regeneration

It’s the story of a child (ours), an accordion, and a prayer answered, over on Michele’s blog.

Every now and then, I get the feeling that I just want to start again, to discard all the baggage of my past and move on.

Done.

Today I backed up all my old blog entries here and at Blogsome, and deleted everything but the most recent entries. The Blogsome site is gone now (if you still haven’t updated your links, please do). I’m starting again in my life, and I decided that rather than holding on to my past, I would just let it go. There are plenty of good memories, but there are also some painful and silly memories that I’d rather not remember. Since I don’t have time to sort through the good from the bad, and I don’t want to bother, I just decided to start over again.

There’s still some lingering sadness in my life, most notably our financial situation, which despite all we’ve done, has not improved, and the need for a new job, which hasn’t yielded much fruit as of late.

Yet there’s also new hope. I feel that God is calling me to learn Japanese, and along with that will open up new possibilities, I’m sure. Since that’s the only concrete direction I have from Heaven at present, I’m going to go with that, because that’s something I can do. The rest…will have to be a miracle from God.

I’ve been looking for new Japanese music, and Ken just posted about a band named Tornado Tatsumaki. I really like their sound:

My enthusiasm for my goal of being able to speak in simple conversations and read a Japanese newspaper by the end of December was tempered a little when I read that Khatzumoto did it in 18 months. Maybe a little more time than I have between now and then (8 months) will be required, but still, I’m going to bust my a** and try my darnedest. Any time that’s not spent on work and family will be devoted to learning Japanese. I’m that serious.

I’m going to work this week to try to hit the 200-character limit (remember, unless someone helps get me the book before then, my kanji studies will be on hold until the first part of June, because I won’t have any disposable income until then). Finances are tight right now, and I don’t mean in a good way. I will use what I have, however, and I know that wherever God calls, God equips.

‘Wherever God calls…’ I’ve been really praying about this, and for some reason I have a burning urgency about this in my heart, a desire to learn Japanese that’s never been this strong before. I can’t explain it all yet, because I don’t have all the answers, but this is something different that passes normal ‘interests’, many of which I’ve discarded along the years. This is different. It’s not a hobby, it’s not my latest ‘thing’. It’s something of destiny, something that I know by the Spirit that I’m supposed to do, and something that’s getting stronger every day. I’m sure I’ll be able to explain more later. :)

I added a PayPal donation button to my sidebar and About Me page. I feel a little like a leech, but hey, at least I’m a nice leech. :D

Like I said before, if you can help a guy out, please do. Thanks.

Beautiful inside and out, both then…

…and now.

Happy Birthday Sarah! Six years old today. Not sure how THAT happened. ;)

Things are going well. The kanji are clicking along. I’ve learned about 50 so far, which is a decent pace. I’m hoping to get some money before my birthday (May 30th) so I can go ahead and buy Remembering The Kanji. I’ve been working out of the sample for the past week.

If you’re interested, I’ll post pictures and links of the system I’m using to learn kanji, which seems to work well for me. It might not look all that interesting, but I think it’s fun!

OK, so I had a bad day. I wanted to hit someone this morning. This afternoon I wanted to walk out of work. I was also sick of this Japanese stuff and wanted to walk away from it, call it another one of my stupid temporary obsessions, and give it up.

Then I calmed down a little bit.

Then I tested myself on some of the kanji I’ve recently learned…and failed. I got mad at myself and threw the graph paper down and said ’screw it’.

Then I remembered a song by Robbie called ‘Don’t Give Up’. I queued it up and it encouraged me. If you need encouragement, do pop over here and click on the second song down. It’s good.

After listening to that song, I picked up the graph paper and wrote the kanji that I had choked on (’tongue’ (舌) and ‘hundred’ (百)) down a few dozen times. I re-tested and did a little better. And I’m going on.

This is kind of fun. Unlike here in the States, apparently it’s actually possible to win at those claw games in Japan. (They’re called ‘UFO catchers’ there.) I’d love to win some of those cute stuffed animals for my kids. :)

More insight at tofugu.com.

(via)

edit: OK, I don’t really have anything to write today, I admit it. I thought this video was great, too:

After much prayer and soul-searching, I finally decided to devote myself entirely to the study of Japanese. The method I will be using to learn is called the ‘AJATT method’ described on the site alljapaneseallthetime.com. The method basically discards textbook methods of learning Japanese, and instead starts out with the most monumental feat that learners of Japanese typically try to overcome last: the study of kanji.

There are thousands and thousands of kanji, the special ideograms that constitute Japanese writing, but as I understand it, only a little over 2,000 are in typical use in day-to-day Japanese life. How does one remember them all? By banging it into one’s head through repetition? Repetition is necessary, yes, but a logical method of studying the kanji is better. I’m using James Heisig’s book Remembering The Kanji, a sample of which is available here, which (in my opinion) is an excellent, systematic way to learn the kanji.

You might say, ‘Well, don’t you need to learn how to speak Japanese, too?’ Of course! For that, I’m using Japanese television shows and music. I’m listening to and watching anything Japanese that I can, in order to pick up not only vocabulary words (it’s easy to figure out what sumimasen means after only a few minutes of watching Densha Otoko!) but also sentence structure. It’s all Japanese, all the time. I’m downloading music and saving up to buy CDs and movies, all in Japanese. Yes, I’m ‘gung ho’ about this, and I think you have to be if you really want to learn the language.

