Bookmark Five

Hello. It's been a while since we last spoke. Anything of note happen in the interim that we should be discussing? Geopolitically, like?

Bookmark Four

Year Four. Who’d a thunk it etc etc. Anyway, it’s Contrarily Early Annual Reading Round-Up Time!

Travels

Look! A cake! Coconut oil instead of butter (there's a shortage, you know), in case you were wondering what made this one different.

Bookmark Three

Year Three in the blogosphere and, while no one yet suspects I am a dog, this was the year the realities of juggling work, study, and family really started to bite. Woof.

iCake

You can imagine me reading this post whilst wearing a black polo neck if you like, or making some more topical references about an executive's sexual orientation, or hoping fanboys get all excited about how it's essentially the same thing as the last one I made but there's half a teaspoon more cinnamon this time. Look, it's an apple cake and I'm a busy man and you need to start pulling your weight around here with the gags and stuff. I can't do it all for you, y'know?

Inversions – Pre-Match Warm-Up

The football theme seems timely, if depressing for those of you with Iberian, Anglo-Saxon, or Japanese connections. Personally I’m being forced to work my way further and further down my list of tenuous national connections in search of a team left in the competition to support. On which note, allez les Bleus!

This should also act as a warning to anyone expecting this to be a tightly focused or well-organised affair; digressions will be both tolerated and positively encouraged. That said, I should probably get on providing structure, so this here post will act as an index for things, and I’ll update it as we progress. At present the team-sheet looks like this –

Two Dudes in an Attic
     - Half Time
     - Full Time

The Little Red Reviewer
     - Half Time

Feet for Brains
     - Half Time

And for the sake of convenience, here are my Half Time and Full Time reports as well.

Lazy Trailer

HEY HEY HEY! HERE’S A THING THAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN!

In the last week of June my Iain M. Banks reread reaches its undoubted highpoint (it’s all relative) when I get round to Inversions. I’m not excited because of the book itself – well, OK, I am a little bit – but because I have somehow convinced the good people at both Two Dudes in an Attic and the Little Red Reviewer to join a readalong. Why such talented and attractive people would want to slum it with the likes of me is frankly a mystery, but they’ve already agreed and I have the emails to prove it. Suckers.

So if anyone else fancies joining us in this shoddily organized, short-notice, last-minute, ‘let’s do the show right here!’ affair then feel free to grab yourself a copy of the book and join in the fun. You’ll get to read thoughtful, intelligent comment from proper reviewers about a challenging and well-written book, and then come back here for some cock gags. Don’t say I never do anything for you.

Excuses Excuses

So I’ve been quite slack at responding to comments here of late. Apologies. I’ve been incredibly busy recently and this has come as a bit of a surprise. Normally this time of year is relatively relaxed, what with the end of term and all. This year though I’ve had a perfect storm of visiting relatives, academic deadlines, and increased training responsibilities that’s made it pretty difficult to carve out blogging time.

So this is a slightly regretful announcement that there’ll be reduced operations here for the next few weeks. I enjoy this too much to give it up, but it’s a means to an end and in the short term I need to prioritize those ends a bit more judiciously. I’ll probably slap up a couple of book posts, as I need to read to stay sane and reading and writing about it have become inextricably linked in the last couple of years, but there’s unlikely to be anything more substantive until mid-April(ish). I need to replenish and restock and there are only so many ways I can write (or desperately try to avoid writing) “Abe’s a loon,” before repetitious tedium really kicks in.

In the meantime though I’m trying to get my retaliation in first with the inevitable newbie questions about Japanese use in class. If this seems relevant to you and you fancy a trip over to my other joint to let me know when I’m going wrong, it’d be much appreciated –

The Objectification of English and L1 Use in the Japanese Classroom

Enjoy your spring break, those of you who get one.

Happy New Year

Yeah, I got nothing else.

