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Tag: life
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Ohayo Gozaimasu!
Good morning!
ItsJustTomBobson’s blog with a little international lingo! Not particularly in-depth and fluent but I can provide it in very small spades!
Just don’t ask me to transcribe anything in Kanji. I cannot, for the life of me, get my head around that!
This post, I guess, is just to talk briefly about what’s become my New Year’s Resolution. As I’ve talked about before, I have such an appreciation for the country of Japan. I watch a lot of anime, Japanese wrestling and I’ve read a lot about the culture of Japan, which just fascinates me in general. Therefore, why not at least attempt to learn the Japanese language?
I’m not planning to be able to transcribe it in Kanji or be able to write in Japanese. I simply want to be able to speak the language a little and be able to have some conversations in the language. I think that’d be a really cool skill to master so I made it my New Years Resolution (earlier on in the year) to start learning the language properly.
“Hokusai’s Japanese Kanji faith, Album” by The Metropolitan Museum of Art/ CC0 1.0 I already knew certain words due to the power of anime! When you hear the words “NANI” yelled out so many times, you’re going to be able to make the connection that “nani” means “what”! These things just happens when you hear something in a different language over and over again.
However, I started to expand my dictionary a little bit more this year. I’ve tried a few things in order to understand the language and here’s my list of some of the ways I’ve tried to understand the Japanese lingo!:
- YouTube videos – About four years ago, I saved an hour long video on YouTube under the “Watch Later” category. About four years later, I actually watched that video as a starting point. The video was actually extremely informative and helpful with tips of how to learn the language. It was with the “Learn Japanese with JapanesePod101.com” channel, which actually holds a lot of similar videos like it with tops of learning the language. I’d very much recommend it.
- Duolingo – Duolingo is a free-to-use app which can give you very basic lessons and practice sessions of whatever language you’re interested in. I tried this for a couple of weeks (daily) but, after a while, you can only get so much out of hearing the same words over and over again. It’s good for consolidating and practicing a handful of words but not for understanding and conversing in the language. I stopped using it after a while and put learning the language on the backburner for a bit.
- Audiobooks – With my Spotify premium, I discovered an audiobook also from the JapanesePod101.com people which has someone reinvigorated my interesting in learning the language. They are 10-15 minute lessons which gives you some very thorough explanations and consolidation of certain phrases and words. This was certainly a lot more effective than Duolingo and I’m still listening to the audiobook now.
- Social Media – My YouTube and Instagrams feeds have been flooded with reels and shorts as these videos give brief explanations as to what certain words mean. This, on its own, doesn’t really feel like a lot. However, if you’re in the habit of mindlessly scrolling through your phone, you do come across the same words over and over and it helps stick certain words into your brain.
- Small whiteboard of words – I have a small whiteboard which I’ve updated with certain words I’ve come across or whatever I want to remember. If I’ve got a certain phrase that I want to consolidate, this has certainly been effective when I get to see the word constantly as I walk around my house. The phrase “Kore wa nan desu ka” is now stuck in my head due to this method! (NOTE: “Kore wa nan desu ka” is “what is this?” or “what is it?”)
I’m still in the early days of my “Learning Japanese” adventure but I’m hoping to stay committed to this quest and I’d like to be able to converse in the language some day.
Heck, maybe I could do a vlog while speaking in Japanese 😉
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Hello everybody!
Hope everyone is having a lovely day, where ever you are! Even if you’re not necessarily having a lovely day, there will be days ahead where that can definitely give you lovely days. I’m rooting for you all!
This will not be a regular blog post answering WordPress’ daily prompts as I usually do. In fact, there will not be any of the daily prompt blog posts as usual for the next week or so. There’s a reason for that, which I’ll get into but there’s a few things I want to get out of the way first…
To my new subscribers to this very new blog of mine, thank you very much for following and subscribing to the blog on WordPress! Your support is very much appreciated and you’ve picked a great time to be subscribed to the blog. I’m trying to post a blog post of some kind at least once a day and so far, I’ve only had one day when I wasn’t able to post anything*. Seeing people actually click onto the blog posts and read what I’ve got to say is very much an awesome morale booster!
NOTE: The reason I wasn’t able to post anything that day was because I was exhausted by a lot of travel for work! In case anyone was wondering!
As of me writing this, I’ve had 250+ views on my blog since I created it in May and about 200 likes alongside of it! It really is an awesome amount of a views in such a short time frame so for that, I thank you all again!
However, I wanted to quickly address what’s on the horizon for the blog in the next few weeks. More specifically, I wanted to discuss what would be happening for the next week or so as the content will be completely different.
