Tonight I had my first legitimate Japanese language lesson since 2008. Thrice I've applied to the Washington Academy of Languages (twice for Mandarin and once for Japanese), and thrice the class has been cancelled due to under-enrollment. I finally came to the realization that I live in a city with a fairly significant Asian population, and decided to seek out a private instructor.
I found him on Craigslist. Born in China and raised in Japan, he has been tutoring a handful of students in Japanese for the past two years, advertising his services as "intensive", catering especially to those preparing for the JLPT. He's reasonably priced and able to come downtown to meet me, so I thought, "Why not? Let's do this thing and see how much I remember."
Turns out, not much.
But how fun! Bit and pieces came back as he started on a whirlwind review of particles, basic conjugations, hiragana and kanji. It was like rediscovering a long-forgotten book, an exploration of not only the characters and plot, but of my memories and feelings from the first time I experienced them. The faces of my old classmates filled the periphery of my vision as I read over the words on the page. Michael Buchheit's oddly comforting smirk. Audrey Lee's bright smile. Jesse Sulam's animated laughter. It took me to a different place and time, away from Seattle's grey, wet winters, and toward the bright, crisp, snowy Bozeman ones.
And with that, my original excitement returned as well. What began as an experiment turned into a resolution. All those vague arguments for why this is an impractical waste of money sort of... melted away. I was never a Japanese History major because it was practical. It was never about garnering a valuable life skill in the event Japanese somehow manages to overtake English, Spanish, Mandarin, etc., as the most-spoken language in the world. For me, it was about exploring a language and culture totally unlike my own, about broadening my perspective and flexing my mind. Those are still worthy objectives.
Let's do this.