Back to school - ain't no one too cool here

After letting my brain wither (and die) for two months I finally dragged my ass to the study hall for some much needed review. All day I've been semi-hyperventilating (imaginatively, of course, I'm still at the study hall), trying to remind myself that Rome wasn't built in a day.

But I'm not building Rome, I'm trying to learn Japanese, damn it.

I'll be going to Japan in a couple of weeks to do this one-semester stint at Josai International University in Chiba, and at the very least I should be remembering all of the grammar, vocabulary and Chinese characters we learned at the university last year, when I get there. Especially since all of the Japanese I know is only what we've learned at school, not getting anything for "free" considering I neither watch anime, listen to Japanese music nor download Japanese soap operas. Unlike all of the other Japan geeks in my class, bastards (Jah, I'm bitter due to my own, so far, lacking interest).





You, like so many others, probably want to ask me why in the world I'm studying Japanese. And I've asked myself that question several times - mostly because you nag. I should have been studying something useful, like economics. Something that at least would make the old neighbours still left in my small home town, not even knowing where Japan is, nod approvingly.

The truth is, it would have made me depressed. I like learning languages, I like Asia and Japanese people seem.. nice. That's my story, and I am sticking to it. Sure I've been pulling my hair several times, asking myself if it's the self inflicted pain I enjoy, or what, and now I've pretty much come to terms with the fact that that must be it.

But I actually like studying Japanese, and I'm doing fairly well. Hopefully I'm in it for the long haul too, 'cause the God I don't believe in only knows the road ahead is awfully long.

(Some of the 317 Chinese characters I technically should know ..baha!)

At least it's actually easy to have a nice hand writing, when writing Japanese. I remember after a year of studying Thai in Bangkok, my hand writing still looked like it belonged to a first grader. Yet it's a small consolation when three different written languages is used in a glorious mixture and I'm supposed to know 1,945 Chinese characters in a couple of years time.. Great.

Anyway, I just have to pick up my student visa at the embassy this week, and I'm ready to get the show on the road!


- Kine