Well its been a while since my resolutions post but thought I would post a quick update on how I'm getting on so far.

한글 - Hangul - DONE!
This one's already done learned all the characters within a day or two and have already got to the point were I can read without needing to refer to anything to see what a character means all thanks to the power of an SRS.

Weight Training - In Progress!
Have gained almost 2 pounds in weight (having to eat over 3000 calories a day to gain) and improved my lift on the bench press to 3x6 of 60KG not a huge weight but great for me ^^

JLPT - Temp Hold
Not worked on this yet as have concentrated on Hangul and a few other things but will get round to full on study at some point in the very near future.

Climbing - Future Plan
Aiming to give this try within the next month or two when some funds have been freed up.

Blog More - In progress
Trying to manage a few posts a week depending on time constraints.

Go Abroad - Funding Pending

--- New Goals ---
Going to start adding any new goals I have planned at the end of any goals update posts.

LPIC-1 - Linux Professional Institute Certification
Not done any new IT certs in a while now and wanting to further my knowledge and potentially my career its about time I did. Linux has always interested me and after setting up my new Linux box to act as a home media server and playing around with the likes of Samba, Cups etc I'm becoming more interested. So I'm going to start studying for this cert using an SRS to remember anything obscure.

Another review that I wrote a long while ago, this one could probably do with updating but would prefer to watch the movie again before hand, still think this is a great Anime and beautiful to look at.

Just came across this anime recently and thought i would post what i thought about it, its basically a love story were a boy meets the love of his life and are constantly seperated as they go from high school to being adults, but no matter how sepperated they become they still never forget each other and the love they shared.

Also thrown into the mix is another girl from school that has fell in love with the lead character and no matter what she does she just cant find a way to express her love for him, untill she eventually realises that he always seems to be waiting for somebody and will never notice her for anything more than a friend.

Even though there are probably many shows out there that are similar in story and so on, there is just something about this that keeps you watching from begining to end whether its the top notch animation that makes you feel warm inside, or just wanting to know if they will ever stay together its a worthy watch and deffinatly recommended.

Quick rundown: Worthy Watch
Very nice animation, great sound effects and music, an ok story if a little same’y

Was thinking the other day rather than let my old posts over on Duckicecream go to waste seen as the co project with 9 things is on hold. I thought I'd post them up here, first off is a review I wrote for "Mahou Tsukai ni Taisetsu na Koto"

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A good slice of life with a twist that’s what’s on the agenda today, recently i finally got off my arse and started to watch some of the new shows out in Japan from a random selection of shows like ToLoveRu and Macross Frontier I thought I’d choose some random show i new nothing about and give it a try and this is what i ran into other than the fact I’d never remember the name in an entire lifetime.

There is just something about the show that keeps me watching whether its because of the twist of it being set in a believable Japan and there being people who can use magic or if its just because its so nice to watch, here are a few of my musings of the first two episodes that ill be sure to keep up with it as its released.

It starts on a small countryside farm in Japan in a place called biei, with who i assume to be the main character of the show Suzuki Sora and from what we see from the start she seems to have been chosen for her magic ability to join a magic school in Tokyo, she visits her mother as she is tending to there crops when her mother brakes the news to her that she wil be leaving for Tokyo to join the magic school, other than the twist of magic everything about the show makes you think its just your normal everyday slice of life anime.

Then we follow Sora as she go’s about her daily life in biei and see that she is leaving a good friend and her way of life behind to go to busy hot Tokyo.

Episode 2

Arrival in Tokyo, we finaly get to see some more of Sora’s magic in action as she saves an old lady and a guy who we are soon to see is also part of her school but doesn’t seem to be too talented from initial impressions as Sora finally arrives at her school although a bit late, we soon see that Sora seems like she could be very talented but faces competition from two other classmates.

Animation!

Definitely one of the strong points about the show is the animation it mix’s really pretty animation with real life photo’s that blends so well to bring together a believable world and if you like me and love everything about Japan it gives you a nice view of what its like to live there.

Summary

Excellent my graduation back into the world of new anime has been a good one if there are to be other shows like this one, I welcome all suggestions if there are some more i should be adding to my watch list :D , to end my post all i have to say is go watch if you like your slice of life anime then its a must see even if not its at least one to take a peek at.

