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October 2020

What Japanese has taught me about English

I’d say this is a pretty good topic to talk about, right? There are many things about Japanese that are very different from English. Some are just what they are – they’re different, but there’s no real useful insight to be gained about my own language. The fact that Japanese is postpositional, for example. It’s different, but neither system is better than the other. It’s just how things are. But there are other things that are useful, and at least one thing that I intend on taking from Japanese and… Read More »What Japanese has taught me about English

Let It All Out

As I have mentioned before, I was raised in a religious cult. Music was an important part of the cult, but it was treated more as a ritual than a celebration. We had our hymns which we sang (some were beautiful, some were depfressing, all were treated inexpertly), there was “special music” (which was nearly always performed by inexpert musicians who half the time didn’t know what they were doing), and I was starving. But I didn’t realize it at the time. See, I have the heart of a musician,… Read More »Let It All Out

Culture

Living in America, I like my country. But, apart from things such as the constitution and our predilection for freedom, as fragile as it might be, I don’t like my culture. I don’t think I ever have, honestly. The music we come up with as a country is, generally, stupid. Songs such as “Anaconda” – which is, frankly, an ode to the male organ and thinking with it – are popular. Songs are almost always about love and sex, and generally some puerile idea of what it is anyway, In… Read More »Culture

Why I voted for Donald Trump

I will pause while some of you write knee-jerk comments or unsubscribe. I’ll wait patiently. Done? Okay. I’ve said before that this is a blog, first and foremost, about Japanese topics. But there are times, especially in the past year, when the real world interjects and it’s appropriate to talk about other topics. I promise this will be the last post on political topics for quite a while. Depending on who wins (I think Trump will) there may be one more. But as I’ve said, it is important for me… Read More »Why I voted for Donald Trump

Japanese is not English

Shocker, right? I think Japanese students have some stages that they go through when learning Japanese, especially from a language such as English, and especially if it’s their first second language. The first stage is a kind of one-to-one correspondence between concepts. “How do you say ‘is’ in Japanese?” The answer, of course, is desu. Until it isn’t. Then you get into conjugated verb endings, etc., and you enter the second stage when you realize that there really isn’t a one to one correspondence between words. But for a while,… Read More »Japanese is not English

Just a Random Post

I don’t know what to post about tonight. I’ll probably post about theoretical physics, Japanese, and maybe something about a duck. So I was thinking about the Planck Time. It turns out that at least as far as we know, when it gets down to infinitesimal scales – I mean *very* small – there is a resolution limit to the Universe. There is what is called the “Planck volume”, which is the smallest space possible in the Universe. I guess it could be thought of as a “universe pixel”. But… Read More »Just a Random Post

The Kawaii Metal Phenomenon

I was first introduced to “Kawaii Metal” a couple of years ago, when a coworker showed me “Gimme Chocolate” by Babymetal. My first thought was “What did I just watch?” And then I fell just a little bit down the foxhole. I don’t like all their music, but I like a significant amount of it. Babymetal is somehow special. It’s not that they’re a metal band, because I don’t like metal all that much (though it’s growing on me a bit). It’s not that they’re cute, because on the cuteness… Read More »The Kawaii Metal Phenomenon

Torn

Sometimes it’s really hard to write for this blog. I’ve written, and discarded, two posts already, and who the hell knows if this one will ever make it to the light of day. But I guess, let’s try anyway. I can’t think of any topic in life that I’m not torn about in one way or other. Some say I take life too seriously, and maybe they’re right. Life is too ephemeral to take seriously – no matter what you do in this life, we all end up in the… Read More »Torn

Ancient

My first exposure to Japanese was watching idol group variety shows, so I guess it’s somewhat forgivable that that is generally the lens through which I see Japanese culture. Their culture, as it currently is, is defined by a mishmash of their own culture and language and some very powerful foreign influences that have completely reshaped their culture over the past hundred years or so. But I was reminded that theirs is a much more ancient culture than ours, and to define their culture by how it currently appears is… Read More »Ancient