あの男性はボブです。That guy is Bob.

There's no rule to when you should use kanji. You can write in full hiragana and it's still fine. Certain well known kanjis are written in kanji. Since pretty much the entire japanese population can read 男性, it is written that way instead of だんせい

Greetings are usually written in hiragana instead of kanji。こんにちは instead of 今日は
expressive terms like かわいい/カワイイ are written in kana to express how cute it is . 可愛い seems more serious
some companies use katakana for their name; トヨタinstead of 豊田. Some use kanji; 三菱　(mitsubishi)

The more you familiarize yourself with japanese, the more you'll discover the small nuances of the language. It's something you'll learn faster when you discover it for yourself

reading a novel and got a phrase that i cannot understand ...
変わっていく自分の顔を見るのが嫌で、鏡を見るのはいつ振りだろ？
any kind soul willing to explain the second part
dislike my own different face,

I hate looking at my weird face... I wonder how long has it been since I looked it in the mirror?
there is a slight lost in translation
literally, kawatteiku = changing, transforming
but hey how could I precisely know? Nihongo is all about context...
It's all depends on what are the subject being told in previous lines

Writing in kanji saves a whole lot of space!

Kanji also makes things more specific, because sometimes there are 2 terms that have the pronunciation. Hiragana is the same but the tone is different and hiragana doesn't carry tone in writing.

Going Kanji would be straight forward, spare the reader from guessing.

From no context (as well) and the explanation that followed, I think your literal translation is more accurate here. i.e. "I hate my changing self".

I am not trying yo justify my translation here,
but lost in translation will bound to happen when you translate stuff. Nuances and subtleties are important in translation.
"I hate looking at my changing face" is an awkward translation.
You may suggest another example translation of that line, though. I just gave Kenjixx a translation that came across my mind that time

No offence meant xpawned.
On lost in translation, yes... Totally, even simple things like 'itadakimasu' can't retain its real meaning when translated. :-)

WARNING:LONG POST

I'd like to share how I managed to win a 2 week study trip SPONSORED by the Japan foundation. Sponsored flight ticket, accomodation and food. Any money you bring there will be used for entertainment . NOTE: I haven't taken the JLPT nor attended any Japanese classes

Each year, the Japan Foundation of Kuala Lumpur hosts a japanese speech competition (日本語弁論大会) When? Follow the JFKL facebook page. Have an idea on what you want to talk about. Something you're passionate about or skilled at. Perhaps about your own experience, or your dreams. Anything at all. Write the rough draft of your script in your native language.

Go to lang-8 and create an account and create a post. translate your script to japanese to the best of your ability. For each post, translate ONLY ONE  OR TWO paragraph(s). Make sure to write the include the english script as well in case your japanese is too difficult to understand, japanese people can see what you're trying to say by reading the english text.

This was my the first part of my initial script
Japanese users will then correct your japanese sentence by sentence. Copy the correct sentences and paste it in a google doc. YES, GOOGLE DOCS. Not word. You'll see why later. Keep posting paragraph by paragraph until you finish your script. again, copy and paste the correct sentences to the google doc.

By now, you should have a complete script in japanese. Although the sentences are correct grammatically, it might not sound natural since we only copy pasted the sentences, which might have been corrected by different users. So how do we make the sentences more natural?

If you have a japanese friend on skype (luckily,I do) CALL (not chat) him and send him the url of the google doc. Ask him to adjust the sentences so it seems more natural and fluid. as he tells you what to change, you can make the changes on the google doc and he will see those adjustments being made in real time. It's like having a native japanese speaker at your side correcting your script!

If you don't have japanese friends on skype, copy and paste the japanes translated script from the google doc into a lang-8 post. Mention that you want it to be corrected so it would sound natural.

After having my text corrected in real time through skype and google docs, my lame script I wrote previously, turned into this masterpiece
Once you have an awesome script, try reading it out loud. There will be a time limit of 5 minutes (if I'm not mistaken) so see if you can finish the script within 5 minutes. If it's too long, edit unecessary parts out. If its too short, you can read it slower or add some parts.

If you can, get a japanese friend to read the script while you record him. Keep the recording on your phone and listen to it constantly. If you don't have a japanese friend, record yourself reading it. Keep practicing until you memorize the script. Try to minimize any foreign accent.

During the competition, after your speech, you will be given some questions regarding your speech. My speech was titled 'Honda Soichiro and the Power of Dreams' and the 1st question I was given was 'あなたは夢がありますか？' Don't make the same mistake I did and answer with a simple 'はい、あります' Instead, I should've answered 'はい、あります。私の夢は。。。。' I found out later that although my speech was the best, I lost valuable points because of my short answers. Moral: answer the questions in full sentences.

After you step off the stage, don't worry. nothing you do after will change the results. If you manage to make top 3, congrats. You're going to Japan. if not, you can always try again next year.

By 14AW005 <--my id for the study trip

I'm just wondering if any of you use flashcard apps to help with studying? I would say it's the single most useful tool in my studies but I'm really surprised by how so few people know about this

I'm just wondering if any of you use flashcard apps to help with studying? I would say it's the single most useful tool in my studies but I'm really surprised by how so few people know about this

do they have age limit?? how many categories are they or do you have to compete with fluent speakers? Like those with JLPT N1??

No. I do not use anki, taekim, core or any other flashcard software. Book is  my friend.

I don't really use any flashcards, electronic or otherwise..

I just like to read books/manga/news articles/etc. and look at dictionaries for words I don't know or have known before but forgotten.

Have you guys even tried flashcard software? I think it will completely change the way you study. remember more, better, faster. The only thing is creating decks is a bit of a hassle