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Something Weird With Google
Today’s checking to the statistic of this blog shows several hits come by ‘JLPT info’ search string. Strange 
. If my previous blog post on JLPT — a 7 days old entry — is in the 28th place (out of 250,000 results!) when the keyword ‘JLPT info‘ is inputted to google, something weird must have been happened here.
A full screen capture image can be seen here.
Right after Jim Breen’s page? 
Does google put a stronger emphasis toward blog entries for the search result? It can’t be because of the popularity of this blog 
This site has been only up for a month and a half, the backlink effect is non-existent here (and the last time I checked, Reza’s blog — the only other blog that I’m aware of to putting a direct blogroll to mine — is not yet in the Top 100 of Technorati 
).
Is it because of the content freshness? I am always being convinced that the older your page is, the better it will be ranked in google’s search result (like Jim Breen’s page that must have been up for years).
What is more strange is that the ‘JLPT’ word appears only 5 times within the post (plus 1 for the link to the jlpt.info site, if the strings inside ‘href’ tags are included, then add 2 more). The ‘info’ word appears only ONCE!
I am flabbergasted 
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JLPT
Two days ago, I received the result for my Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) Level 3. The result is not bad, my score is over 85% and under 90%. Not bad considering that I remember during the test, there was a question: “I picked up a heavy luggage so that I feel pain in my ….”, I managed to discard two of the choices because I know exactly they can’t be the correct answer, but then out of the remaining two, what I picked was turned out to be… “moustache”
Here is what I should have been able to do now:
The examinee has mastered grammar to a limited level, knows around 300 kanji and 1,500 words, has the ability to take part in everyday conversation and read and write simple sentences.
Do I? The jury is still out there .
The result itself is not that surprising considering that I have been living in Japan for almost 3 years now. If I was that diligent enough, the norm is that I should have at least reached the 2nd level (one level more difficult), the level where one would be able to smoothly communicate, read, and write in general matters.
Well, perhaps it’s time for me to switch my main source of reading to websites written in Japanese? 
I guess it is not something impossible. When you already have learn the basic Japanese grammars, I think equipped with good and handy tools (such as the fabulous rikaichan) one should be able to built up his/her Japanese skill pretty quickly. The only things he needs are tenacity and strong willingness to learn it. Exactly those are the things that I DON’T have .
For the JLPT takers wannabe, some materials from the Meguro Language Center downloadable here are priceless. And then there was another website where they have the materials from previous years JLPT, including the listening part, I guess it was http://jlpt.info (free registration needed, but it is down by the time I wrote this). Few days before the test, I practiced with the last three or four years JLPT that gave me enough confidence that I would be able to pass the test .
Last, thank’s to my wife who was very persistently forced me to take the test. She is the one who bought the application form for the test, forced me to fill it up, then went to the post office taking care of the payment and form sending. * sekarang tahu kan, Mas-mu ini anak kecil yang harus dipaksa-paksa supaya mau jalan * Love you honey 
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[WP Plugin] Prev and Next ‘n’ Posts
For easier navigation, I want to put the link to previous and next 3 posts relative to the current post. The built in functions within WordPress are capable of showing the adjacent previous post ( previous_post_link() ) and next post ( next_post_link() ) only.
Googling, I found the Previous Posts (recently it was updated to work on WP 2.1) plugin by Sadish Balasubramanian. Still, it can only produce previous ‘n’ posts, and not the next ‘n’. So, it’s time to look at the code …
Continue reading [WP Plugin] Prev and Next ‘n’ Posts…
