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Category: Diary
Tags: Hiragana Music

May-15

Friday Morning, May 15, 2015

Every good pen I own is dead so I now write in blue. Perhaps green would be a better color to write in as compared to blue, simply because its vitality sets it apart from what is expected in offices and parliaments and other places of pen-expectation. The green ink was admired by Pablo Neruda, who wrote (as I now look through his catalog of works) "Every Day you Play," a poem which speaks to my love of the romantic and introspective works of fitzgerald and, to a lesser extent, Joyce. But I did not set pen to paper in hopes of preserving my pedantic tendency; my intent was to learn, then practice a weekly regiment of hiragana, which will dance beautifully down the page if only after I have set down more thought.

I am now listening to Wakusei Abnormal, a Japanese rock band debuting in 2013. And, while I love the music in my library, it is wonderful to look backwards, down the slope of the mountain and trace the shape of that path which has borne me here.

My love affair with Japanese music began, as I can precisely tell you by the timestamps on the files in my library, on March 15th of this year, and has only blossomed since. On March 15th I grabbed Porter Robinson's "Worlds", an album which Robinson sought inspiration for from his childhood profound feelings of nostalgia and fondness of japanese culture; the latter influence has truly been my driving impetus. Before that day, my taste had largely lay within the bounds of indie and post/progressive rock; before that, though I hesitate to think on it too long, I listened avidly to EDM and such older bands I had developed a surface-level appreciation for.

Just before listening to Worlds, I was exploring the catalogues of Brahms and Debussy, the latter being suggested to me by Puella Magi Madoka Magica, a show Japanese show which I foster very tender emotions over, though I'm unsurprisingly embarassed to admit this to anyone. This show really sparked an appreciation of other cultures, and immediately afterwards I began to read more and more and as well I began to listen to music which draws from experience far different from my own. My modest library of books became a complimentary force of broadening knowledge to my music, and soon I was reading Yasunari Kawabata and █████████ while listening to Explosions in the Sky or Kinoku Teikoku. The journey is of a very great magnitude and variance.

But I speak to these events as though they happened in some distant time before now; rather, these miraculous things have happened in the past three months!

Was that exciting? I expect it was for you as well. The esthetic pleasure of the language far suprasses that of English. It is, however, much more limited in vocabulary given the sheer number of English words.

I will maintain this candid, conversational book and refrain from erasing too many words, but I do want to reform my speech and hand, so as to sound and consequently be as direct and well-spoken as ███████ or █████. In reading the works of these giants I have realized my own linguistic shortcomings and look to remove the colloquial phrase and awkward sentence structure. Very, superflous writing is like arriving at a soiree a stiff and volumous dress. If you were uncareful, you may trip and fall!

Orwell does a fine job at converying so directly; most authors I read do. Even the eastern authors, though to a lesser extent, speak and write well; least those whose books I own.

Considering there are five groups of five hiragana each and six groups of fewer hiragana each, and considering katakana has ten gorups of five syllabograms, I will have a rounded understanding of katakana and hiragana by the summer's end. Through this summer I will be taking 8 credit hours on campus, and I will have time to refresh the straggling hiragana and the body of katakana.

This is a lofty goal, but what more is there to strive for; what an excellent way to battle idleness and ignorance. I have exhausted a playlist of Explosions in th Sky and am now listening to Asobi Seksu's self-titled album. Next on the burner is Mutyumu, meaning a "dream within a dream." The kanji is terrible complex but below I shall attempt to write it:

[large attempt at writing 夢の夢]

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