Tag Archive: japanese

It’s not MY fault that fate hates me.

I don’t believe in coincidences. Not in a super-spiritual, esoteric way… I just don’t believe in coincidences. I think that the world is far, FAR too complex for us to understand the way things work completely. Like V said in V for Vendetta, there are no coincidences, just the illusion of coincidences (or something to that effect). I’m inclined to agree.

The thing is, I believe that life — via some universal spirit/world/life ‘thing’ — will try and teach you lessons as you go along in life. And it’ll try and get your attention by showing you something time and time again or through many things converging all at once.

The latter of those two has recently happened to me.

If you’ve been following my blog for a few months you will remember back in September when I was worried about what to study at university. After assessing your opinions and my thought, I made the sound decision to study English, not Japanese.

Recently, with lots of things suddenly walking into the kingdom of my life, I can’t help but wonder if I chose wrongly.

First I stumbled on an album by my favourite J-Pop singer, Hikky, and HAD to get it. And then I got Ping.FM on Rhythmbox (my lappy’s media player) and suddenly lots of Japanese singers were being saved into my favourites. Nothing too fate-istic, I agree.

Until about a week ago.

It started with food. I suddenly had a desire for miso and udon — and to cook them together. And I finally started to use that jar of unpasteurized miso in the cupboard. It wasn’t long before I was up to my eyeballs in miso-y broth.

And then films… Just before Christmas, in my Spanish lessons, we watched Pan’s Labyrinth. Pan’s Labyrinth being distributed by Optimum Releasing in the UK. Optimum Releasing which, would you believe, distributes the 6 Japanese movies my English teacher gave me on Thursday after he randomly had his copy of Spirited Away on a windowsill. Spirited Away being my favourite movie (ever.).

But that’s not much, right? It’s just a bit of music, food cravings, watching large amounts of Japanese films and a distributor link. And something Japanese-y appearing in search results on Frostwire which never usually appear.

And the fact that a few days ago I decided (before I had realized all of these tiny ‘coincidences’) to re-learn hiragana.

And that I’ve been watching Boston Legal over the internet and, what a surprise, a story arc started to do with an asian person in the past couple of days.

So Music, TV, Film, Frostwire, Food, UK Film Distributors and Impulse Learning Desires.

“Hmm…” is an understatement.

And so even though I made this decision to study English at university, and I’ve started to get responses from universities for conditional offers, I still can’t help but feel like a big bad fraud.

It’s a head vs. heart case, and the internal judge of me can’t work out which one should get the favorable ruling, especially with all these sudden influences appearing in my life.

I don’t believe that I’m seeing all of these things right now, just as the application-for-university deadline has passed, by chance. Nor am I going to ignore these feelings I have that Japanese-orientated things, without fail, evoke in me.

I won’t deny how I feel and I won’t deny these signs. I’m glad that universities allow students to change degrees when they start out. Though, that does assume I’m going to get in. D:

I don’t understand the path I’m walking upon, but I know that it’s meant for me. Japanese or not, something invisible is moving through my life right now. And you know what?

I ain’t gonna stop it.

I’m asking for help.

I’ve always criticised myself harshly for never asking for help from people.

But I’m throwing caution to the wind right now.  I’ve thought and thought and thought and I’m no closer to making a decision now than before.  So…

Background:

In the next month I send off my UCAS (that’s ‘University and College Admissions Something’) application to apply for a place at 5 different universities.

Unfortunately for me, however, I’m the type of person that finds it very difficult to make up their mind on something.

And so I’m stuck.  No, I’m torn.  My heart is split in two and I can’t see which way to go.  Both sides are balanced.

Choice 1; English Language.

Any person that knows me in real life (or moderately well in cyberspace) knows that I’m an English geek. I love English.  And I love grammar.  Some parts of English Language make me swoon with awesomeness and, to others’ confusion, I enjoy reading encyclopedias on English.

I love English.  I love understanding English and, most importantly, I love writing English.

A degree in the English Language would almost certainly give me the capability to get a job in almost any area I want, too (at least theoretically).

It seems like it’s the right choice to take, no?

I’d agree, until enters…

Choice 2; Japanese.

Japanese and I have had a very long relationship.  Indeed, my interest has existed a good 3 years before I ever liked English or writing or grammar.

It started when a substitute teacher showed my temporary geography class the film ‘Spirited Away’.

Ever since watching the first 35 minutes of that film, I was enthralled.  To this day, ‘Spirited Away’ is my favourite film.  Ever.  And if you haven’t seen it, I think you should go and watch it.

And the thing is, that’s what makes Japanese for me SO utterly different from English Language.  Japanese culture — its film, music and art — has touched me in ways which English culture and society never has.  Ever.

And add to this the fact that as far back as I can remember, I’ve been drawn to East Asia.  I’ve always wanted to go there.  To experience the foreign world and its intricacies.

Most of all, I’d like to become a part of that currently very foreign world.  I’ve always had a frown on with England.  Well, the UK in general, really.   And I talked about this yesterday.

And don’t get me wrong, a couple of months back I knew almost all of one of the Japanese alphabets.  It was great learning it and the challenge was far more… heh, ‘foreign’, than learning English.

engorjapAnd so I am completely torn.

English is something I know I’m good at remembering.  I’m a whizz with terms and can very easily recite to you what an affix inflection or intensifying adverb is.  But, well, even though it does get me a little bit excited, I don’t really care outside of using that knowledge to:

A) Make money.

B) Use it to make my writing more varied.

C) Understand other forms of writing, which then feeds back into A or B.

But Japanese?  My God does Japanese touch me.  I just clicked a soft, Japanese song on and it’s almost as if my heart is quietly vibrating with that… ‘touchedness’.  It flings my mind to far off countries and worlds which I know… which I know I’ll probably never really get around to seeing if I follow the English path.

And you know, it’s almost funny.  I sleep on a traditional Japanese-style futon.  I have the MUJI catalogue about a foot away from my laptop.  I can see a Japanese language instruction book 2 yards away on my Nike step.  My favourite film is from Japan.  A boy at school I have a crush on looks like he’s from an anime comic.

But Japanese doesn’t really lead me to a job.  Or a future beyond just going to a foreign country and settling down.

I’m torn between following my heart and following my head.  I need guidance.  I’m asking for help.