蕨餅

You remember, as a kid, the pure unadulterated excitement of the ice cream truck? I mean, really. In the course of growing up, kids learn to keenly attune the senses to almost ninja-like proficiency all specialized to reacting with the greatest possible speed to that music we all hate because of its infuriating catchy-ness, "Pop, Goes the Weasel." If any ice cream truck comes within a ten mile radius, they know. And invariably, the parents are soon to find themselves, reluctantly or otherwise, ordering rainbow pops, spider man face who-knows-what and neapolitan ice cream sandwiches.

Anyway, so this the feeling that comes about when reminiscing or seeing something suddenly that brings afresh memories from seeming aeons ago is called 懐かしい (or, natsukashii). As an aside, this is probably the closest you can get to saying "I miss (whatever)" in Japanese. There's simply no way to say "I miss you." So, that 懐かしい feeling just bubbled up upon hearing the Japanese equivalent of the Ice Cream Man as we lovingly called him during childhood.

In an awesome voice recording which I sadly cannot reproduce for your enjoyment, this Japanese truck of delectables was pronouncing 蕨餅 (warabi-mochi):

Delectable warabi-mochi

Upon hearing this, I was like, "Wow! 懐かしい but not really since it's not an ice cream truck and my first time hearing this, but still 懐かしい!" The picture is a more grandly presented warabi-mochi than Mr. Warabi-mochi Man's, but tastiness doesn't suffer in the least. I was all excited about the 32 seconds of interaction with the guy, since it was all in Japanese. Though to be honest, our total conversation time, being generous probably sums to an impressive 5 seconds. うれしかった! I was happy.

And along the lines of learning Japanese, I'm becoming close friends with feeling completely inadequacy and retarded-ness. Frustration too is close at hand. However, in a way, those feelings have helped me to give up some of the expectations and "shoulds" to just study and enjoy it. Right now, vocabulary is the name of the game. I'm all gung ho about learning grammar and all that, but vocab I easily slough off into I'll-get-around-to-it land. A truly dangerous place. But, one sneaky trick I found is reading real Japanese. The speed of reading brings to mind creatures such as slugs and three-toed sloths. Not beautiful creatures and slow and all heck.

Yet, vocab in this way sinks in stealthily and I enjoy the thrill of understanding something in Japanese. You know, conversation practice is remarkably like this too, but that too is in the abject neglect department for me. Seriously, if you've ever started learning a foreign language, you can relate to the feeling that deer must get when staring into headlights, "oh shit!" Because every time a real conversation or even simple interaction begins, it seems that all hell has broken loose and in the process of breaking loose has stolen everything you know about the language. Even one word phrases jovially fly past my brain with naught a hint of understanding. Then, when the person translates to English (which almost invariably and infuriatingly happens, albiet the English may be just as terrible as my Japanese) it's like, "oh, damn, I knew how to say that" and you suddenly are able to parse what the person originally said. 仕方がないね. Oh, well. Keep going.

Oh, on a completely unrelated note, 給料日 (payday) was yesterday. The first ever. I just realized that my first paycheck from a full time job is in yen. And also, segwaying again, 夏休み (summer vacation) is in a couple weeks. Current plans are to go to Osaka again and see Chi, go climb Mt. Fuji and also go to 山梨県 to visit a friend met while at the Pālolo Zen Center.

Well, ta ta for now, guys. Sorry about the seriously exaggerated gap from the last post, but thanks for staying with the nonsense.

Over and out.