2023/06/09 English

BGM: スチャとネバヤン - ネバやんとスチャやん

Ah, what is my career? How can it mean? This morning I had a time so wrote an English paper of homework for the English conversation class. On it, I wrote about the communication with friends who have been learning Japanese I have met on Discord. And I went back to my college days, and wrote the fact that I had never studied seriously at that period. I just hanged around a lot... and I also wrote that once I had been a student of Waseda. It was about 30 years ago. Usually, I don't tell about this Waseda things to other people because the people who learn this tend to "respect" me or have an aggressive emotion toward me. Anyway, that can't enable us to do any communication frankly so I started thinking I shouldn't tell this a lot by myself. In Japan, this wonderful country, this kind of modesty is alive. We say "clever hawks hide their craws" as a popular idiom. Indeed, I don't believe this idiom so seriously, but I might adore the character of "Patlabor", Captain Gotoh. He is a mysterious and really smart person.

This saying would make enemies... but I say that Waseda was not for me the university I had adored or wanted to go really seriously. Basically, I had been interested in translation. And also I wanted to learn English literature so I wanted to attend Kobe City University of Foreign Studies. However, my brother recommended me as "Are you interested in Tokyo?" and "Why don't you try to go to Waseda?". So I just tried to go to visit Tokyo as a sightseeing and do the exam. In other words, it was a souvenir. Then, I passed it so started attending loosely... and couldn't find any good jobs so lived terrible days with alcohol. Ah, what a life. Like a rollercoaster. Up and down... Once I had been ashamed of that days in Waseda because it was for me just a lucky strike. It was just a history for me to be hidden. It was too much, and really shameful.

Like that, I thought it could be a shame. It must be from a past traumatic event of mine. "You are crazy" and "You should be weird and idiotic"... I had been bullied like that so I started thinking "I am not great" (I guess this must not be from modesty). And also I had been born in a rural area, so the atmosphere didn't accept that kind of "too much" person with kindness... I confessed this to a friend of mine on Facebook, and she recommended me that I should choose the way I feel comfortable. Now I think that "I shouldn't say this too much because it wouldn't fit me" (you don't mention this as "You are already saying too much in your journal"). It was, this would sound for you as a hurtful expression to me, but just single success for 30 years ago. It was just a past event. I now think that I want to show this myself. Current myself... I have been trying to learn English and quit alcohol. This true size myself. That's the one I can show you with a pride.

I read Nick Enfield's book "How We Talk". TBH I am not good at doing conversation, so it tells me a lot. Yes, this is a great one. This might sound like Haruki Murakami like, but I guess that there must not be any "perfect conversation". People usually say in their talking as "Uh-huh" or "Umm". They wonder what they should say, and from that start saying the "better" things and keep on doing communication to make any proper conclusions. Me, I tend to dream "speaking fluently" or "saying smoothly and smartly" but it must be a dream. As this book tells, communication means the result of collaboration with the other one (so we need to associate with them). This book is from that kind of basic facts. It is really interesting for me to go back to see the point of view to look back at the communication. And I thought that I wanted to go to see the Japanese class near my home. I asked a friend to attend there. I would go there next Sunday.