I have purchased the books required to attend the CC Japanese class, and have paid the tuition. Looks like I’m doing this.
The book is “Yookoso 3”, which is horrendously expensive (I got it for about $99 and that’s half the price the bookstore was selling it at), the workbook which is also horrendously expensive (I got it for $80, which was a $40 discount from what the bookstore was selling it), and I didn’t opt for the CDs, as those resources are available online. So, in total, I would have had to pay $400, and instead I paid $170. Still a lot, but that’s doable.
I didn’t know it was going to be that expensive though. I should have guessed. It’s college, after all.
I leafed through the workbook and textbook, and my learned and considered decision is that I know about 70% of what I should know about halfway through the class, so maybe I can do this.
The question remains, though: why do I want to? And to be honest, I still don’t know. The honest truth is that I’m a bit of a misanthrope on the best of days, so why would I be learning a language, the result of which I will know enough about the Japanese culture to know what I don’t like about it? There are two sayings: “familiarity breeds contempt” and “ignorance is bliss”, and both are the truest things ever.
But I’m doing it anyway.
Honestly, I will consider myself to be improving in Japanese when I can read enough of something or listen to enough of something to know that it’s boring.
This much I know – I find much of the Japanese culture that we Americans seem to like increasingly boring. Perhaps it’s overexposure, perhaps I am having one of those moments where I have become familiar enough with it that it has lost its exoticism. As unnerving as that is, and as adrift as it makes me feel, I feel that it’s a positive development, as there’s much more to the ancient and sometimes beautiful Japanese culture than a bunch of teenage girls flailing around and trying to find their notes. I would branch out into other Asian cultures except Japanese is a friggin’ handful on its own, so one thing at a time, I suppose.
I just wish I knew what doors it could open, because right now it feels very much as if I’m voluntarily wasting my time.