Kana and Kanji update
Well I have gotten finally back to my study of Kanji now that I am done with the kana. I know about 52 Kanji. A first grader in Japan learns about 80 kanji in the first year. Of course their study is more in depth then mine is, I am just memorizing their (English) meaning and how to write them, so I have the foundation to learn Japanese. While first grade japanese students already know a considerable about of Japanese. But I still feel the need to compare.
I am of course not learning the same ones a Japanese first grader learns, because I have to learn them differently (as I do not know Japanese so mnemonics made for those, will not work for me). However I will keep track of the number I learn, and the approximate grade I am in. This is elementary school of course, if I recall they learn the Kana in kindergarten.
First Grade, 80 Kanji
Second Grade, 160 Kanji (240 total)
Third Grade, 200 Kanji (440 total)
Forth Grade, 200 Kanji (640 total)
Fifth Grade, 185 Kanji (825 total)
Sixth Grade, 181 Kanji (1006 total)
Junior High School, 939 Kanji (1945 total)
In all I plan to learn 2024 Kanji, which is all of the common use Kanji. This will put me a little above the ‘technical’ learning of a Junior High Schooler in Japan. But since they are Japanese, I have no doubt the average student knows far more then 2024 Kanji by the time they graduate Junior High School.
Since I have learned the Kana, I have for the most part passed kindergarten level, at least in the way of the symbols. Obviously in other areas except for language I am far more advanced then pretty much any kindergartner (in any country). My actual knowledge of the Japanese language and the ability to speak it is much less then them however. But my goal is working on the Kana/Kanji so I can learn the language (its out of order).
I also had a friend who was learning these as well, but she decided to drop contact with me recently. So, please get back in contact me at some point if you ever read this!
Anyway, when I pass first grade, I will let you know. Not that anyone cares, right! 
The kanji I have studied so far, that I know the meaning to and can write without looking:
一二三四五六七八九十百千口上下世中丸亘冒凸凹升卓舌旦博自早胃胆月白目朋田朝昇晶明昌旧旭占専日古吾呂品唱寸
Just so you know I am using the SRS.. Anki to help me study these Kanji!
On another note, I have been on a bit of a Manga binge. I have read about 12 complete series in the last 2 days. Its unfortunate for me because a number of them have sad endings, or are just plain sad. 
Another Year Past
Well tis been another great year. This blog has not been around to long, but still I think I am really starting to get into it. First of all let me wish anyone who ever bothers to read this a merry christmas. I am not to much about being politically correct, I think thats a bit boring to be honest. Its human nature after all. I didn’t get anyone a gift this year, sorry, no new releases of PPSE-DS have been finished. I was pulling my hair out and going crazy because I was so worried I was going to fail this year of college, which would of meant the end of my college career.
In the end I managed to pass all my classes, just barely scraping by in my Interpersonal Communications class with a C. Otherwise in My Advanced C++ class I got an A-, in Webpage Desgin I got an A-. In Introduction to Psychology I got a B. Which was really surprising for me, I worked fairly hard for the tests in that class but the paper I wrote I feel I didn’t do very well at all on.
The C++ and the Webpage design I was fairly sure I was going to be alright in, I have done C since the times of the ancient Dinosaurs called MUDs. C++ I had only done in bits and pieces, to say I learned nothing from the class would be a bold face lie. I learned many things from this class, but I already had the heart of a programmer long before it, all I got was new tricks and a better understanding of how all the fun things in C++ work (classes, templates, and so on).
Unless you wish me to go on and make a informative article on K-D Trees or K-Type Clustering there is not much of a present I can give to everyone/anyone who reads my blog. But now that I have my classes out of the way I can start to get refocused on some of my hobbies, which should make a large number of people happy. Since I know everyone has been waiting a very long time for another release of PPSE-DS.
To be completely honest I have not been entirely slacking on it, and school is not a good enough excuse to do absolutely no work. I have redesigned the entirety of the Library PokeLib, so that it is now a proper library. I have rebuilt the graphics engine for PPSE-DS, but I am still having problems with getting true on demand rendering to work. I have a fairly primitive widget library built, explicitly for the use in PPSE-DS, most others I could use instead have a complex underlaying structure I would need to import or could never hope to support what I wished to do with it. PPSE-DS is perhaps the most complex application I have ever written, in pure amount of code written anyway, save for perhaps a few old web comic management systems. So I am not about to just give up on it…
I have talked to ant the maker of the Woopsi library for DS about many things, his library is very good, however it doesn’t really have the flair I want for my application. Also he is in the midst of rebuilding it, and it does not support Japanese fonts, which are a fairly large requirement for me.
Speaking of Japanese, it still blows my mind I can read Hiragana now, its taking some time to sink it, sort of surreal.
Anyway, thank you for reading!
I can read Hiragana!
Alright wow, 3 posts in such a short period of time. But I just felt I should make another post, since I finished the final lesson of the Hiragana half of “Remembering the Kana” which I mentioned in an earlier post. Its really strange though, all of a sudden I see this symbols and I can pronounce them, its really strange. Much stranger then just English translated into symbols, such as in the Artemis Fowl series of books (a good series).
It just blows my mind, since I managed to learn it in only 115 minutes (~2 hours) spread over a few days, since the book had me time each reading session where I actually learned the letters. However I did do some practice outside it, but thats just to make sure I continue to remember it.
However as amazing as it is to suddenly to make headway into a japanese publication, I still do not understand Japanese yet, so while I have a tool to help me learn it, its use is still fairly minimal. Also every other word I swear I run into Katakana, whats with that really. I can excuse a fair amount of Kanji, but really I never realized so much Katakana was used in everyday texts (manga, websites, etc).
Next on my list is of course Katakana and unlike with Hiragana I think I will also work on my Kanji at the same time. I have a great deal of Kanji to get through.
Remembering the Kana/Kanji
Well first of all I have taken to the AJATT method of teaching myself japanese, except for that fact its not actually all the time (I haven’t really started hard into the methods yet). He suggested two books, Remembering the Kanji and Remembering the Kana. I only got the first of each so far, but Remembering the Kana isn’t to expensive.
Here are some links for you: Remembering the Kanji and Remembering the Kana
The author is very adept at forming explinations that will make each Kanji and Kana easy to remember. Some of them are very strange, but that makes them even harder to forget.
Having recently just gotten these books. I decided to do a few out of each, hiragana and some of the Kanji. I was really quite surprised at how fast I took up the first 20 or so Kanji, I haven’t done any more yet, but I wanted to get an idea what I was in for. It was very simple, and in a moment I will explain the why I was so surprised at how quickly I took them up. The other book I started and learned the first 17 hiragana from the Remembering the Kana. These were a bit more difficult then the Kanji, despite the increased complexity of the Kanji.
The interesting thing in this case is that I had been slowly practicing and learning the Hiragana on my own, but I was having a tough time of it, weeks with little real progress. I get this and within the first 37 minutes (the book has you time yourself for each lesson), I had learned 17 kana, obviously it was a bit less since I already knew some of them, such as a, i, u, tsu and so on but thats beside the point I also retained the ones I had not learned before.
Of course being sure I do retain them forever may be a bit harder, of course I will be using an SRS to help me along. I realize the increased complexity of the Kanji and the fact they relate directly to complete words and ideas makes it easier to memorize them, which would explain why I am having such a hard time with the Kana, which represent only sounds.