Remember when I said I was going to try and do the reflections on Sunday? Well today is Monday and here we are! Theoretically I could just do them regularly on Mondays but with how busy this semester will be it'll be better to just do them on Sundays. I'll avoid talking about today in particular just so I can just that for next week's reflection but oh BOY does it turn out learning two languages at once takes up a lot of your time.
This week was rather boring, given that I was preparing to go back to university (read: rotting). I moved back in on Friday. It's actually quite nice to be back; my campus is quite pretty even in the winter along with not having to deal with family members. I called a close friend of mine which was also a nice way to end the week. Being back in university but not doing anything did make me realize how dehabilitating my anxiety can be at times, with me being in intense panic over checking emails that were not a problem at all. I find if I just force myself to be busy it pushes through a lot of the anxiety and I can do them well. Alternatively I could go back on my antidepressants, but I do like having the ability to cry (maybe not the best of trade-offs but it's the one I'm taking).
Inspired by DivergentRay's Weekly Wrap Up, I wanted to also showcase some interesting links I discovered this week!
Links
Essays
- A Battle in the Bardo (An Tran; Tricycle)
- English translation of a Vietnamese Buddhist story about Tu Dao Hanh who implores Avalokiteśvara to prevent the use of spiritual power to dictate their next rebirths. It's interesting to see the use of the story has a complete contrast to Tibetan Buddhism, which focuses heacily on the use of spiritual power to dictate rebirths (although I'm sure there is exceptions, any high-status Lama is considered a purposeful rebirth of a previous Lama). It's a fun story nevertheless even if you don't care much about Buddhist studies!
- There was no Jesus (Gavin Evans; Aeon)
- The article talks about the historicity, or lack thereof, of Jesus of Nazareth, along with its theological and societal implications. This is not meant to be a gotcha! against Christians, but rather a way to analyze what it means to be a Christian if a rather basic tenet of the fate, that Jesus of Nazareth was a real person, was false. As a Buddhist, I also think about my own practice and what it means if Siddhartha Gautama wasn't real (as an aside for me it doesn't change much at all, as my belief is rather Humanistic and can be summed by a modification of Bakunin's modification of Voltaire: If the Maitreya exists, it is necessary to abolish them and become them.)
Videos
- The 20 Missing Kings No One Can Remember (Cambrian Chronicles)
- Highly recommend Cambrian Chronicles. I previously had no interest, or knowledge, in Welsh history but his videos are fun and incredibly interesting! This video also partially gives my reason why I love doing family history: to learn more about a name on a page that might not have been looked at in decades, if not centuries.
- The Complete Amateur's Guide to Moomin (Henry Kathman)
- I've always wanted to learn more about the Moomins; really only knew about Snufkin. Really interesting video.
- How a 15th-Century Cardinal Changed Philosophy Forever (Let's Talk Religion)
- Love Let's Talk Religion calming videos; honestly if I did YouTube I'd probably go for this lecture style of content. The video is over Nicholas of Cusa.
- I'm Russian. Here's how propaganda really works. (Silent East)
- Learned of this video from Xandra. Interesting video: reject apathy!
Songs
I got REALLY back into the VocaSynth community, so all of these songs are Vocasynths. They are good as hell!
- FLOP ERA (ePiaeon; Akita Neru)
- Admittedly has been stuck in my head all week...
- Lagtrain (inabukumori; Kaai Yuki)
- This song made me realize that at some point Kaai Yuki got REALLY popular; I think this was the song that caused it.
- Static (FLAVOR FOLEY; Hatsune Miku)
- At first thought it was meh but it constantly gets stuck in my head.
- Teto the 31st(はろける; Kasane Teto, Ui)
- Tetoris (Hiiragi Magnetite; Kasane Teto)
- A classic Vocasynth song: depressing lyrics with fun music and visuals.
- Word Play (d.j.ァネイロ; Yi Xi)
- Me not realizing that all the lyrics in Japanese are... word plays... until I looked at the comments made me think about how it was literally last week when I realized that いろはに人生帳, a song which I've been listening to for roughly 9 years, was primarily proverbs and idioms. In my defense the translation I grew up listening to translated them literally, while watching the original video the translation it uses puts the English equivalent. Against my defense if I literally just looked up "iroha karuta" (which is what they reference all throughout the song) I quickly would've gotten the definition of "A typical set of Iroha Karuta will contain 96 cards, divided into 48 yomifuda and 48 torifuda. Each yomifuda has the text of a proverb or idiom." (x) Further against my defense the translation I did use still used highly idomatic language and constantly had the line "... is how the saying goes, right?"
- As ANOTHER aside. The song translations I realize differ highly. Consider the translation I grew up with (x) lines beginning at at 3:10
- Wanting to write but has no hand, the tea house girl romances. While not knowing when the potatoes are boiled, she searches for the mended lid of a cracked pot. Let's bring together the youngsters who haven't learned the scriptures before the gate of the temple. If you continue to be honest, you will bear many children.
- Compare with the translation in the original song:
- She doesn't know to how to write a love letter but she's embarassed to ask someone else, the ochaya cafe daughter falls in love. But she is so inexperienced about how the world works, however there is a suitable spouse for everyone. A monk's servant boy quotes sutras, she gets married with him and has many children.
- The joy of translation!
- Water the Roses (FLAVOR FOLEY; GUMI)