From the 23rd of June to the 29th of June, I will NOT be answering any of WordPress’ daily prompts. Instead, I plan to have 7 different blog posts instead covering a whole bunch of completely different topics. From Fleetwood Mac to Chocolate Eclairs, I’ve written a whole bunch of blog posts I’m planning to post during that week instead of the daily prompts.
The reason for this is that I simply won’t be around and available to answer those daily prompts. However, I still wanted to get blog posts out for the week that I’m away so the subscribers and any new viewers have new content to enjoy!
From the 30th of June (or possibly the 1st of July), the daily prompt blog posts will resume along with other planned blog posts of mine!
Until we meet again, take care everybody! Tom Bobson out!
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I guess it’s finally time for me to talk about my love life on this blog! There isn’t much to speak of when it comes to romance in my life but I do remember my first crush very well. She’s not somebody I think about lot nowadays but you’ll always remember the first time you get a crush. I’m no exception!
Her name was Victoria and she was my first crush while I was in school. I just had such the hots for her and unfortunately for me, I never exactly hid it well! As soon as I let it slip to one person that I liked her, most of the school pretty much knew from that point on! Gossip spread like wildfire at our school!
TOP TIP: Do not tell a friend in school that you have a crush on someone, boys and girls! If you want it to be a secret, keep it until yourself until you’re ready to act! Otherwise, that secret won’t stay a secret for long!
In hindsight, I really wish I didn’t say a word about it because it made things completely murky between the two of us. We got on OK up until that point but as soon as she was privy to this school gossip, she pretty much distanced herself from me. It was somewhat of a bummer that I had feelings for a girl, who never reciprocated them. However, it was more of a bummer that we rarely spoke after that… all over a stupid crush.
Don’t get me wrong… she wasn’t like a terrible person or anything like that (at least, I don’t thinks she was). I also understand why she distanced herself from me. However, our interactions just became super awkward so we just rarely spoke afterwards and I had quickly gotten over my crush. Think of it as two ships passing in the night.
The funny thing is though is that I still get updates about her on Facebook! I don’t have her as a Facebook friend (and I’m about 90% certain she’d just reject it if I sent the request now!) but I’m still friends on Facebook with someone who is extremely close to her. They’d post photos of her and she still looks very similar to how I remembered her in school.
She still had straight, long blonde hair and had a perky smile that I’d fallen for when I was a kid. She appears to be living a good life and I think she may actually be engaged right now. I’m kinda speculating from the top of my head but I don’t see anything negative posted about her or anything like that. She seems to be doing OK!
It’s just strange thinking about what could have been with our first crushes. Think about your own first crush. Would you be living with a different Mr. or Mrs. Right today or would you be living with someone whose lives took an unfortunate turn for the worst? Do you still hear anything about your first crush and what happened to them? Heck… did you MARRY your first crush?
All I’ll say is that Victoria was definitely somebody that I remember and it was honestly really nice to get those butterflies in my stomach for the first time. Feeling any kind of love is a great feeling of anxiety and excitement in your life that we really should strive for. So here’s to you Victoria… thank you for being my first crush!
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Daily writing promptWhat are the most important things needed to live a good life?
I think the most important thing needed to live a good life is just to love yourself. I think things like working hard are important parts of living a good life but all of that work will be for nothing if you’re not kind to yourself. Don’t just work for the sake of working. Acknowledge when you’ve put in the grind by treating yourself to a nice time.
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I do not remember life without the internet. I remember life before I started USING the internet myself but not a time where the internet wasn’t readily available.
According to a quick Wikipedia search, the WorldWideWeb was actually introduced in 1990 before I was even born. Was it readily available to everybody? No. From what I understand, web browsers were initially something you had to pay to use every time you used it. It was a far-cry from waltzing into McDonalds, for example, and being able to use their free WiFi.
Therefore, it’s hard for me to remember a time where the internet wasn’t an essential part of my life. Don’t get me wrong. When I was a wee lad, I spent a lot more time playing football with my mates and socialising outside before I used the internet. However, once those mates started getting XBOX 360s and playing games online, my dynamic with internet pretty much changed.
Throughout college, university and even at my job I’ve got at the moment, internet was pretty much an essential part in all of that throughout my life. Heck, a lot of my free time is spent using the internet to either stream music, television or just play on my PlayStation 5 video game console.
It’s kind of bonkers thinking about how much time I spend on the internet. On the surface, it makes it seem that I can’t live my life without the internet. Heck, I need the internet to do my job so it is something I can’t pay the bills without!
However, that’s where I think it’s important to make the time to take yourself away from the screen. In the last few years, I’ve dedicated a lot more time to reading through books rather than scrolling through social media. I’ve dedicated more time going out for walks through nature rather than going for walks through the cities in Grand Theft Auto!
