Yay, I passed my jap tests, both oral and written and am going on to elementary 2.   Sometimes I wonder if I have taken on more than I could manage, and I have not had time for baking (which is not necessary bad even though I love baking, or everyone in the family will end up putting on weight, especially Vincent as he has to taste everything I bake to show his support!).  I also hardly have time to play with my crafts.   But I do love everything I am learning, and I think it is ingenious of me to combine jap with calligraphy.   I recently bought a synthetic brush from korea and it is really good for writing small characters, unlike the natural wolf hair brush, but it does have its limitation as it is not as easy to control and the flow is not as smooth as the natural wolf hair brush.

I am beginning to love the japanese language even though it is a great pain to learn (especially at my age), all the new enunciation, conjugation, different forms of verbs (the japanese are the most polite people ever, they have polite, respectful as well as humble forms of verbs.   But as Qi always reminds me, look out for the logic and everything will fall into place.   She should know, she has learned so many languages, jap, german, spanish and french.

I am determined to master japanese and hopefully by the time I am done with elementary 2, I can write a short note to Tak-san's wife, I finally know her name, "Jiu mei zi-san"   it is kinda sad, only to know her name after Tak-san's passing, and she sent me a note with her name.   My main purpose of learning jap, other than having a keen interest in Japanese culture and calligraphy, is to be able to communicate with her and maintain contact now that Taksan is no longer around to translate for us.