I am quite interested in learning languages. During my undergrad I learned Japanese and then went to 東洋大学 as a regular student. I then gave a speech at graduation as the exchange student representative. My favorite class was 学習心理学. The professor was quite funny, and the content was great.
By the end of Ph.D, I aim to be of a comparable level in Mandarin as in Japanese. In order to do this, I spend about 1.5 hours every day studying Mandarin. This consists of 1 hour of pure immersion and about 30 minutes of spaced repetition study. I would like to be able to read 老子 by the end of the degree.
When in undergrad, I was quite passionate about language communities. I used to lead the Japanese Language Table and the Japanese Cultural Association. This was the most fun during undergrad, and I am honored to have met great people from around the world.
In general, jazz is my favorite genre. I like Coltrane (this and this). Other than jazz, classical is of course quite good. I also like hip-hop.
My favorite genre is sci-fi. This may be visible from the books that I read.
Sleep, diet and exercise. I believe that motivation and success are not some sort of mental thing, but are direct products of how much you sleep, eat, and exercise. This is quite important to me. I tend to wake up around ~4:00AM and go to be around ~8:00PM. With regards to exercise, as I worry about my joints I enjoy swimming (I never knew they had this online). However, I typically now just do weights.
Favorite color movie is probably Inception, and favorite black and white movie is probably Twelve Angry Men.
Favorite TV show is probably The Twilight Zone or Monster (the manga is also good).
In terms of personality, I would like to be like 古畑任三郎. He was always kind and had a good sense of humor.
