Relearning to write
Week 1 of Japanese: Survived. After an introduction to why, linguistically, Japanese is a much easier language to learn than English, we’ve started in on learning hiragana, one of the three scripts (along with katakana and kanji) that we’ll be studying. This is the part of the class I’m most worried about. My handwriting isn’t quite illegible (and it will always be better than my brother’s), but it makes me question how well I’ll be able to scratch out entirely new alphabets.
The scripts are also the main reason I’m taking an official class (with grades, tests, homework, etc.) rather than just listening to the Pimsleur CDs or spending more time at JapanesePod101.com. There’s no way I’m going to learn them if I don’t have structure and accountability. Otherwise, I’ll just keep putting it off to some time the indeterminate future, along with reteaching myself calculus. And figuring out what I want to do with my life. And mowing the lawn. And researching that novel.
Speaking of which, I’m heading back to the coal mines (in more ways than one). I’ve spent enough time catching up on Warehouse 13 this evening.