Japanese Lessons (287 Days)

She suggested taking them up in the most random of ways - Over an anime movie. We were watching "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time" at her place on a lazy Sunday afternoon - Which wasn't a bad thing to be doing, considering our weekends were precious and even more so when work constantly ate into them. I was never a ... what do you call it? A 'Japophile'.

Solid Anime ... No, there's none of the Hentai stuff within...

Well sure, the occasional porn video featuring hot nubile young things dressed in plaid school outfits. And some really good anime like Samurai Champloo now and then.

But learning Japanese? No. That wasn't the way to go. Instinctively, because guys by nature act according to instinct, and for me instinct meant looking at the plausible benefits one could get from picking up a foreign language like Jap. And the answer was clearly zero. So No - It wasn't going to work out very much.

But today is the 287th day from the Breakaway, and I have had SIX Japanese lessons at an excellent Bunka language school located in the well-known Orchard Towers and Orchard Hotel area... US Sailor paradise and transvesites galore.

Patented System Textbooks!(I still don't understand half of the stuff within...)

How did I get to this? How did I, a solid wall of a man, bearing twenty seven solid years of life, succumb to a decision that was so clearly against my interests?

Her argument while lazing languidly on her bed stretching her legs that looked ever so beautifully sculpted ,"Well your brain's pretty rusty from all that work - You might as well get the clogs working again. Nothing beats learning a foreign language to unlock those chasms in the brain..."

That was the catalytic statement getting the flames of war a-going...

It saddened me to realise that like every slice of the general populace, She was no different from them all... She thinks of us as Grunts, obsessed with landing on shores and charging up hills with rifles blazing and mortars blowing up in the background. She doesn't realise the sort of thought that is put into... how was it described by a senior once? Ah yes, the intimate art of killing... plus the fact that I'm heavily into understanding the literature on capability development, force transformation, etc etc, so life across the green zone isn't as simple as she thinks it is. So I'm the rusty brained one eh... My work is nothing compared to yours eh?

Need to stop leading the donkey's life eh???

THE CHALLENGE IS ON WOMAN.*

*- Challenge was laid down within own mind. Nothing conveyed to the woman, written or verbal.

The thing about trying to prove someone wrong without actually letting that person know that you're letting the gauntlet of competition land in their face is that ... you run the risk of coming across as the acquiescent one. Or worse yet, the challenger fails to meet the requirements of the challenge, resulting in the hard gauntlet of competition flapping back and slapping you squarely across the cheeks...

Let me give you an idea of how I'm suffering in Jap class now:

I AM MUTHAFUCKIN DYING IN THAT CLASS

I HAVE YET TO FEEL SO FREAKING RETARDED IN MY ENTIRE EXISTENCE

Every week, the routine is the same... I fight to finish the homework from the previous week, struggling ... and I mean STRUGGLING with a FUCKIN font size 8 Jap-English dictionary...

We went through participles and pronouns last week, MY GAWD I couldn't understand half the GIBBERISH coming from Mr Taka's mouth...

WHAT THE FUCK MAN... It's not that my brain is rusty, I mean, I think... But SHIT it's tough.

The entire plan has backfired. I am in contingency plan F now and I'm telling you... I'm telling you it is disgusting how badly I'm faring.

Mr Taka "OK D-san, please reply to the question... nichiyoobini doko e deska? Please explain why the participle use here is 'e' and not the 'wa' phrase."

Me," e."

Mr Taka, "Yes, why the 'e' participle and not 'wa'."

Me, "wa." Eyes blank out. Fuck-blur face emerges.

(Very very Carefully, Mr Taka casts the direction of his beady little eyes away from my silhouette on to Juna-San, with her eager I'll-suck-your-balls-dry-to-learn-more-jap eyes)

Mr Taka," OK, Juna-San, can you try to explain? How would you reply?"

The fan in my room is oscilliating at a constant 300 revolutions per minute, setting 3 out of 3. It is an old fan, with blades blackened slightly from neglect and age. It has served me well for over 3 years now, with a good 3 more years on it's faded SANYO logo to slog on I hope. All that defines its existence in this little universe of my room is the fact that it is there to cool me. And it does a damn good job of doing so.

Did I have a specialty like that in this universe?

SOmetime one needs to realise that like every animal in the forest bearing their little unique specialty - Ducks swim, bears hunt, chickens cluck... so on, learning a foreign language may not be the best idea on earth. I should have stuck to my guns, now that I think about it, saved myself S$220...

But then what's my specialty to develop on? If I leave my Woman to attend classes now without me, I would have failed to live up to not just HER expectations of me, but my own expectations too. A man doesn't walk out of his woman like that, hiding away when she really needed me there to be a pillar of support for her. She wouldn't have mustered up the courage to take up a language she's been really interested in until I said I'd join her in it (Yes, that's eventually how I put it to her.) Walking out is akin to breaking a promise. And I will not, cannot allow her to see me in any lesser light. (I know, it doesn't get much further from Retarded right now but well...)

If like how I'm discovering now, I have NONE of that specialty in my profession of arms, then i should leave. And that is without doubt - I have done my time, done my utmost to contribute to the organisation... And come up short and lacking. I have sought and at times found nuggets of joy in my work. But this is not MY work. This is not MY world. So I have to leave, and leave soon to find out what lies in the great beyond where I can specialise, try and perhaps discover something about myself that I will die many years down the road ... satisfied that yes. The contribution's pretty good. Left a legacy.

Thanks to the Woman, right now, I think it's pretty much settled that I have a solidly rusted and crusty brain... Used to standard operating procedures and the like, but little else beyond that.

All my life, I've been putting up a false front of bravado, acting 'as-if'. Haha, Since joining the profession of arms 4 years ago. What next now... Who's going to feed the geriatric folks while I continue trying to find my specialty to branch into? WHO?

Duty Honour Country :-)

If i'm willing to work with both my hands, I shall not starve. - Welcome to the new Baseline.