Three Shades of Pink Order

A good while ago (beginning of December), I placed an order via FromJapan. I only realized it when I received all three items, but they are all pink. I guess I'm posting this just in time for Valentine's Day (one day earlier actually).

• Shipped to me on: December 11th 2017
• Received on: February 6th 2018

Sukapan and roomwear set were bought on Fril, fluffy hoodie on Mbok.
Although I expected a better fit for the roomwear, I am really satisfied with this order.

Item #1: Liz Lisa Pink Sukapan

I already had my eyes on this sukapan for a couple of months before but didn't dare to buy it. I was first hesitating because it was high-waisted, and until recently, I always believed high-waisted skirts looked bad on me, especially since you usually need to tuck in the shirt (and I also thought tucked-in shirts didn't look good on me). But when I tried on my Bobon21 check sukapan and found out high-waisted didn't look as atrocious as I thought on me, I finally settled on ordering this sukapan.

The sukapan's details are so eye-pleasing; clearly one of the prettiest from Liz Lisa I've ever seen. I love the color, the overall print, and the subtle gingham pattern.

Three layers: shorts, thin underskirt (?) with frills, and actual skirt

.....

I think the fit is lovely. It falls beautifully since the material is really light; doesn't weigh down the figure at all, such as the Liz Lisa brown lace sukapan. It probably helps that the skirt is high-waisted though.


Item #2: Yumetenbo/Dreamv Roomwear

.....

While browsing the seller's items from whom I had bought the Liz Lisa sukapan, I found she also had this lounge set for sale. I had been looking for a long time for a short-sleeves pink hoodie with polka-dots (roomwear or not) and when I saw it, I found it adorable. What's more, if you buy two items, if it's sold by the same seller, FromJapan only charges you one plan fee (1x 300 yen).

It's a really cute set, with the tag still on. The seller had stated on the product's page that the brand was Yumetenbo. I have no idea what does the Yumetenbo tag look like, but I am not convinced the set to be from this brand. Although I don't really mind since it still looks nice, the zipper is of two different colors...?

The hoodie doesn't look bad, but the bottom of it is a little loose, so I asked my mom to sew in an elastic. As for the shorts, they are high-waisted and look awkward on me. I don't like them but am not sure what to do with them for now.

Irrelevant info, but you can see on the picture a red mark on my right thigh. It's been there for three weeks... been told it's because my skin is dry... I really hope it will have completely disappeared by spring/summer.

Item #3: MA*RS pink cat-ear hoodie

This was the most unexpected purchase out of the three items because I never thought I would find it on Mbok/the auctions. I've often seen it on Tumblr and Pinterest (agejo snaps, magazines), and always wanted to buy it. However, since most were already sold out on Fril or Mercari, or too expensive for me, I was more or less actively looking for it online.

I really hesitated before ultimately placing a bid, because the main picture did not make the hoodie look good at all... The fur looked damaged and of a greenish color (dirt). But there were two other pictures on which the hoodie looked cleaner and nicer... The price being decent, I figured out it was worth the risk, so I placed a bid via my proxy service and in the end, won the auction (it seems the seller ended the auction shortly after I placed my bid, thus making me the only bidder, but I can't confirm.)

My expectations towards the product were pretty low because of the price and the pictures' quality. Surprisingly, I was amazed to discover the hoodie to be near brand new. I haven't noticed any dirt or damage.

The hoodie, however, does miss one bow, which may be the reason why the price was/seemed lower.

The fabric part feels thinner than I expected, but I'm not disappointed at all. It's actually better since it is easier to arrange and I like folding it on the inside to make the hoodie's length shorter.

.....

I'm really satisfied with how the hoodie looks on me. I only have good things to say about it: it's not too baggy, the sleeves are just long enough, it looks and feels comfortable, and finally, it keeps you very warm. It has become my favorite hoodie, but I don't dare wearing it for fear of staining it.

