Saturday, October 04, 2008

Struggling to re-learn Nihongo

First you made it to October! It might not sound like much, but it's enough. Sometimes I wonder with each weather change.. if one season will treat me as fair as the other... But. Enough about that....

Lately I've had a number of waves hit me.. These waves are often mental escapes that allow me to day dream all the what if's, except the recent set of waves have hit harder then usual. The subject is "1 year in Japan as a worker, instead of as a student" The premise being "teach for a year until I either feel confident to move on to something better or go home." All of this, of course, is within the spectrum of "JET" accepting applications this month and next month. Of course I had plans to go into the Navy, that suffice to say, were delayed at best. Now I'm seriously thinking of applying full heartedly to JET, because a strange thing happened while I lived in Japan... I felt an unusual sense of belonging. Something about the society ultimately made so much sense to me at some points that I felt that I needed.. one day to return.. My return would only be to know for sure whether or not I actually had this strange feeling or whether it was a feeling in passing..

All of this is contained in twisted thoughts amongst others such as relearning a language such as Japanese when I know that all of my current struggles are simply due to not being around the language and people-- That's to say, if I were to visit for 1 week or 2 I'd pick up all the lost pieces of Japanese I've given away over two years.

Within the same vein, let me say that trying an attempt to relearn something your psyche says you know is tough... Simple things such as often used kanji I read on websites and in books-- I'm struggling to pronounce even if I know their meaning..

It's a struggle, I think, due to lack of motivation to return to basics.. Natural I suppose, but challenging regardless when I find myself struggling with a set of Kanji or sentence that I know, but can't dictate in spoken Japanese...

Ok.. but first things first.. I need to fully fillout my JET application and get it in the works just to see how far this "Wave Action" goes and to also figure out just where my passion (sorta) falls..

~J out

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