Cranes and such building a building

I’m Back

It’s like I never left. If you were me. Because I’m always here. I took an immersion course recently and, well, let’s just say I stayed quiet through a lot of it. So I got annoyed at myself and my laziness. Which has reaffirmed my desire to learn this language as a long running bucket list item. Of course, I will never be 100% fluent in it. But I can work to get to at least 90% fluent. I’m back, baby! Hail to the まだまだ日本語を話すおやじ!

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All aboard! A ship raising the car ramp.

Time = Money

So learning Japanese takes a lot of time, or money, or both. では、クラスを始める前に調べなければいけません。 And it’s your time and money, so why not do some research first? If you don’t research, you just waste both of these precious resources. This applies to all Japanese classes and teachers. Sometimes you can’t know until you take the course, unfortunately. I tried doing a traditional classroom-based course for three years and it was good for what it was. A solid explanation of Genki I and II, a grammar foundation, and a lot of vocabulary that you never got to use because conversation was saved for the higher levels. (Just a personal gripe about Genki… Read More

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Silence is Foo

Life Goes On

So, since late January. I’ve had not only the pandemic to deal with, but other personal issues to deal with. I am one of the lucky ones who experienced pandemic plus. But now my energy is back to normal levels, and with a brand new psychological mindset to boot! Watch out, Japan! Seriously, though, having no energy to do anything extra leaves you time to reflect on how much time one wastes when you have lots of energy and sit around, not doing anything extra. This is overused, but 頑張りましょうか?は!

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So Many Choices: What To Do?

The Japanese teaching industry seems pretty strong. People watch some anime, think Japan is a land of mystical ninjas and magic girls in short skirts, and say to themselves, “Boy, I bet Japanese would be great to learn!” Then after your first year of gently being taught hiragana and katakana and a few simple kanji, you look at the road ahead of you and see that it’s long and bumpy and curvy. And there are no ninjas or magic girls, just an occasional bowl of Sapporo Ichiban with green onions. What! Too hard? AJATT and Dogen agree with you, sort of, but by simply being independently wealthy and/or doing nothing… Read More

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お金

日本語の授業を受けりたいと、お金が大切だな? お金とか時だとかやる気も大切だと思う。 このごろ「Zoom]を使わなければいけない。教室で出席するのよりリモートの授業で出席する時は足りない感じだと思うな。たしかに、見立ては少ない。 どうする?家で授業を練習して、いつも頑張りましょう。

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Grasping This Beautiful Moon

A Zen Master lived the simplest kind of life in a little hut at the foot of a mountain. One evening, while he was away, a thief sneaked into the hut only to find there was nothing in it to steal. The Zen Master returned and found him. “You have come a long way to visit me,” he told the prowler, “and you should not return empty handed. Please take my clothes as a gift.” The thief was bewildered, but he took the clothes and ran away. The Master sat naked, watching the moon. “Poor fellow,” he mused, ” I wish I could give him this beautiful moon.” — from… Read More

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Inspiration

So, it’s not easy to be inspired during a global pandemic. Even less so when you’re watching fools prance around with no masks on, breathing wherever they feel like it. But, of course, the secret to life is not just inspiration. It is effort after inspiration. And it’s not easy to put effort into anything but the basic survival skills during a global pandemic. However, what is the alternative? Working, eating, sleeping and nothing else? It’s like one goes through a set of stages of experience with the facts of the world around them. Like the stages of accepting death is coming, but a bit different. My stage now is… Read More

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