Barely conversational...

おはよう！

オマリー　エミリー　です。わたしは　フロリダから　きました。

ノートルダムだいがくの　にねんせいです。アメリカじんの　いちえんせいの　にほんごの　がくせい。わたしはの　にほんごの　せんせい　はなぶさせんせいです。

せんこは　けいざいがくと　にほんごです。



Beyond that, I can't tell you much other than what time it is. (にじよんじゅうにふんです。）

Oh, and I know my phone number: ごろくいちのろくきゅきゅのよんななななろく。



It doesn't seem like much but we've really learned alot in such a short time. Three weeks ago we started learning ひらがな and now we can write in full sentences (which I really hope I did correctly...)



Learning にほんご　is fun because I've always wanted to learn. I've had a fascination with Japan since Kindergarten, when my class spent a few weeks studying Japan. I forget why studied Japan, but my teacher did know several people who had spent time in Japan, and they came and spoke to us and told us about the Japanese language, culture, cuisine, etc. Someone brought it some sort of soup or something that had bits of seaweed in it, and we all tried it. It was good! I vaguely remember learning the kanji for 'tree'...

I was so excited to learn about Japan. It struck me as so familiar, and yet luringly foreign at the same time. I made this sort of foregin/familiar connection alot at that age. I thought President Bush Sr. was my neighbor. I inadvertently named the new family dog after my grandmother. It may have been just as accidental that I fell in love with the Japanese culture, but it happened.

Unconnected to Kindergarten but around the same time, there was an animated show I used to watch, I think on Nickelodeon, about little people. The only details I remember about the show include one episode where a girl makes a dress and wants to dye it yellow, but a mean girl steals the last yellow dye; and a bit of the theme song "a little bit of laughter, a little bit of crying...". I don't even remember the name of the show. Anyways, what did stand out to me from the show was the style of animation. I later became obsessed with all types of animation, but this was my first exposure to anime, although of course I didn't know it at the time. I didn't learn what anime was called until the Pokemon series came out, and I recongnized the way the eyes look when a character is especially happy or sad.

I had no more anime experience until a little girl I was babysitting once asked if we could watch Spirited Away. I said no, I hate horse movies. (I don't watch movies about horses or read books about dogs. Just a general life rule). And Spirited Away really sounded like a horse movie to me. Anyways, she explained what it was and I agreed to watch it and, naturally, got completely sucked in. They say that your brain is least active when you're watching TV, but I really don't think that's true for me. I think what they mean when they say least active is that you're not actively thinking, and therefore are unaware of something until AFTER it happens, like when you're dreaming. However, I'm constantly thinking about the movie WHILE I'm watching it, even if I'm just thinking "Wow! This is really great! Alan Menken is a genius!" I'm rarely so sucked in by a movie that I can genuinely say I was 100% involved in the story (and therefore not thinking about) the movie. It's only happened about twice: watching The Phantom of the Opera and Spirited Away. It probably happened more often when I was younger, but those are the two times I remember.

Anyways, I didn't exactly become a huge anime fan beyond the occasional Miyazaki film, but it did lead me to other aspects of Japanese culture, and increased my interest for it.



So we were asked to write about how we became interested in Japan, and I've basically written my life story as related to anything Japanese. I hope it made sense...



And if anyone remembers the name of that show/watched it too...?