Boi 4 Introduction

Hi hello! 

My name is Lucia Nguyen (aka Boi 4) and for this blog, I'll be focusing on fruits in Japan! I'm thinking of focusing on fruits as a commodity, but I'm not entirely certain yet. I guess you'll just have to stay tuned to find out! (That's just an excuse for me to decide later on what I'll talk about. 😅) Anyhow, for now, I'd like to tell you a little bit more about myself, so, um, let's begin. (Warning: Get ready for some hardcore rambling.)

I am a third year (almost fourth year!) student at the University of Calgary, currently pursuing a major in Cellular, Molecular, and Microbial Biology with a minor in Japanese. In all honesty, I don't know what I'm doing with my life. I am just... a student, studying things that I find interesting, I suppose. 

When I'm not studying, I'm usually in bed. When I'm feeling especially blue, I write in my journal. In fact, I keep a lot of journals. Recently, I've tried to break the habit of writing when I'm under the weather because I don't really want to immortalise bad thoughts... But, strangely, when I'm happy, I don't really feel like journalling.

I have a bad habit of collecting journals. I have finished a handful from start to finish but a good portion of my journals are reserved for more... limited entries.

I also do origami. I'm not an origami god (far from it!), but I have practiced origami since I was a kid. I'd like to believe I'm fairly capable at folding paper, but, well, as with anything, there's always room for improvement. 😛

This is an origami camera I made with fake money. It took about 2 hours to figure the instructions all out, haha.

Here are two cranes I made with a single sheet of fake money. It was also pretty time-consuming.

My go-to folds to give to friends include a rose, a stationary crane, and a turtle.

Maybe I should talk a little bit about my family? There are six of us in my immediate family: my parents, my two older brothers, my older sister, and myself. We speak a mix of Vietnamese and English at home, but when talking to my parents, I mostly use Vietnamese. I'd like to say that I'm fluent in speaking Vietnamese, but... somehow that sounds like a bold statement. 😅 In regards to reading and writing in Vietnamese, I... am not competent at all. (Sorry, mum and dad!)

Like most kids born and raised in Canada, I was "taught" French from the third grade. I took French as an option up until I graduated from high school. Before high school, however, a large majority of my French education consisted of learning miscellaneous vocabulary and fitting the words into sentence skeletons. It wasn't until I was in grade 10 that I started learning the grammar and, for a year, I thought I was in love with the French language. 

In grade 11, French class became... painful and I dreaded attending every class. I truly think this was a result of... an incompatibility between how my new teacher taught and how I learned as a student. A part of me regrets how my love for the French language died. To this day, I am uncomfortable with using French. It must sound like a sorry excuse, but using French triggers bad memories. 

Do you know the saying, "If you don't use it, you lose it"? Well, it seems that I lost French.

In my first year of university, I decided to take a Japanese class. I had already formed an interest in Japanese before I entered university. In fact, by that time, I had already learned both kana syllabaries and a handful of kanji. I knew I had wanted to dabble in the Japanese language, but I never would have expected just how deeply I would fall in love with the Japanese language. It was like falling in love with French all over again, except this time it wasn't French... and I usually look forward to Japanese class. 

At first, I had only wanted to learn enough Japanese to watch anime without the English subtitles or to read raw manga. After forming irreplaceable friendships in that first Japanese class, I made the confident decision to enroll Japanese as my minor. I have loved the language ever since and I hope to attain fluency before I die!

こんにちは！ルシアと申します。私はこのブログに果物について書きます！でもまずは、自己紹介をしましょうね。

私はカルガリー大学の三年生です。専攻は細胞生物学ですが、日本語も勉強しています。暇な時、日記に書いたり、折り紙をしたりするのが好きです。（上の写真を見てください！）

私の家族は六人います。両親と二人の兄と一人の姉がいます。昔、皆さんはカルガリーに住んでいましたが、今私は両親だけとここに住んでいます。私の兄弟は勉強のために他の町に住んでいます。時々兄弟に会いたいですが。。。

家で私たちはベトナム語と英語を使っていますが、私は両親とベトナム語で話します。小学校から高校を卒業するまでフランス語も勉強していました。初めは、フランス語が大好きと思いましたが、フランス語の勉強は速く楽しくなくなりました。このごろ、私はフランス語を使うと、ちょっと悲しくなります。😢

一年生の時、日本語の授業を取りました。大学に入る前に、私は自分でもう日本語を少し勉強しました。ひらがなとカタカナと色々な漢字を習いました。初めは、日本語でアニメを見たり漫画を読んだらしたかったです。最初の日本語の授業を取ってから、たくさんのいい友達を作りました。日本語が大好きになりました。私は死ぬ前に、日本語がペラペラに話せたいです。