Lazy Sunday afternoon

I can’t stand how quickly the weekends move! It’s like BLINK and it’s gone! It pisses me off so much I can’t enjoy myself! Saturday and Sunday are the same length as Monday and Tuesday in theory, so why does it take so bloody long to get through the week and then the weekend flies by in a blitz?

Okay, let’s review. Hmm, woke up around 7 on Saturday. Did I eat something? Can’t recall. Surfed the net a bit. Played around on my DS a bit. Tried to start Shining Force Feather but it wouldn’t work because I’m a dirty pirate. Will have to download a fix or buy a real copy. Or neither and just give up. Took a nap from 10ish to 1ish. Puttered around a bit, read the weeklies. Took another nap from 3 to 5:30. Ate an early dinner. Surfed 4chan till 2am, played Hearts and Solitaire till 4am, watched a Southern All Stars Special till 6-ish and then slept. Come to think of it I woke up around 9:30 so I underslept.

Time to hop back in bed! Time’s-a-wasting!

Dear Prudence

Dear Prudence comes out every Thursday morning at slate.com. Both the questions and her answers are very detailed, and afterwards you can jump into The Fray, as Slate calls their forums, to discuss her answers further. The annoying thing is that few of the problems are real problems. Most of them are from people who know what they should be doing and just want an advice columnist to tell them to do it, which Prudie does faithfully. E.g. “I think my husband’s son isn’t his, should I tell him?” Ma’am, you know you shouldn’t, that’s why you’re writing in instead of telling him.

The current column writer has been criticized for a pro-marriage pro-baby stance, as if that’s a bad thing, but since I’m pro those things as well I’m in her corner. I wished the column came out more often, so Slate answered our wishes by creating a live advice chat corner on Mondays. That’s just as interesting and features more questions, albeit more trivial ones.

Pluses: Detailed questions and answers, good advice, archives going back all the way to 1998, forums for more discussion

Minuses: Only comes out once a week (fixed now, but I stopped reading it), a lot of the answers are obvious, Prudie’s bad puns grate on the nerves sometimes, sometimes she’s a little too liberal for my tastes.

Ask Amy

Another agony aunt column I discovered recently. Ask Amy runs in the Chicago Tribune and probably elsewhere as well. At least I hope it does, because it currently can’t be read by users outside the USA. Boo, hiss!

There’s no really much to say about Amy’s advice. Both the questions she gets and the answers she gives are usually quite bland. Yes, her advice is good, but the issues themselves are often so mundane it’s hardly worth the trouble. E.g. “I had a piece of ham on my plate at a party and I asked to take it home. My husband thinks that was rude.” All well and good, but not really rocket science, right? It’s possible her column is aimed more at the 50s-60s crowd than at young ‘uns like us.

Pluses: Comes out every day, three or four problems daily, short and to the point, Amy’s advice is generally sound.

Minuses: Boring and mundane, no comments section (fixed recently), archive doesn’t go back very far.

Annie’s Mailbox

a.k.a. the Get Counselling column. Annie’s Mailbox is an advice column that comes out every day of the week online. I believe it’s nationally syndicated too but I haven’t bothered to check.

I’m a bit of an advice columnist/agony aunt junkie, I must confess. Most of the stuff they write applies to people with significant others and kids so it’s rarely relevant to me, which is probably why I get so much pleasure out of reading them. I’m always on the look out for new columns, and Annie’s Mailbox is scratching my itch.

Pluses: Comes out daily, at least two or three problems a day, the columnists give generally sound, non-judgmental advice, a variety of issues are covered, there’s an extensive archive for a good long binge, there’s a “Comments” button where readers can give their views on the days problems.

Minuses: Every other answer they give is “get some counselling.” It’s so repetitive. I wonder if they’re getting kickbacks from the National Association of Therapists or what. They even recommend counselling in clearly no-hope cases, just because. Also about 30% of the letters seem to be from couples in sexless marriages. My husband won’t sleep with me, my wife won’t sleep with me. Once or twice was okay but now it’s repetitive.

Still it’s not stopping me from continuing my binge. I read it all day yesterday and despite my efforts to resist I see more Annie is my near future.

A much-needed wake up call

Sometimes you get lazy, you know? You let a day slide here, another day slide there, read a few English sites, listen to a little English radio. A little bit won’t hurt, you tell yourself. You even think you’ve gotten far enough and start contemplating learning something else.

Then a Japanese person pops up like jack-in-a-box. 「今度うちで遊びに行かない？」ZOMG, brain freeze! What am I supposed to say? What am I supposed to say? Cue me sitting there mouth flapping open like a fish on the beach. Eventually I managed to stammer out a weak 「お邪魔します」and matters are laid to rest, but I have just exposed a fatal flaw in my learning process.

Not enough input yet! In fact, I’m starting to have doubts about the “Enough good input will lead to good output” process, but I don’t have a leg to stand on because I haven’t gotten that much input yet. Sure I’ve been reading a little more, but when it comes to listening, I can’t remember the last time I got out a podcast or even a movie and paid close attention. More importantly, I don’t even enough input for every day scenes. I know a lot of words you might use on a battleship like 発信準備 but what do you say when someone invites you over? I drew a blank.

So I have seen my shortcomings, and I’m going to work on them a lot more from now on. Stammering is uncool in any language!