Day in the Life of an Idiot

In further adventures in language learning, Memrise just taught me this amazing phrase that I wish you could hear a native speaker say: "エコじゃないんじゃないかなぁ" It sounds something like "ECHO ja nai n ja nai ka na-a." I know this is hard to parse, but it's a very fun, repetitive sound. It almost sounds like someone pretending they speak Japanese, you know? 

Those of you who have been following me for awhile might remember my story about listening to cassette tapes of "John Learner" and his trip to Japan to do business with his old college friend in the 1980s.

I've now hit that moment in Pimsleur (which I often call "Pimp's leur" since they seem VERY INSISTENT on teaching me how to ask a woman out) where I'm like, geez, Pimpsleur, you're not even hiding it any more. I have steadily been asking this nice young Japanese lady what she thinks of the weather, would she like to go back to my place, what time she wants to go to dinner, what she's doing today, even learning how to push it when she says that "Nine o'clock is a little...." (DUDE, SHE IS JAPANESE. SHE IS SAYING NO THANK YOU, HOW ABOUT NEVER??) ....and now, they're just straight up teaching me to ask, "How much money do you have?"

Wow, after all this build up, I thought for SURE I was at least paying for this meal at Nanbantei. (They legit teach you the name of this restaurant).

Apparently, not.

Apparently, I only have fifteen bucks in my pocket. (Actual content.)

What the hell, Pimpsleur. 

I am the worst. I think I liked hapless John Learner better.

Meanwhile, today is Wednesday so I should report on my consumption of various media. Monday, as I said, was anime night, and we watched:

Episodes 3 and 4 of Good Omens
The first episode of The Case Files of Lord El-Melloi II
more of Shounen Onmyouji

On my own, I caught up with Given, which is the one of these (besides Good Omens, which I assume you all have already watched a hundred times) I would whole-heartedly recommend. Given is a boys' love manga, but don't let that put you off. There are no yaoi hands in this anime. More importantly, despite some major angst, this is mostly a story about loving music, learning to be good at a thing, and what it means to be labeled as "talented" or a "prodigy." Like often happens, I'm personally invested in some of the side characters, but the main character, Uenoyama, amuses the heck out of me, too. It's also just lovely--very pretty, visually. I have been told the music isn't half bad, either.

I also just started watching A Certain Magical Index on the recommendation of a friend. I can't say much about that one yet, as I'm only two episodes in.

The only thing I've read was catching up on chapters of Ao no Exorcist/Blue Exorcist.

What about you?

Yesterday, Mason and I managed to "hit the slopes" for a little while in the afternoon. It actually snowed (and stayed,) so we had to venture out to attempt a little sledding. The hill at the Country Club is awesome because it's steep enough that I'm not sure how necessary snow really is... a slick piece of cardboard would probably work just was well in the summer time, if you know what I'm saying.

In the evening, we went to Kuk Sool Wan. That, as usual, was a lot of fun. I'm setting a couple of goals this year, and one of them is to finally really GET the tornado kick. Luckily, we worked on it last night. Then a couple of friends and I went out for coffee, which was a real treat. Grown-ups! Granted, they were the sort of grown-ups with which I could fannishly go on about Bleach with, but hey, that actually works for me.

Speaking of which, I'm planning on attending Anime Detour for the first time this year. Listen, when I jump into a fandom it's with both feet, damn it! Sadly, Bleach is really kind of old school for a lot of people, so I'm not sure what I'll have to talk to anyone about. Still, it should be fun to go. Perhaps I can try out my rude Japanese.

So, yeah, I've been meaning to post about the further adventures of "John Learner" the hero of my language tapes. I picked up these Japanese language tapes at Half Price Books, and started trying to learn polite Japanese while driving in the car (they're cassette tapes). The author of the tapes decided that it would be a good hook to have a kind of story happening in the background. John is in Toyko to meet up with his college chum Toro and to negotiate a business deal with his company. (This is 1984, everyone is in Japan on business). John has the sort of adventures you might expect on a language tape. He has to go through customs, take a taxi to the hotel, check in, etc. A long the way, he learns to say "hello (polite form)" and count to ten.

The other day, I'm driving and half-listening to some simple phrases, "I want coffee" and "I would like tea." And, then out of the BLUE, John says, "I want to live." I nearly swirved off the road! John!!! What's going on???

I suspect he's preparing to say something like, "I want to live in Toyko," but he never goes there. He just WANTS to LIVE.

So, now on my list of things that I really want to have on a language tape is a whole series of misadventures, because really, when you're in another country, especially one where you don't speak the language, things NEVER GO SMOOTHLY. The time when you're really desperate to know how to speak the local tongue is usually when your bag is missing or the hotel has lost your registration. So, I'd like to record a sort of "flip-side" to the John Learner tape in which poor John arrives in Tokyo and the first thing he hears from the airport officials is, "Could you step out of line, sir?"

And things go badly from there.

I was thinking it would even be fun to have a scene where the taxi driver dumps poor John in the crappy neighborhood and demands extra money before taking John to hotel. John, having wasted his money bribing officials to let him in the country, decides to tell the taxi drive to stuff it... this is where the tape will introduce the listener to all sorts of rude Japanese while John tries to get back to the hotel in one piece.

"Don't shoot! I want to LIVE!!"

You'd listen to a tape like that, wouldn't you?