Its been a long time since I kept any kind of journal. The first journal that I kept regularly was in highschool, which is full of naive rants and hopeless angst-- both hilarious and depressing at the same time. The last journal I kept was during my study abroad to China and Vietnam and the travels afterwards. The last entry that I wrote was in the Singapore airport, on my way home from a trip to five countries and countless experiences that have completely changed me and defined my current goals. I wrote, "I have many reflections about returning home... HOME! Thats going to me strange."
Well I have been home for a while now and its anything but strange. The monotony of being here is really starting to get to me, especially now that summer school is over and I'm just doing random boring work around the house (helping my Dad tile the bathroom). Every once in a while my mind floats off to a Chinese university, a Vietnamese street or a Thai beach...
What inspired me to start this, and hopefully write in it occasionally, was starting to do the hour hike near my house which I have done 3 out of the 4 past days. It really gets me thinking creatively and positively, whereas sitting around the house all day tends to get me narrowed in on little problems and complaints. When I get up above the canyon in the chaparral and breeze its kind of like "zooming out" and all those little thoughts and problems fade away. I think I'll start doing it almost everyday, since I really should exercise more and because it always puts me in a good mood.
I definitely feel like I learned alot of Chinese by taking 101 at City College this summer. The class was kind of lame in alot of ways but I really don't care, as long as I'm learning. Not only am I interested in the language but I've also made it a large part of my academic path by deciding to major in Asian studies. Plus I'm planning to go to Beijing this spring for a semester to study Chinese, so I'm pretty inspired to learn as much as I can now. One thing I'm happy about is that the characters are actually alot easier than I thought. I've probably learned almost 200 by now. The result is that I look at the characters completely differently. It reminds me of in Peter Hesslers "River Town" ( a highly recommended read) when he starts learning Chinese. The characters have transformed from just random dashes, lines and dots with no meaning whatsoever to something a little more familiar. Even though I can't recognize very many individual characters when I look at a random piece of writing in Chinese, I recognize alot of the components-- a tree, a dagger, a person, a heart, a sun, a child, and so on. Its almost like learning how to read again, except this time its a pictographic system rather than a phonetic one. In other words, its not just learning a different alphabet, but a completely different way of expressing written language (as well as spoken since its tonal).
Well thats all for now.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment