. Seems a lot of people though that. But I digress. つづく。。。

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