I’ve cut out much of my Internet surfing and anything else unimportant that I can cut out in order to learn Japanese. I don’t quite know why or for what purpose, but deep within, I know that it’s the right thing to do. By the end of the year, I want to be able to read a Japanese newspaper (even if I have to do it with the dictionary right next to me!) and have a conversation with a native Japanese speaker. And by God’s grace, and with a lot of ‘gung ho’, that will happen.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be back to learning my kanji. :)

Sarah lost her first second another tooth yesterday! One of her bottom teeth (a lower incisor per this page) fell out, and she said that it felt really good because it felt like her other teeth had room to grow. My mother-in-law gave her a dollar, and I think we did too. We don’t do the tooth fairy, Easter Bunny, or Santa Claus at our house. (Yes, I know, that’s terribly cruel and horrible, etc.. ;) )

Today I was looking at my stats, and discovered that one person visited my blog yesterday through the WordPress.com tag search results for ‘Japan’. I and see what other bloggers have to say about that far-away place of interest to me. I came across this post about the ‘Japanese tooth fairy’. Well, apparently they don’t do the tooth fairy there. If it’s a bottom tooth, they throw it over the roof or place it on the second floor of a two-story house. If it’s a top tooth, it’s placed on the bottom floor, under the floor, or presumably buried. This is to ‘encourage the top teeth to grow down and the bottom teeth to grow up’. Interesting, eh? Whitney also linked to this site which gives the other traditions around the world. Some examples:

1. In Mexico, a mouse comes instead of a fairy.
2. In France, a toy is left instead of money.

Other countries simply keep it as a keepsake. I don’t think that’s quite as fun. Personally, I would want a Matchbox car or something, but that age is long past, and I would much prefer to keep my current teeth, thanks.

edit: Oops, Michele reminded me that it’s Sarah’s second tooth that she’s lost. The other one wasn’t as noticeable, though. Apparently Sarah liked losing teeth so much, she lost two more yesterday! :)

edit #2: Tina pointed out that Michele said it was a different number in her blog. I changed this post to be accordingly vague. She’s the career mom, ask her! :)

A bunch of cool folks in Japan are doing a Free Hugs campaign to promote togetherness, I guess. I think it’s a very good idea. Makes me want to go hug someone.

Other videos

(Via)

Edit: Apparently this video is a response to this original video.

I’ve been watching a Japanese television series called Densha Otoko. Translated ‘Train Man’, it’s based on a presumably true story where an otaku (anime geek) stands up for a beautiful young woman who’s being attacked by a drunken man in the Tokyo subway system. She sends him a set of teacups as a present in gratitude, and they contact each other and eventually fall in love. Along the way, a cast of over 30 anonymous characters from a forum based on the super-popular Japanese 2channel forum cheer him on. It’s funny, it’s touching, and it’s a great series.

More information:
Wikipedia
DramaWiki
JDorama

Download via Bittorrent:
Complete series plus special and interviews (soft-subtitled)
Individual episode downloads
Other specials (hardsubbed)

*Image taken from DramaWiki.

There you have it…my wife likes American Idol and I like Japanese TV shows. It takes all kinds, I guess. ;)

What next? I’ve had a few other series recommended to me:

• Odoru Daisousasen (Police Investigation Headquarters):
  

  An ex-computer salesman…decides one day that he wants to be a detective. He soon becomes a detective at the Wangan Police Station where he encounters various cases and deals with the police bureaucracy.

  (Torrent)

• Ohsama no Restaurant (King’s Restaurant):
  

  The story takes place in Tokyo’s La Belle Equipe French restaurant where its standard deteriorated after the death of its owner. The son, inexperienced in the business, inherits the restaurant and finds himself unable to motivate his staff. Realizing that the quality of the restaurant is not like what it used to be, a determined middle-aged garcon, a good friend of the original owner, decides to help make changes. His mission is to bring back the glory of La Belle Equipe. –Fuji Creative

  (Torrent)

• Kekkon Dekinai Otoko (The Man Who Can’t Get Married):
  

  Shinsuke Kuwano, a successful architect at 40, enjoys living by himself. He doesn’t like people but somehow is able to design wonderful houses for them.

  He has a routine of making himself a delicious dinner and then relaxing to classical music in his easy chair while pretending he is the conductor. One night, he plays the music loud enough to make his next door neighbor, Michiru Tamara knock on his door to complain. When Kuwano answers the door, he suffers a terrible stomach pain and collapses to the floor. Lucky for him, Michiru is nice enough to accompany him to the hospital, where he is treated by Dr. Natsumi Hayasake. He is really rude to Natsumi, but she is still determined to treat him.

  Afterwards, Michiru and Natsumi become part of Kuwano’s life. They make friends with Kuwano’s colleagues Eiji and Maya Sawazaki. They all enjoy talking about how strange and eccentric Kuwano is. Is it possible that someone would ever want to marry him?

  (This series stars Abe Hiroshi, who also starred in At Home Dad, the first Japanese TV series I watched before Densha Otoko. That’s a really good series as well!)

  (Kekkon Dekinai Otoko Torrent)
  (At Home Dad Torrent)

• Akihabara@Deep:
  

  Akihabara is a Tokyo district full of mangas, anime, electronics, video games, figurines, etc. It is a place that gathers fanatics of such themes, people who are commonly referred to as otaku. Page, Box, Akira, Taiko, Daruma, and Izumu are six otaku each with his/her own troubles and sought relief through a website called “Yui’s Lifeguard.” When site owner Yui died of a mysterious death, the six who are each experts in their own fields gathered to form “Akihabara@DEEP”, a “trouble shooter” group that vows to protect Akihabara and solve the problems of its inhabitants.

  (Torrent)

So that’s what I’m up to. What about you?

**Series descriptions are taken from DramaWiki and are their property.