I had originally intended to upload way more content, and keep up with my webcomic, but something pretty big has taken up a lot of my attention and time lately - I have registered for the JLPT exam in December. The JLPT, Japanese Language Proficiency Test is a test of basic Japanese ability. There are 5 levels, 1 being the best, and I'm going for level 4. This is frankly aiming a bit higher than I should, and as such, I'm scrambling to make sure I know what I need. I'm studying like I haven't had to since High-school, my various creative qualifications relying on project work rather than exams. The most intimidating thing is the Kanji - each character not only has a unique meaning, but a unique stroke order - you have to draw in each line in the right order, otherwise it just doesn't come out right, and it shouldn't make a difference but it really does. Each character can also have 2 - 5 different pronunciations that can change the meaning, and different characters can have the same pronunciation that you can only distinguish in context. I need a couple of hundred of these for this exam, I may very well die trying to get it all down. To that end, my webcomic updates will be throttled back to 1 per week for awhile, and Ill probably have to wait till after the test to finish the work I wanted to throw up here, it will be worth the wait though, I promise! Ive illustrated this struggle with this weeks webcomic which you can find here:
http://reycastillo.com/webcomic/2013/10/22/i-havent-studied-like-this-in-years
And now back to work I think.