~because we only get one chance~

Seems I never actually finished this show, will have to try and get a hold of it sometime.

Thought I'd post up a very catchy Korean song one that I had on endless repeat when I first heard it.

or two

This week to start off my Korean movie viewing is the film 3-Iron you could say that's its not the best choice to practice listening comprehension as there isn't actually much talking throughout the film but what it lacks in dialogue its makes up with the story and interaction between the two lead characters.

The film begins with us following around a guy who travels from place to place on his motorbike, at the beginning of each day he goes around a neighbourhood sticking flyers to peoples doors which he then returns to later that night to see which door hasn't had the flyer removed, which would suggest to him that nobody was home. He then proceeds to brake into the house and makes himself at home for the night, in return he repairs things around the house and leaves everything as it was before leaving, never taking anything although as you can imagine he does run into the owners on occasion which lead to some sticky situations.

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Eventually he brakes into a house and finds that he is not alone he meets a wife who has been beaten by her husband, when her husband returns home some events ensue and she runs away with the traveller living the life that he does staying in different houses with all sorts of backgrounds and events that they must deal with. It's just such a nice movie to watch and one I highly recommend even for people who have no interest in Korean movies the main focus is the interaction between the characters even though they never speak to each other you can still feel what they want to say.

Well as I mentioned in a previous post I was going to learn to read Hangul 한굴 this year well days after that post I went ahead and re-learned the Hangul probably took 1-2 days to memorize them all and a little longer to get the pronunciations and irregularity's correct, still probably not perfect but can read quite well now I just need to speed up.

After getting the taste of Hangul my attention turned to actually wanting to learn Korean itself as I've always had an interest in Korea and its culture other than Japanese its by far my next favorite language, so for a while I'm going to switch my attention to learning Korean especially after my long hiatus from Japanese its very daunting to re-start 1700 sentences that haven't been reviewed for 5 months or so.

Although to not forget my Japanese I'm going to were I can translate my Korean sentences into Japanese and avoid English as much as possible the great thing about Korean for anybody who has studied Japanese is the many similarity between the two languages.

e.g.
저 - jeo = Similar to 私
씨 - ssi = similar to さん Mr, Mrs, Miss
은 / 는 - eun / neun = Topic Marker similar to は
입니다 - nida = similar to です　"to be"
이 / 가 - -i / ga = Subject marker

저는 학생입니다. = I (topic marker) student am a - I am a student

The sentence structure is pretty much the same too as above. Now that I know the writing its just a case of learning the vocab and grammar so should be pretty quick to match my Japanese ability and to pass it, currently the thing I'm finding most difficult is getting the pronunciation correct but that just needs practice.

So I intend to keep these regular logs on my Korean progress and also for a place to list things I've learned which will hopefully be beneficial for myself and anybody else that's interested in or learning Korean.

Oh and one last thing to finish up I'm also going to set a few mini goals (as suggested by Squintox) each time I make a log as a way to keep pushing myself along and as a guide of my progress.

- Finish Beginner series 1 of Korean Class 101 - 5/31
- Add 200 vocab/sentences to Anki - 62/200
- Watch at least 1 Korean movie a week - 0 (3-iron has arrived ^^)
- Listen to more audio 20Mins today so far (still collecting things together for this)

Feel free to follow me over on Twitter - Tibul

Well recently with my renewed interest in learning Korean I thought it would be a great idea to try some Korean food with a lot of searching I came to the realization that there aren't many Korean restaurants in the UK especially anywhere near me.

I eventually found a local restaurant called Tokyou that sold the obvious Japanese/Chinese food and also to my surprise some Korean dishes, I settled on the above "Spicy Korean Pork" very nice and very spicy with a strange texture to the sauce unlike anything I've tried in Japanese/Chinese food all I can say is I'll be going back for more.

So if you get the chance give Korean food a try you'll be pleasantly surprised. Life's all about trying/doing new things isn't it? ^^

Oh and will be sure to take more photo's at Tokyou on my next visit plan to try Teriyaki hear great things.