Time To Get Serious
23 April 2013
Ah, time flies when you're... not really doing much in particular, actually. I can't really believe that it's been nearly a year since I last updated! That's maybe because not much really happened in the latter half of 2012; at least nothing worth writing about. Although, 2013 seems to be shaping up to be quite an interesting year so far. I must admit, there were times these last few months when I considered discontinuing this blog. It seemed kind of cruel to leave it in a state of limbo so I thought about calling it a day on Kuroneko Doumei. I mean, even the word 'blog' seems like such an old-fashioned word now. These days it's all about status updates on Facebook and tweets on Twitter. In fact, the very idea of having to write a properly articulated sentence or paragraph after all this time scares the bejesus out of me. But I've come up with a plan that will both encourage me to revive and maintain this blog and hopefully contribute to my self-improvement over the coming months.
The idea is quite simple. As I'm hoping to get a job as an assistant language teacher of English in Japan (will probably elaborate on this matter in a later post) I thought it would be best if I were to brush up on my, well, English. Since graduating from university last June, I have had very little need to actually use any of the writing skills that I picked up during the four years of my degree. As such, I think my ability to use the language in an academic context has suffered. I doubt very much that I would be able to write a very good essay (or even blog post for that matter) any more. Therefore, I need to get back into the habit of writing again. Not only will this help me to revive my flagging language skills, it will also ensure that I regularly keep this blog up-to-date. At least that's the plan... In the meantime, here's a picture from my trip to Japan - the subject of my next post.
Posted byHocchan at 10:27 am 0 comments
Labels: Administration, Daily Life
Blog Renewal Project 2012: Phase 2 Complete!
01 April 2012
I did a little bit more housekeeping on the blog today and I think I've managed to finish doing everything I needed to do. I've added a few more links to the sidebar and adjusted the number of posts that appear on the homepage. I don't think I've got anything else left to do now so I should be able to start making proper updates from tomorrow. That is if I haven't gotten absolutely sick of typing by then. You see, I'm currently in the middle of writing the dissertation for my Bachelor's degree in Modern World History. I've managed to make a start today but I've still got a lot of research and several thousand words to complete before the submission date of 19th April. I'll probably be stuck in the library for a lot of the time during these next couple of weeks. Whether I'll be able to drum up enough energy or enthusiasm to update this blog remains to be seen but I'll try my best.
Posted byHocchan at 5:43 pm 0 comments
Labels: Administration, Daily Life
Blog Renewal Project 2012: Phase 1 Complete!
31 March 2012
Phew! It took me about 4 hours to go through all the old posts and tidy them up but it's finally done. It was nice going back to all the old entries and giving them a quick read through. I'd forgotten a lot of things that had happened in the last few years so I'm glad that I wrote them down. I regret not posting more regularly these last two years, especially during the time I was in Japan. It would have been nice to have put my thoughts and feelings at the time into words. I'll have to remember not to make that mistake again I guess.
I'm hoping that I'll be able to get my old enthusiasm for blogging back. I've moved on a bit since my Morning Musume days; I'm now an AKB48 fan. I'll probably start writing entries related to them to try and give myself a reason to keep posting. Of course, some things never change. I'm still a massive Horie Yui fan after all these years. I recently bought her latest album 秘密 (Himitsu) and it was nice to hear her voice again. I'm looking forward to seeing the new AKB0048 anime that's airing soon. Not only is about AKB48, it also has Horie Yui voicing one of the characters. It's like a massive dream come true!Posted byHocchan at 8:17 pm 0 comments
Labels: Administration
Blog Renewal Project 2012!
All right, I'm not sure how long this attempt is going to last but I'm going to have another go at reviving this blog. It seems like such a shame to leave Kuroneko Doumei on an indefinite hiatus, especially after I moved it to Wordpress and gave the theme a renovation. Before I get started on writing new content I'm going to have to do a little bit of housekeeping on the older posts. I've been checking back on some of the ones from 2005/06 and it seems as though the Flickr picture links are no longer working so I'm going to have to remove them all and tidy up the code. It's probably going to take me a little while to go through all of them so I might not be able to create a new post for a little while.
Edit: Oh, and this isn't an April Fools joke despite the fact that it's 1st April.Posted byHocchan at 5:15 pm 0 comments
Labels: Administration
