Nuclear Boy & Some Words From Momo

永次 and I opt not to have cable television in the home. Most of our news on the disasters in Japan come from YouTube, streaming Japanese news, or Gakuranman’s live updates. I’m not even sure what to blog about or how to blog about normal things. I feel like it’s wrong to talk about Japanese learning and immersion, and I feel like anything on the situation in Japan has already been said, but I feel like it’s wrong not to post anything at all.

永次 and I are slow to update, but learning Japanese can be a slow process. 永次 owes me like a hundred Kanji & Tea posts (it’s well past his turn) but don’t take that to mean he’s not interested. He studies more than I do and is a lot farther along, but he explains that he doesn’t feel “right” in blogging about it until he succeeds, as to not mislead people. And I say what’s wrong with documenting the process? What about encouraging others while you’re learning? But if I’m honest, I need to blog about it so that I’m accountable. I know myself well enough to know that if I try to do something and nobody knows I’m doing it I’m more likely to bend the rules (Ladies: sound familiar? Dieting, perhaps?) and or just give up. But at least I recognize this characteristic (aka fault) and I care enough about my learning that I will try to outsmart myself.

So, while most bloggers are blogging like everything is normal, I just don’t feel like I can. I know that the US media is blowing everything out of proportion. (I haven’t seen a single lick of television from the US but here in Canada we had coverage of our neighbors buying iridium.) I’m not saying nobody should blog like normal, because that’s all we can do. We can send our support and donations to Japan, keep watch, don’t panic and stay positive. I just personally feel like I’m lost in limbo. I spent most of this week looking up my old hometown (古里) in Okinawa and feeling silly when I studied kanji on my phone.

But this video made me feel better, so I thought I would share it with you.

I will say this, though: I am far enough along in my Japanese that I actually had the words to share and could express myself when this tragedy struck.

心よりお悔やみ申し上げます。日本強いままで。