The seller also sent me this note (and this strawberry scented gauze pad which gave a nice smell to the hoodie), shame I can't read/understand Japanese.

Happy Valentine's Day.

Anki (& spaced repetition) - Review #2

A little over one year ago, I've been trying to expand my vocabulary in Chinese through spaced repetition powered by a program called Anki. If you don't know what Anki is and would like to know why I started using it, please go to Anki (& spaced repetition) - Review #1, which is a review written back in 2017. Otherwise, just keep on reading -- if you want!

N.B — Since I've only practiced on AnkiDroid and used AnkiWeb to add the words, what I say in this review only concerns these two. I haven't used the computer version of Anki since my first review.

Since I've been using Anki, my use of the program and my learning have not always been constant. For the moment, I am trying to practice daily to avoid accumulating words, but until a couple of months ago, I often practiced at irregular times, spacing weeks between reviews. Nonetheless, I suppose I've had substantial experience in my little over than one year using Anki, which prompts me to write this second review.

Here are my main observations about spaced repetition and using the program:

Mostly memorization

I kind of expected it since it's called "spaced repetition", but still want to point out that it's been mainly "learning by heart" with Anki. Not that I personally have an issue with it; I just often see memorization being demonized as a learning method, but it becomes inevitable at one point to resort to memorization when learning Chinese.

Plus it always depends on how you build your flashcards; it doesn't have to be the mere memorization of words only; for simple words such as "balloon", I usually only put the word in Chinese characters (front), and then the word's pinyin and its meaning (back). But for verbs, adverbs, adjectives (i.e. more complex words), I usually accompany the meaning with useful examples (sentences) in which the word can be used. This definitely takes more time making and reviewing the card, but I do believe it's worth it.

For example:

(sentences credit goes to either Pleco or LINE)

Note about my learning method: I'm aware that only plastering the Chinese word and then guessing its meaning in English does not provide the most holistic learning experience. While I know I should also guess the Chinese word from its English word, I prefer not to since I much prefer reading than speaking (and have in fact done much more reading than speaking). I'm also gradually trying to write more often in Chinese using the words I'm learning, which can palliate for my "one-sided" study.

Anki does not motivate you to practice more

-- at least for me (but I have a tendency to procrastinate)

In my first review of Anki, I say:

« ... has spaced repetition (using Anki) been effective so far? Yes. I really do remember words better, because I practice them every day or every other day, especially since I'm not apprehending and avoiding my study session anymore. »

I'm not sure why I wrote that, particularly that last line, but that's complete rubbish.

You need fricking discipline (or be incredibly motivated) to practice the most often you can (I guess every day would be the ideal) and keep it constant. Well, at least I do. In fact, no one's here to force you pressing the app icon to practice. I've often (and clearly still will in the future) put off studying to another day, and then another, to finally accumulate an alarming amount of words... then I'd keep avoiding Anki, thinking about all the words I'd have to catch up on for not using the app for so long.

However, what thrilled me was that when I'd finally decide to practice after a long hiatus, I'd realized I could still remember most of the words and their sentences. And after a day or two, I could master them again, as if not using the app for a while had not had significant consequences on my progress. I don't know if that's the spaced repetition effect, but that's some quality memorization here (!)

In sum: it does work!

I'm not trying to fool anyone with that cliché subheader, but I've truly been able to generate learning from studying with Anki. In addition to learning new words, I can (finally!) retain them better, as though they've set for good into my long-term memory. There are many words for which weeks and even months pass before I see them again. Still, I remember their meaning and the phrases in which they are used. I have definitely noticed an improvement in terms of characters recognization and comprehension when reading Chinese, and I've even managed to throw in some words during WeChat convos.

Far from claiming that spaced repetition is the panacea for memorizing and/or cramming, I can guarantee it is a much more effective learning method than having to review multiple vocabulary sheets (at least for me in my situation). Not only my former method was highly unmotivating, but I was never even able to keep up with it. I actually wish I had known about Anki five years ago, which would have allowed me to progress and perform better in my Chinese courses.

