American Gaijin
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Vivid
I have few clear memories of being a child, but the ones I do have have are extremely clear. I remember the vivid pastel colors of tulips, yellow, purple, violet, and red. I remember other flowers, and how perfectly vivid and beautiful they were. There are some small yellow flowers I remember on a berm…
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Rules
I don’t like rules. I mean, I really don’t like rules. Particularly stupid rules or rules I don’t agree with. Now, I’ll be clear: not all rules are stupid, and not all rules I disagree with. “Don’t kill someone or take their stuff” is a pretty good rule. In fact, the Ten Commandments have pretty…
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ReMarkable 2 Review
A few months ago, I ordered a gadget called the “ReMarkable 2”. It is an E-Ink-based tablet that is supposed to feel and operate like paper. I received it a couple of weeks ago, and this is my review. It is nearly the size of a normal piece of 8.5×11 paper, and while not nearly…
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A Change of Direction
My last post was an eye-opener. It was the single best single-day performing post I have ever had, and I think it gained the most likes and followers of all of the posts I have ever written. And it had nothing to do with Japanese. In fact, near as I can tell, the only reason…
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Why I Suck at Blogging
A week or so ago, I decided to post on a Japanese forum an observation I made about learning Japanese. Some people agreed, some people didn’t. I expressed the opinion that I was posting in order to share an observation that I made, but at the end of the day, I wasn’t really interested in…
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Biden has not yet won
I promised that I would not make this a political blog, and I intend on keeping that promise. With the last post like this, however, I also stated that there may be one more post, depending on how the election turns out. Well, considering that most of my audience on this blog is global, there…
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What Japanese has taught me about English
I’d say this is a pretty good topic to talk about, right? There are many things about Japanese that are very different from English. Some are just what they are – they’re different, but there’s no real useful insight to be gained about my own language. The fact that Japanese is postpositional, for example. It’s…
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Let It All Out
As I have mentioned before, I was raised in a religious cult. Music was an important part of the cult, but it was treated more as a ritual than a celebration. We had our hymns which we sang (some were beautiful, some were depfressing, all were treated inexpertly), there was “special music” (which was nearly…
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Culture
Living in America, I like my country. But, apart from things such as the constitution and our predilection for freedom, as fragile as it might be, I don’t like my culture. I don’t think I ever have, honestly. The music we come up with as a country is, generally, stupid. Songs such as “Anaconda” –…
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Why I voted for Donald Trump
I will pause while some of you write knee-jerk comments or unsubscribe. I’ll wait patiently. Done? Okay. I’ve said before that this is a blog, first and foremost, about Japanese topics. But there are times, especially in the past year, when the real world interjects and it’s appropriate to talk about other topics. I promise…