Even in the snow, I make the effort to walk more in the cold weather rather than restrain myself to my house. Click on this link for my recent love letter to walking in the snow!
It’s very interesting to think about a life without computers, technology and having to use the internet for just about every aspect of your life. It’s very interesting to think about the future, where physical copies of things such as newspapers and DVDs will become a thing of the past. It sort of sucks to think about the lack of physicality when consuming media nowadays.
I think it’s when we think about what life used to be like without the internet where we truly gain more appreciation for how simple life used to be. Maybe by taking the time to consider how we used to do things in the past, we’ll start to find simpler solutions to problems that the internet itself seemingly complicates in the present.
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What I like about life in general is that there’s an infinite amount of learning we can all do for the rest of our lives. Even if we think we have all the answers and we “have it all”, there will always be different perspectives and different ways to look at life that make you question yourself and whether you’re satisfied with what you have.
Someone who would “have it all” would be someone that I’d consider to have every aspect of their life going well for them. Whether it’s having the most money, the most skill, the best people skills or the best work-life balance, these people have everything going for them in life… at least on the surface.
It’s easy to look at an successful celebrity like Scarlett Johansson for example, as someone who “has it all” in life. She’s one of the most successful actresses in box office history, she’s an extremely attractive woman who shows off a tremendous fashion sense, she’s very charismatic and likeable, she has her own skincare company and appears to be happily married. On the surface, you could look at Scarlett and think “this girl has it all”. However, that’s on the surface…
The truth is, we don’t know. Only Scarlett herself, or any famous figure held in high regard, could tell you if THEY thought that they had it all. Is there something that these celebrities want to do or want out of life that we don’t see?
That’s why I think such a concept, where you can have it all in life, is unattainable. It’s a relative concept where only YOU can be the judge of what you want in life but your view on the world will change over time. You’ll meet new people, gain new experiences and create new perspectives on life for yourself. Therefore, it’s impossible to have it all in life due to our own habits of changing goal posts for ourselves.
However, that’s the beauty of life…
Yes, you can’t get everything you want in life. You could become the most successful basketball player in the world but you may still have issues with things like your mental health. You could have the most loving wife and children that you could ask for but feel unsatisfied at work and want to try something different. However, this sort of imperfection in our lives can force us to want to improve over time.
Not having it all encourages us to keep pushing so we can get as much out of life as possible. You can’t have it all, but you can certainly get a lot out of life. There’s no set way to do it, other than taking the steps to want to learn something new each day. The more you learn, the more you’ll want to try as a means to better yourself.
If you find yourself right now jealous of somebody that you think “has it all” in life, just consider this. You don’t know just how perfect their life is, but you know how perfect you want your life to be. Focus on that. Focus on improving yourself day after day after day. The more time you spend working towards new goals, the less time you’ll spend fixated on perfection.
You can’t be perfect but you can certainly be the very best version of yourself.
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This is probably the hardest “daily prompt” I’ve answered this week. I don’t have a great political, philosophical or heart-warming answer in response to this prompt. The people that come to mind, like my family and friends, are people I’ll always talk to on a regular basis. You really should with people like that, if you’ve got people who genuinely love you in life.
In terms of new people I want to talk to and engage with on a regular basis, the people I’d like to talk to soon… is you.
“Iphone Phone” by Alejandro Escamilla/ CC0 1.0 With this new personal blog I’ve wanted to write, I’ve been having a really hard time finding a direction for where I want to take this platform. I’ve played with a whole bunch of ideas but ultimately, I just want to write and create interesting conversations with those on WordPress and others who stumble across this blog.
To answer the question, I want to talk to you guys soon and I’ve loved being able to answer these daily prompts to start such conversations. I want to keep it up and regular post on this blog, even if it’s just to answer the daily prompt. I want to keep doing it and hopefully create a community where followers and others, who follow this blog, will be able to engage in healthy conversations on the internet.
In an age where social media is flooded with a cesspool of negativity and disgusting behaviour, we should at least try to create a healthy place to communicate online. Why not use our blogs to show the internet a better way?
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I’m not someone who holds “having a legacy” to a high regard. Perhaps if I already had myself children, a wife and many bags of money to leave behind, what legacy I pass down to the next generation would probably be far more important to me.
However, I’ve never wanted the pressure of a building a legacy for myself and my family. I don’t see the value of being worked up about legacy if I’m not happy myself. You should be living life for yourself, not for society’s general expectation to start a family and build a better life for the next generation. How could you possibly do that if you’re not enjoying life yourself?
Make no mistake – I am happy myself at the moment. I’m living life on my own terms and perhaps that is the legacy I want to leave behind – inspiring others to live their lives on their own terms.
If my actions and attitude towards life inspires others to do the same when I’m gone, that will be good enough legacy for me. 🙂