Finally, there are these really (I'd say elaborated) stats and graphs giving you an overall portrait of your study, but to be honest, I'm not enough of a geek to totally understand and make use of them..

Reflections on my first review

In my first review on Anki, I talked about a few things that bugged me or left me unsure. I decided to mention them here and comment/reply to them as an attempt to clarify things up.

Max of words I can practice each day
My max was set to 20 and oddly, I could only practice the same 20 words even though I had like 60 words in my deck. I had re-set the number to 100 in the deck settings (and then reduced it to 50 later haha), which I had believed would improve the situation.
It's strange and I can't provide a clear explanation, but the problem seems to have resolved by itself... I mean, I've looked through my deck that now contains hundreds of words, and I can say I've reviewed each one of them at one point.

Implying that I can't learn on AnkiWeb or AnkiDroid while offline
I was complaining I couldn't study offline except when using the computer version, but it's as well perfectly feasible to practice on AnkiDroid and be offline. I... don't know why I originally said that... 🙈

The computer version of Anki doesn't synchronize with AnkiDroid or AnkiWeb

I made quite a fuss about this since I initially really enjoyed the computer version of Anki and how it allowed me to customize and manage my cards apparently "better". Well, I eventually quickly got used to utilizing AnkiWeb and AnkiDroid. Both AnkiWeb and AnkiDroid can synchronize, which is really practical. I usually add new words on the Web version, and then practice on my phone.
And you can still manage your cards and customize them in AnkiWeb and AnkiDroid (see pictures below), although I don't know enough about the three versions' features to confidently tell you what you can and cannot do depending on which version you use. But considering that I no longer use the computer version, this problem has pretty much fallen into oblivion.

.....

Quite rudimentary, but does all it needs to do (+ sorry for that horrendous disproportionated arrangement.)

Anki (& spaced repetition) - Review #1

ATTENTION: The following article has been written/last been updated on March 2nd 2017. I kid you not:

The reason why I actually decided to keep it as a draft stems from the fact that I wanted to give a solid account of my experience using Anki. Using the program for (only) a couple of weeks seemed not enough for me to evaluate whether Anki and spaced repetition had truly helped me learn and master vocabulary words in Chinese.

Well, seeing we're February 3rd 2018 today, and that I'm still using the program as of now, it seems (more) reasonable to talk about my personal experience I've had with it for a little more than one year (according to this review, I started using Anki near the end of December 2016-beginning of January 2017, but really, I don't remember lmao).

Yet now that I'm struggling to find a way to integrate my current review onto this almost one-year-old review, I kind of regret not publishing this review last year. I could have always added a mention stating I would make another review a year later or so...

Anyway, I finally came up to the conclusion that it would be best to publish this one-year-ago review now, and then write a separate article for my current review.

As a reader, this leaves you with two choices:

1. If you want to read the most recent review of Anki (February 2018), go to Anki (& spaced repetition) - Review #2.
2. If you want to read an "old" review of Anki written around March 2017, keep reading.

If you don't know what Anki is but are really interested in using it, my advice is to choose option 2 first because I'm introducing and giving some basic info on the program (which I don't really do in option 1).

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I have been looking for a while for a software that would help me learn and practice words in Chinese in a more efficient manner.

My lack of vocabulary is obvious when I'm reading articles in Chinese and Weibo. There are also words I still can't get my brain to grasp even though I've known them for more than one year. For example, I always get mixed up between 确实 (true, indeed), 确定 (to decide, fix(ed)) and 正确 (correct). It's annoying because I'm confused each time I stumble across them or have to say something but not sure which word to use. Even after looking up for their definition every time I see them, I still can't learn them.

