Stuff and Things

 Just when you think the editing process is over, it isn't.

Rachel and I are STILL going through the book version of School for Wayward Demons (now with help from a third beta reader, my friend Josey).  But, in the mean time, you can keep reading here:  "Broken but Strong."

On the flip side, I do think we'll get through it by the 30th, which is our deadline to get it off to the professional copy-editor as part of the whole trying to have a book-type thing before MarsCON 2015.  This is all very crazy, honestly.  But, it's been a ton of fun and... we'll call them "learning experiences."

In other news, I started Intermediate Japanese on Tuesday night.  It's being taught by the same instructor, Tetsuya-sensei.  It's pretty much all women, except this one guy (Mint, who I will forever think of as Mint-san), all of whom took it before.  Also, most of them have actual plans to go to Japan, Idyel-san is actually leaving for Tokyo before the class is over.  So it was kind of amazing that, when we were asked to introduce ourselves to the ONE new student, I was the only one to have practiced full introductions. I seemed to be the only one who studied at all during the break.  Which only underscores for me that 1) otaku rule and 2) learning something for fun is far better motivation that even NEEDING TO KNOW IT BECAUSE YOU ARE GOING THERE.

Yesterday I had a wicked headache.  It was so bad that even after medicine and a bath, I really didn't even feel up to reading, my eyes hurt that much, so I plugged into my JapanPOD101.com account and listened to several more Japanese language instruction podcasts. In fact, I learned an easier way to say "Please repeat."  Tetsuya-sensei taught us, "Mo ichido itte kudasai" which isn't terribly hard, but the podcast's version was shorter and had no real verb, which I appreciated: "Mo ichido onigaishimasu."  Which is basically the difference between, "Say it again, please." and "Again, if you would." And believe it or not, considering how often you are expected to say that super-long looking word, "onigaishimasu," it's actually much easier to say that than to verb, as the kids might say these days.  And just like in my English version, the second phrase more compact and feels less cumbersome.  So that was a cool revelation.

The only problem with listening to the podcasts right before bed is that the migraine relief aspirin stuff I took had a dose of caffeine, so I slept really fitfully for the first couple hours, and I kept drifting in and out of consciousness repeating these phrases and the more irritating one, "O-genki desuka?" over and over and over.

AND OVER.

Anyway, I'll be ready to ask someone how they are... :-)