Planet Saturn

 みんなさんこんにちは！ Yesterday, I attended a lecture by Jeffrey Angles. It was a fairly long walk to the Jenkins Nanovic building, but it was more than worth it to hear Mr. Angles talk about his experiences learning Japanese and translating Japanese works into English. I was impressed by how fluent speaker Mr. Angles was. His poetry was awarded the Yomiuri Prize, a prestigious literary honor usually only given to native Japanese authors, and he spoke Japanese with the speed and fluidity of a native speaker. Mr. Angles in his home office (source: Margaret DeRitter) One of the things that surprised me most about the lecture was that I'd read some of Mr. Angles's work before. I checked out  Writing the Love of Boys  from the Hesburgh library in September and couldn't put it down. I was captivated by the lives of the three authors covered, especially Edogawa Ranpo, and how they translated their experiences with male love and friendship into their work. I was also surprised by the typ...

 It was a bit difficult to think of where I could find katakana online since I usually surf the Internet instead of using it for anything specific, but I've recently begun reading manga online and really enjoy Junji Ito's Frankenstein.  As you can see on the cover, the word "Frankenstein" is written in katakana since it's a loan word. Onomatopoeia such as "creak" next page are also written in katakana. I also waste much of my time watching YouTube, which brought me to a video discussing a contentious joke in an anime called Kokoro Connect (ココロコネクト). I had never heard of this anime before and don't have context for any of the clips shown. I just wanted to know what the drama was about. The video was full of katakana, from the title of the anime itself to a scene of two of the characters in front of a blackboard with several katakana words including "scary" (コワい) and sorry (ゴメン). I think these words are in katakana because it stands out more ...

 にちじょうせいかつ（Daily Life） げつようびからきんようびまで（from Monday to Friday）ごぜんしちじにおきます。 ごぜんしちじにおきますですから、ルームメイトがたぶんわたしがきらい。 しょくどうであさごはんをたべます。げつようびとすいようびときんようびで、とうけいクラス（statistics class）としんりクラス（psychology class）とにほんごクラスにいきます。かようびともくようびで、てつがくクラス（philosophy class）とえいがくクラス（literary studies）にいきます。 しゅうまつで、きがへんになります（go crazy）。べんきょうしますとか、ゲームをしますとか、ほんをよみますとか、せんたくがします（do laundry）。 よくかんがえたら（on second thought）、わたしのしゅうまつがほんとうつまらない（boring）です。 しゅうまつでなにをしますか？たぶんもっとおもしろいよりわたしの。よむでありがとう！