I don't know how people study vocabulary when learning a language, but for me, I just gathered all the words of each lesson I had in a Word document. This means I have more than 60 documents to go through when studying vocabulary. Sadly I ended up rarely opening them because I found it really depressing and boring to look into all of these documents every day or so.
I also gathered all of these words in just one document, but I was still not motivated at all to study the -quite long- list of words I had created.

I hoped there existed some sort of software that could somehow keep track of my progress and adjust itself to it. I learned about spaced repetition recently when reading this article. I got the gist of the idea and I think it's interesting and would help me overcome my current difficulties when trying to study vocabulary words.

Anki

According to the author of the article, Anki is the best spaced repetition software (there is also an article more about it here.) Basically, it's a flashcard program that has spaced repetition. There is more info on their FAQ page here.
So I decided to give it a try and created my first deck of Chinese words near the end of December.

There are three versions: Anki the software, Anki the web version, and Anki the app (AnkiMobile for iOS, AnkiDroid for.. Android). I will specify which one I'm talking about if it needs to be so as to avoid confusion.

I still don't know much about Anki. I'm just giving here my two cents as a normal user who has been using the program for some weeks now to make basic flash cards. Also, I'm really not computer savvy.

What's great

Anki is already amazing for being free and for having spaced repetition, but here are some other characteristics that pleasantly surprised me while using it.

What I'll point out is probably not unique to Anki, but I still found it relevant to mention because that's what makes me enjoy using the program itself (i.e. these things are not mentioned for comparison purposes with other spaced repetition flashcard programs.)

♢ Customizing your cards

• Adding different "levels" to your card: I like (and need) to put more than one line of information on my card, so I liked being able to add different levels for different types of information.

Example of Anki software: front and back of the card

(Back card)

Line 1: 正确

Line 2: zhèngquè

Line 3: correct; right

Line 4: 你完全正确！

• Adding media to your cards (front or back): I've only used this option to add pictures for one of my decks (unrelated to Chinese vocabulary), but it's really cool. I always thought only words could be added on a flash card, so it was great to see it was in reality more flexible.

• Other things: can change font size, color, style, etc. of the text on your card, tells you if you've already added this card content (e.g. a word) by coloring the background in red when you type in your word, no adds.

♢ Importing cards to your phone

There's an app for Android and iOS that allows you to import your cards on your phone (you'll need an account on AnkiWeb) by exporting them from the software.

The nice thing about that is your cards on your computer are also accessible on your phone. This is essential for me since I am a lot on my phone. But it's not that amazing... just continue reading.

Problem

While using Anki, I've had one issue in particular. I don't know if it's because I haven't found the solution or haven't thought of a genius idea yet to dodge this, but nonetheless, it's disappointing because I feel it affects my learning :

Anki software can only be exported (the card decks).
Only AnkiWeb and Anki app can be synchronized together.

This has an impact on two things :

1. FLEXIBILITY TO PRACTICE BOTH ON THE COMPUTER AND MY PHONE
Since Anki software cannot be synchronized, if I study a deck of cards on the app, the learning progress I made won't be saved as well in Anki software (but will be in AnkiWeb).
This also means that if I practice using Anki software, the progress I make won't be saved as well in the app (nor AnkiWeb).
So if I want to keep my learning progress going forward, I have to keep learning with either AnkiWeb or AnkiDroid.
Problem: I really like practicing on Anki software. I like that it doesn't need an internet connection and how convenient the program is if I need to go through my cards. But if practicing on Anki software means the progress I'll make there won't follow as well on my phone (which I use a lot), then it becomes sadly useless to use Anki software...

2. MANAGING, MODIFYING AND ADDING CARDS (my main concern)

I really like using the Browse option in Anki software (see screenshot below). It allows me to go through my different decks, see all of the cards in one deck, easily edit the cards or add new ones.

You can, as indicated, export a deck of cards from Anki software to the app. The imported deck in the app then becomes synchronized with your account on AnkiWeb.

This means that working on your deck of cards in Anki software is not optimal anymore because it can't be synchronized with the app or the web version -- but needs to be exported each time.

