日本語 and other things.

This is how I feel about日本語: 

      It is such a perfect language.  Everything is composed of blocks that are all the same, yet they can fit together in many different ways to create a huge range of words and ideas.  It feels like building with Lincoln Logs.  There are only five sounds, yet by putting different consonants and “ in front, a whole language emerges.  It is all just a big puzzle.  There is no wavy vagueness; Japanese is solid and geometric.

Here is how I feel about my Japanese capability:

      I am good at understanding and vocabulary, but bad at grammar.  Also, I only know the words that have come up in my life.  So, for example, I know how to say “hedgehog,” “water imp,” and “electron,” yet I just learned the word for “bad” today.  [That says good things about my time here so farJ].  When I talk though, it is usually just a string of words with no grammar particles in between.  But I really can talk a lot as long as my conversation partner doesn’t mind my incorrectness. 

Which makes me think of my life in general:

      I love my host family so much.  They understand my jarbled 日本語, and help me fix it all the time.  At the beginning of my time here, I felt somewhat isolated and like no one really knew me.  Of course, because how could anyone really know me, and how could I really know anybody, if I had only met them a month ago? But now I’ve been living with the Iida family for 3 months, and now I feel completely comfortable around them.  And about people not knowing me, I think they really know me now, but it is a different me.  It is not the me from ConVal or ASP or home life with my real family, but it is me just as much, even though it is new.  I guess it’s like painting a wall—the paint from before is still there, and it makes the wall a little thicker, but the only color that the people looking at the wall see is the top layer.  But the colors underneath affect how the next layer shows up.  And I haven’t turned into a completely new person—I still make little dove trills and get obsessive with tricksy things like juggling and origami and Japanese decorative knot-tying.  For example.  There are lots of things that are the same, but also lots of things that are different. 

      But back to life in general:

      I am so happy.  I feel no stress, for the first time since about 5^th grade.  Probably because I don’t have to worry about homework or tests or grades for the first time.  My only responsibility is making friends and learning Japanese and Japanese culture and being a good person to my host family and the town.  All of which is generally fun.  And I really love learning mandolin!!  I’ve just joined the club [maybe I already wrote about this?].  I have a feeling that the people in the club are the ones that will end up being my closest friends by the end of the year.  They are all so nice and friendly.  Another nice thing is that they are not all 1^st year students.  I’m in 1^st grade [about the same as US 10^th grade] so my classmates are quite a bit younger than me, which is usually fine, but sometimes I’ve wished I knew more people my own age.  And now I do!  Anyway, it is a great combination of music and friend-making and culture-learning and all that.  :]

In general, I feel like all of a sudden I’ve reached a new level of comfort and happiness.  Everything just feels right.  I don’t really know how to describe it.  My mood is like a big set of gears that all interlock perfectly and spin smoothly and are made of old polished wood.  That’s the closest I can get to it. 

Also, since I wrote about 日本語, here’s a little bit about English:

      For the first time, I can tell what it sounds like.  When I first started being able to hear it from an outside perspective, I thought it sounded coarse and unpleasant, but more recently I’ve noticed how awesome English words are.  They are all so different and playful.  Muddle Trivial Luxury Spider Gurgle.