Hi all, and welcome once again to your monthly funtime Trev
Report, wherein you get to hear all about the fun stuff I have
been up to in the last month. And now, on with the report!
Signe (http://www.signerose.org/ ) and I
are rocking on in Shimane. It has been a fun month for the two of
us. We have been hanging out a lot with the new Assistant
Language Teachers in our area that just started in August. We
have has a few parties and there are more to come. The new group
is really great, and we are looking forward to getting to know
all of them better.
I couple weeks ago, Ed Schwartz (http://www.es3.us/ ) from No-Name Anime
(http://www.nnanime.com/ )
fame came and visited us here in Akagi. And currently, Signe's
little brother, Emmett, is here for a few weeks hanging out with
us.
Signe's garden is really great now. It is hard to believe that
just one year ago it was nothing but weeds! We also bought some
patio furniture and astroturf, so you can walk out on the paito
with your bare feet. Signe also put up some long pieces of bamboo
that we use to shade the patio. It really looks great.
The
Shimane Prefectural Orientation was held this month for the new
JET participants in Shimane (http://www.shimane.jp/ ) and I was
fortunate to be able to be an assistant in that event. It was
held in the capital, Matsue, and I had a great time there. I have
also signed up to be an assistant at the Mid-Year Prefectural
Seminar that is coming up in a couple months. I really like doing
these types of events. I think once I staffed FanimeCon (http://www.fanime.com/ ) I got the
con staffer virus and I just can't shake it.
In other news, school finally restarted again. I'm officially on
my second year and it is currently the second semester. We are
all preparing for sports day festival at the Junior High right
now. It is a really big event. Actually, this it the semester
with all the big events, we also have the culture festival, which
is really fun to go to as well.
I have started going to the elementary schools again as well. The
kids are as great as ever. I love this job!
I still have my eyes set on that PA job, but I won't be able to
apply until the beginning of the next year. Wish me luck! Signe
will be applying to the JET Program as well, so with any luck we
will be doing it together next year!
The TV show is going great as well. I am doing it with a female
Junior High English Teacher called, Ms. Kawashima, now, and I
think that we work well as a team. We have been putting on skits
for English conversation classes on TV, instead of just talking,
it works a lot better, I think. More people tend to talk about it
these days too. The monthly newsletter article is also going
great. I am thinking of scanning them into the computer and
putting them online, but I haven't done it yet, we will see.
So, I have started to subscribe to the "Nihongo
Journal" (http://www.alc.co.jp/jpn/learner/index.html
). I really like it and I highly recommend it to anyone with
basic to mid-level skill in Japanese that wants to improve.
Doing the TV show and writing the newsletter article really help,
as they forse me to use Japanese, which I really like. I also try
to write other things in Japanese as well. For example, Signe and
I recently got the idea that it would be fun to introduce
Pickle-Ball (http://www.pickleball.com/ ) to
the people of Akagi, so I wrote a FAX to the people in Japan that
sell it requesting some Japanese language materials. I also
recently wrote a lesson plan for the Shimane Prefecture Lesson
Plan Swap Book in Japanese and English. My Japanese isn't
amazing, but I will keep on working hard and do my best to
improve!
Well, I upgraded to Windows XP SP2
(
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/maintain/winxpsp2.mspx
) and my computer slowed to a cawl... So I spend a few days
tweaking it and I think I have improved things some. I have tried
a lot of things, and I highly suggest http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm
[blackviper.com] for tweaking your services settings. Another way
to boost your speed is hanging your Prefetch setting, http://techrepublic.com.com/5100-6270_11-5165773.h
tml [com.com] has a great article on how to do it.
TCPOptimizer http://darkedge.levels4you.com/review.l4y?file=20
[levels4you.com] also helped speed up my collection a lot.
Another cool tip is fixing Event ID 4226 which limits your
connections in SP2, check it out at http://www.lvllord.de/?url=tools#4226patch
[lvllord.de].
And, of course get the MS TweakUI for XP at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/power
toys/xppowertoys.mspx [microsoft.com].
And although they are not freeware I actually bought and really
like Registry First Aid http://www.rosecitysoftware.com/reg1aid/
[rosecitysoftware.com] and Registry Compactor http://www.rosecitysoftware.com/RegistryCompactor/
[rosecitysoftware.com].
In other news I moved my web host from DotEasy (http://www.doteasy.com/ ) to SDF
(http://sdf.lonestar.org/
) and I am LOVING it. I have done a massive revision of the
website (the first in many years) and I am now using all CSS and
XHTML. I think it looks supercool now. Check it out at http://www.trevreport.org/ and
let me know what you think. Since I use SDF for my email (and
have for years) writing the Trev Reports are a lot easier now
too. I don't have to FTP to my web host and download then change
pages, I do it all now on the fly from a telnet window (I use
PuTTY (http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/
)). I am also working on some projects, like translating the text
for the nano text editor project (http://www.nano-editor.org/ ),
which is what I use to edit everything ever.
I have also been messing around with curses for UNIX (man curses
for info) and SDL in Windows. I wrote a game similar to
robotfindkitten (http://www.robotfindskitten.org/
) in curses and have been working on some tutorials in SDL
(
http://cone3d.gamedev.net/cgi-bin/index.pl?page=tutorials/gfxsdl/index
) using DevC++ (http://www.bloodshed.net/ ),
which is an awesome IDE. Good time computer fun!
Well, I haven't watched anything new, but I have
done a couple things. I have started an anime-related wiki called
AniKi (http://trevreport.org/aniki/wiki.pl?AniKi
). A Wiki is a website where anyone anywhere can add to, remove
from, and edit anything they like. It is a real cool concept. So
if you want to add something. Please do so! The more people that
use it the better it will be. The Anime/Manga Special Interest
Group I created (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AJETAMSIG/
) is also really taking off. Anyone is welcome to join it as
well.
So, lots of fun anime stuff happening, but I just haven't gotten
around to watching any lately. :P~
So you want to learn Japanese? Cool! How
about the weather?
Tenki wa dou desu ka? (How's the weather?) Hare desu. (It's
sunny.)
Kumoi desu . (It's cloudy.)
Ame desu. (It's rainy.)
Yuki desu. (It's snowy.)
TAIFUU DESU! (IT'S A TYPHOON!)
Well, that's about it for this time. I hope you found it
useful this time around. Drop me a line sometime. I always like
hearing from you guys. Until next month, take care!
Yours,
trv