to pick up a few phrases. I learn a new conjugation. This makes complete sense, I think, what's all the hype about anyway? I become proud and then, at the assumption of any sort of linguistic control, any understanding, any gratification or sense of accomplishment it rises up and mocks me with how much more I have to learn. What a tease…I love it.

I realize that in fact I am deeply entrenched in a love/hate relationship with the Japanese language. It can be intensely frustrating but I keep coming back for more. I fall prey to its allure: few pronouns, so many borrowed words I already know, soo desu ka drips off the tongue like honey, and the Japanese people are so affirming of my apparent skill even after a simple greeting. I love it for the challenge it presents. I succumb to the thrilling desire of communication sans the 3lb. dictionary. And oh, the fascination of an ability to view a load of kanji and think, "Oh yes, now I understand. Those 20 Chinese characters have
now clarified my confusion," instead of vice versa. During my honeymoon phase with Japanese, the unfortunate zealot that I am undertook a task bigger than herself. I remember naively asking my first year sensei, "Will I be fluent in 3 years?" ha ha ha. Learning Japanese is like climbing down Mt. Fuji; you're exhausted and not in the mood, perhaps you have a headache, you think you can go no farther and yet you are forced to zag down an eternal path of uneven gravel… where is that 5th station? Do I even have a destination? You stop, or
fall rather, throw your hands in the air and ask, "Are you kidding me?!?! This has got to be a joke!!!" But it's not. It's the cruel reality So you keep going. You're already in too deep and all you can do is laugh it off. It's at this point in the learning the attraction to Japanese begins to wear off.

The thrill wears off when you first find out that each kanji has 5-6 pronunciations and 7-8 meanings. The attraction subsides when, after investing in learning polite form, you realize that you can't understand any real conversations outside of the office space. Exhaustion kicks in after learning the casual form and then being introduced to honorific form. The question of "Why do I subject myself to this emotional trauma?" starts with learning which "give" verb to use depending on who you're givin' it too: your boss, your peer, or your pet or plant. Reality kicks in after you've innocently assumed that memorizing the numerals one through ten would actually allow you to count anything, and then peering into the complex world of counters: bound volumes, long cylindrical objects, winged animals, cute things and so on and forth. It's after learning katakana… then hiragana,,. and still being unable to read a damn sentence without undertaking 2,000 more symbols. Its after getting laughs from your sentences that weren't intended to be funny. Maybe I should take it where I can get it…

Not that the language is pure chaos; the most constant grammatical
rule I am beginning to believe is that of the exception. There will always be at