kronicmage

How have you all been spending your Canada day?

Hey all, I barely passed the December 2022 N3 and last month, I went to Japan for the first time and spent two weeks there.

Overall, I was both disappointed and pleased with how far the N3 got me (note I'm talking purely about my skill level -- at no point did I ever show anyone in Japan my N3 certificate lol).

On the one hand, some might say that N3 is enough for anime and conversations with normal people. As someone with a 31/60 on the listening section, this is categorically not true. I never got the chance to, nor do I likely have the ability to, hold a long everyday conversation with anyone in Japan. It's not like I was surprised at my lack of skill by the time I was on the ground in Japan and talking to people, but I did expect to have been able to do so by the time I got an N3 back when I first started studying. So I am a bit sad that that expectation was off.

On the other hand, wow does real immersion make a huge, gigantic difference. When I first landed I had to ask people to repeat themselves slowly two or three times for me to get what they said, and people would often switch to English before I put together what Japanese words (that I already knew) actually corresponded to the sounds I was hearing when they were speaking Japanese earlier. But by the end of the first week, my conversation skill was enough for dining in restaurants, shopping in malls, speaking to hotel staff, and small talk with tour guides 100% in Japanese. It was incredible how comfortable I felt talking about non-trivial upgrade options or specific observation site locations, and it was also incredible how much nicer people treated me when I was speaking Japanese with them vs when my wife would talk first in English. It was absolutely 100% worth it for me to get to this level of skill, and it really made me feel like my work has finally paid off.

To conclude, if you're like me and you grinded almost nothing but Anki all the way to around N3 level, you probably have the same mix of okay vocab/grammar but extremely shitty listening comprehension. If so, I highly recommend greatly increasing the amount of listening practice you do on a daily basis. I'm still not sure what's the best way to study that, but I definitely could have used more of it before my trip. But at the same time, don't despair if you're going on a trip without that. You'll be fine -- trust your subconscious brain and enjoy the huge comprehension gains!

My first language was Racket and so naturally I gravitated to the lispy untyped functional programming style even when I was using languages like Python or Java, but when I tried Haskell for the first time my mind was absolutely blown and I was a convert ever since. What are your thoughts?

I have some downtime between jobs and I was wondering which of these two games you would all recommend if I only had time for one?

Title: Another Goose Attack Survivor - When Will The Madness End?

Just got ambushed on my way back from MC (Mathematics & Computer Building). It was like any other day, dodging geese like it's the new Matrix movie and trying to make it home safely. But today, one of those devilish creatures got the best of me.

Out of nowhere, a goose wearing a Pure Mathematics pin attacked me. Yeah, you read that right. I always knew PMATH was hardcore, but never knew it could weaponize nature. Or maybe, it's the goose trying to take up PMATH, I'm not sure. The goose-PMATH alliance is a twist I didn't see coming in my university experience.

This has clearly gotten out of hand. We're all aware that UW's geese are no joke. We've tolerated their hisses, their glares, their poops on our footpaths, but now they're engaging in guerrilla warfare, attacking students in broad daylight! How did we allow it to come this far?

To top it all off, as I lay there, defeated, my pink tie was stolen. Yes, the symbol of my status in the Math faculty, taken by a goose with a thirst for superiority. As it waddled away, tie in beak, I could see the gleam in its eye, a clear message: "We run this campus now."

I demand action, UW. Will we continue to live in fear, or will we rise up against our avian overlords? Let's rally together and establish boundaries. And remember, geese are protected by the Migratory Birds Convention Act, so no violence. Maybe some well-placed breadcrumbs leading them to Laurier...just an idea.

Stay safe out there, fellow Warriors. Remember, it's us versus them. And, as we all know, UW > U of Goose.

I love these boards :D

Hope it's not too boring for y'all, but I figured this is the best place to share. The last time I went to Disneyland was a handful of decades ago when I was about 6. I reaaaallly loved elevators at the time, so ofc I really wanted to go on the Twilight Zone ride. I wanted it so much that I made my parents take me and line up for it even though we had fast pass, since the fast pass time was too far in the future so I thought. Anyway we spent an hour in line only for me to get on the ride and absolutely hate it and throw up lol. If it wasn't for that ride I might have been an elevator technician or something

Not sure if I just missed it, but I don't recall ever seeing a subreddit for this. I absolutely adore automation games and it's great to see people discussing and recommending them!

Btw I really recommend Infinifactory (and all other games made by the same dev), they really scratch that itch in bite sized amounts for when you're too daunted by large projects like factorio and co

Final spoiler alert

I really really enjoyed the fire temple, and the whole approach to get there. It felt like an old school Zelda dungeon. Acquiring new ability, fighting a midboss, traversing tough terrain, piecing together how the minecarts and rails work together. It was an absolute blast.

I hear a lot of people just built a flying scooter and skipped most of the actual dungeon, and I think that's a bit sad. You miss a lot of good ol fashioned Zelda style content that way

I'm so glad to see this community here!!

I was a big lurker of /r/flashlight a few years back. Later, on a whim, I bought a Thrunite Catapult V6 cause of an Amazon ad. Never really went back to check people's thoughts on it though -- how is it as a midrange throw light? Is it still competitive in 2023?

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For a good time, /r/uwaterloo was the biggest University subreddit on Reddit. Recently it's been second or third, but regardless it's been a very active place to discuss university life, co-op/job searches, tough courses, etc. for all sorts of people. If you're a uwaterloo alumnus or student, stop by and make a post! If not, you're still welcome :D

I'm a CS student who just graduated two days ago. I missed /r/uwaterloo so I decided to create a community here on lemmy.ca to replace it. Excited to see where this goes! Also please let me know if you would like to volunteer to be a mod, we're just getting started and it would be nice to have some help.