Thing is, it's the Anki software that works the best for creating and managing cards because of its features. In fact, it is written on the About page of AnkiWeb:

While it is possible to create basic text-only cards and review them using only AnkiWeb, to download shared decks, take advantage of multimedia features and so on, you will need to use the free computer version as well.

So you do lose a number of options (and miss out on the Browsing window) by using AnkiWeb instead of Anki software. But again, if you want your study changes to also take place on your phone, it's best to use AnkiWeb to manage your decks in order to avoid exporting each time.

I did consider exporting the same deck to AnkiDroid each time I would edit it in Anki software, but would exporting for each new modification the "new" deck, thus replacing the one I've been studying with for (let's say 3 weeks) affect the spaced repetition system? Would the progress I did in the deck go back to zero as if it was a brand new deck I had just imported? I prefer not to try it.

I'm not sure if it's just me who has not understood something (that would actually be a relief to see I was actually wrong on this issue). But I wished there was some way to synchronize Anki software with Anki app, and still keep the progress because this progress influences the spaced repetition system (frequency to which the cards appear)...
I wouldn't mind either if AnkiWeb is more user-friendly and would offer the same options as on Anki software. I would probably enjoy more using AnkiWeb then.

For now... I will edit all of my decks on my phone or AnkiWeb since I use Anki most of the time on my phone. Unfortunately, now that I exported my decks from Anki software, I feel the software version is not of use to me anymore.

Overall

I feel bad complaining about something that seems a bit superficial seeing I downloaded the program because it had spaced repetition, which was the most important criteria. So let's put aside this concern and ask: has spaced repetition (using Anki) been effective so far?
Yes. I really do remember words better, because I practice them every day or every other day, especially since I'm not apprehending and avoiding my study session anymore. The spaced repetition makes the cards appear strategically, adapting itself to my learning process, e.g. by showing me the words I find the hardest more often. It's much more interesting to have a system arrange your study for you, instead of you having to go through the same list of words every day and pinning the words that are hard while trying not to forget once in a while to practice the easier ones (especially when you have more than hundreds of words to work it). You can really focus only on studying.

Despite the fact that I can't rely on Anki only to practice vocabulary, the program is still an excellent drill for the spaced repetition it offers. As any learning technique, I believe spaced repetition has its advantages and disadvantages, but it's still a lot better than how I used to study my vocabulary.

However, I don't know why I have like 70+ words in my Chinese vocab deck, but only get to practice regularly like 20 of them... which is weird. So since the beginning, I've only learned to master like 1/4 of the total of words I put in my deck! LOL yes I practiced about 20 words on Anki in two months. Ok that kinda makes my review weaker... They were the only ones appearing, so I just went with it. It's like the spaced repetition system doesn't take account of the other 50+ words. While looking for the problem today, I found my max cards to see each day was 20 cards. I suspect it's because of that. Now I set it to 100 words, maybe I'll lower it haha.

Note: This article was written in the beginning of January, but I kept it as a draft because I wanted to test the software/app a couple of weeks to see it I was making real progress. Today we are March 2nd. I can say that spaced repetition has worked very well for me. I don't forget the words I'm learning. That's good.

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Note about the spaced repetition you've seen in the example screenshots (< 10m, 2d, 3d, etc.):
As you can see in the screenshots, the "frequency options" vary. They'll depend on where I am in my study in the deck (beginning/ending), and the number of times I've seen the card already (maybe there are more factors idk). I won't expand on this much since it's still a bit fuzzy to me to how and when the frequency options change. But I think you get the picture. I'm saying this because I wasn't expecting the system to stretch the spaced repetition that far, I thought it would always show me the same frequency options, but the more I get the word right, the more the system gives me choices like 7d or 16d, so more days pass by until I'll see the word again. I personally find this impressive and wonder if I'll ever get something like 1 year in the future. 😆