Re-starting 日本語??

I am meant to tell you why I chose to study Japanese and my feelz about it. Let's begin!

I actually studied Japanese in high school. I stopped because various kanji started meaning too many different things for me to care to remember, and by the time I stopped the class was populated only by anime-obsessed teens with whom I could not relate because, at the time, I looked down upon anime and manga. How foolish, eh?

When I came to Princeton, I decided to study something entirely different. I was deciding between German, Italian, and Arabic. I ultimately decided on German because Italian was too close to Spanish for my taste (I am a native speaker) and jeez, was it むずかしい to learn Arabic through Rosetta Stone. And, I thought I could one day, in the far future, learn enough German to read those literary masterpieces of the intellectual literary world. Alas, I didn't keep up with it, discouraged from the start by folks who were so much better at it right off the bat than me. It was difficult to find motivation to study because there was no-one with whom I would be speaking German anytime soon, and because I had no other way to apply my learning than in class. My grade was apparently not enough to push me to study.

This year I prioritised Japanese over German because I already had SOME foundation in it and because, voila, I have a use for it! Plenty of my friends speak Japanese, which will make practising much more likely a possibility. In addition, this spring I started attending this Japanese anime film series called Drawn and Moving in the Wilson Blackbox. One film, The Sky Crawlers, COMPLETELY changed my life and since I watched it, I make sure to have my daily dosage of anime series and films and manga. Of course I would love to be able to understand some of what I read or see without the need for translations and subtitles.

So, after two days of studying Japanese at Princeton, I feel super psyched about the coming semesters and the speaking, listening, reading, whatever practice opportunities that will be presented to me. I can't wait to re-indulge in the culture with everyone and hope that we all thrive in the class!

I also can't wait for the workload to pile on in the form of hours of self-studying the language. /end sarcasm.

じゃーね！