にほんのかおもじ (Japanese Emoticons)

Today I was looking at Japanese-style emoticons, and I love how expressive they are! I also found a website that's pretty organized and convenient:

＼（＾ ＾）／ Japanese Emoticons!

At the moment, my favorite emoticon subgenre is confused faces:

(・_・ヾ           ｢(ﾟﾍﾟ)         (・・。)ゞ      【・_・?】

Blood Type (けつえき がた) Stereotypes

I think it's interesting how in Japan, different blood types are associated with different personality traits. If you want to learn about some of the stereotypes, Ketsuekigata-kun (けつえきがたくん) is a short, funny series about exactly that:

Mado Kara Mieru [song]

Here is a song in Japanese by a (non-Japanese) composer I really like, Christopher Tin. From the video description:

"Sung in Japanese, the song is a setting of five haiku about the seasons: spring, summer, autumn, winter and spring. Each verse is sung by a different singer in a different stage of their life: a child, a young woman, an older woman, a chorus of old men, and a child. The song represents the cycle of life: youth, old age, death, and then rebirth again."

(I highly recommend the entire album, Calling All Dawns, as study music. This is the only Japanese song, but that's because each song is in a different language!)

アニメ！

アニメすきです。 アニメがすきですか。Here are some anime-inspired chalk drawings I made last year. Do you recognize them? Any ideas for what I should draw this year?

Pronunciation Goals

Here are my goals and plan for improving my Japanese speech:

My goals: 1. Pitch patterns: I want to learn the correct pitch patterns for the Tokyo dialect, including the gently descending pitches in a sentence or phrase.
2. Speed: Right now my Japanese is quite slow, so I want to learn to speak at a more natural pace.
3. Avoiding habits from English: In English, we vary syllable stress, and this has been transferring to my Japanese speech. I need to pay more careful attention and avoid stressing certain syllables, instead learning to keep my voice even.
4. Articulation/Accuracy: I want to improve my articulation, especially for sounds like らりるれろ and also making sure I hold vowels for the right amounts of time.

My plan:
1. Go to Japanese Table every week and make sure I talk a lot in Japanese!
2. Go to Shibata Sensei's office hours once every two weeks (more often when possible)
3. Do extra PE exercises (more than the required 5)
4. When I watch an anime, either shadow a character for a few scenes (about a minute for now?) or sing along to the opening song (at least the chorus).
5. Listen to at least 1 hour of Japanese audio per week (~10 min/day) to get used to the intonation. For this, I like finding news radio online, because I can also play it in the background while I do some of my work.