Who Am I? What Is This Blog All About?

こんにちわ!

My name is Jared, and I've started this blog as an aid for learning Japanese at Princeton University. Why did I choose to study Japanese? Aside from what little I've gleaned from a casual interest in manga and anime, I know essentially nothing of the Japanese language and culture--and perhaps that's exactly why I chose to enroll in a Japanese course at Princeton. To me, it's something new. It's something foreign. It's a complete mystery.

I come from middle-of-nowhere Missouri, where my nearest neighbors are cows and corn. My high school was located in a town of about 1,500 people and was primarily Caucasian with a smattering of African-Americans and Hispanics, and a single Cambodian. Thus, opportunities to interact firsthand with someone experienced in Japanese language or culture were very few, and very far between; I was inevitably led to ponder about this culture of which I knew so little.

Of course, by this logic I could have just as easily chosen to study Chinese, Korean, Arabic, or really just about any other language one can think of. Knowing I'd have to--or rather get to--study a language once I arrived at Princeton, I deliberated all summer about which one I'd choose. At times I leaned towards Russian, at other times Arabic, and at other times yet just about any of the other languages Princeton had to offer. Couldn't I just become fluent in all of them? Ultimately, though, I settled on Japanese, and to be perfectly honest, I'm still not entirely sure why I chose Japanese. Maybe it's because from my outsider's point of view, respect seems to be central to Japanese culture, and I find there to be something very--for a lack of a better word--respectable in that. Or it could have simply been because of that last episode of Attack on Titan I watched before selecting classes.

Regardless, I'm stoked for just about everything to do with my Japanese class. I can't wait to reach some level of adequacy in this different language--to speak, to write, to think in Japanese! Even so, I'm also somewhat terrified about what's to come. After only two days of class, I already feel challenged by the course material. The sounds and conventions are all so foreign to me that they often blur together and I forget the proper pronunciation of words. The ひらがな are very hard to keep straight. Despite the challenges, though, I'm committed to this. I committed the moment I tore the shrink-wrap off my copy of Nakama 1 in class on Thursday. Indeed, I can learn Japanese, and I will learn Japanese!