Subtle Hint

About as subtle as Google+ (Available options: 'sign up now', or 'learn more'. Conspicious by its absence: 'do fuck off'), for which apologies, but at least I'm not depriving you of the unmitigated torrent of wisdom and human compassion that is the youtube comments section.

Meanwhile, in my other life as a mild-mannered linguistics student (I wear glasses don't you know. As alter ego disguises go it's utterly foolproof) I've written a couple of longer posts, trying to thrash out some ideas regarding Teacher Talk in the ELT classroom.

This may or (more likely) may not be your thing, but if any of you fancy having a look and offering suggestions or criticism (or even abuse as long as it's funny) I'd be much obliged -

Efficiency and Redundancy in the L2 Classroom

Part One

Part Two

S.

J.J. Abrams and Doug Dorst, 2013

(November 2013)

I know I’ve riffed on the whole ‘experimental books that are really just kids’ books with bigger words’ angle only recently, but I’m afraid it’s something I must revisit here. For all the comparisons being made between S., House of Leaves, and Pale Fire, I’m afraid it’s most obvious literary antecedent is The Jolly Postman. I fucking loved that book.

Experience

I’ve never really been a listy person. You know what I mean by listy people. At least I hope you do; if you think I’m talking about people who always walk about with their bodies a good few degrees out of the perpendicular then perhaps we should start again.

Bookmark Two

And so, somewhat improbably, we come to the second annual retrospective of the This Is How She Fight Start Blog About Everything I Read Project, more casually referred to as the TIHSFSBAEIRP, which has a much nicer ring to it I feel. You may, if you wish, view this as nothing more than a contrarily early forerunner of the tide of annual roundup posts heading our way in a month or so.

Two

 

How did that happen?

Credit where it's due.

A Tale for the Time Being

Ruth Ozeki, 2013

(October 2013)

This isn’t really one book. This is two books, one interleaved with the other. And while one of these books is really very, very good, the other isn’t. The other’s quite bad, actually.

Little Pause

See what I did there?

They say it’s better to travel than to arrive. Whoever ‘they’ were obviously never attempted a 16 hour intercontinental flight with children under the age of three. Doing it with just the one was bad enough, so I can’t say I’m exactly cock-a-hoop about the prospect of trying it with two. At least last time all he did was eat and sleep and cry, and one of the first two of those usually sorted out the third. This time he can actually walk, and that doesn’t bode well.

Advertorial

Despite this blog being relatively Japan-light over the past few months, I still get far more hits from people I assume are here for the Japan stuff than the books, or the cakes, or the vague reminiscences and semi-amusing anecdotage. That’s not a complaint at all, but it does mean that I think this recent post by regular commenter Pep over at Two Dudes in an Attic might be of interest to what few of you pass for my readership, and I recommend having a look –

3.11: Disaster and Change in Japan

Spinning Wheels

There’s a fine line between being in a groove and being in a rut. That’s a quote I’ve used before but it’s a good one so I’m recycling it here without any shame whatsoever. I am slightly more ashamed that I seem to have wobbled out of the former and into the latter, and even more embarrassed to be blogging about blogging, because these types of post normally bore me to tears. I promise I’ll keep this short.

  

Resolution

I feel I should at least try to do some sort of Year End Post. Mark the passing of another wall calendar in some sort of appropriately retrospective manner. I promised there wouldn’t be any mawkish retrospective posts, though, so I’ve made a pretty sturdy rod for my own back there.

What’s left? As others have noted, the posts that get the hit-counter whirring are the ones ragging on some sort of deficient aspect of Japan or the Japanese, so let’s talk about the election!

Bookmark

At the start of this little book reading exercise I said I’d keep it up for a ‘year, or however long.’ Well, it’s been a year. No, really it has. The first birthday post for this blog passed by a little quickly (distractions, y’know), so I figure I’m allowed one slightly self-indulgent ‘retrospective’ post. Look at it like this: at least it means you won’t have to wade through any of this crap come the end of December.