I've learned 292 Kanji so far. I started really honestly trying to learn the kanji at the tail end of January, seeing as how it has only been a month and a half.. call it 50 days, this is fairly significant. I really owe it all to Remembering the Kanji by James W. Heisig. It is, bar none, the only way to really try and take on written Japanese as a second language.

Its pretty freaking cool.

The title of course, refers to a Zen koan where a doctor gets upset, becuase he fixes up solders, and they just go back into battle, and get hurt again, or even die.

it also refers to the fact that peopl esometimes ask me "Why do you read tarot?"

This is why.

The very thought me taking that final step of being an Otaku Gaijin fills me with a certain amount of pride and dread (pread? dride?). Nothing says "Hard Core Geek" like learning Japanese.

What has made me take the plunge is a rather long rant, involving a whiteboard, lots of beers, and Jason Stormchild. He was showing me some Kanji, and how some kanji have an etymological basis. To the right, you can see the kanji for 'sun' and 'moon'. When you put those two characters together, you get the kanji for 'bright'. Similarly, the kanji for 'forest', is 3 trees done up together. Finally, there is the kanji for 'east', which is a combination of the kanji for sun and the kanji for tree, so it is like the sun rising in the east, peeking out through the trees.

It was this explanation (which, was way more poetically put by Jason) plus the repeated assertions that I would be one of the people to get a lot out of learning kanji that made me take the plunge. Learning a new verbal language has the same kind of potential as learning a new programming language, except, I rather suspect, that instead of changing the way you think about programming, it changes the way you think about thinking.

You Can't Do That On Television was an absolutely brilliant childrens Canadian sketch comedy show. Alanis was one of the actresses.

Blast from the past, neh?

Check out a few recent "the show"'s where Ze Frank talks about creativity trhough new perspectives and learning. Did you know he was a Neuroscientist?

Over on the BPS Research Digest, they have an article on the Line Between Artist and Madman. Apparently artists and schizophrenics share a lot of similar experiences, with a single exception. Apparently the line which separates an artist from a mad(wo)man is introvertive anhedonia—a condition where one lacks motivation and emotion.

As an aside, check out the Art of Louis Wain, an Artist who started out "normal", but developed schizophrenia as he aged. Pictured to the right is a 'stage 2' drawing of a cat. Check the link for even crazier kitties.

I've been singing Harmony the ducky song lately... you know, the ducky song from Ze Frank:

Who likes the little duckies in the pond?
I do, I do, I do
A chick-a quack quack!

and Shell recorded it on video. I posted it to the Intros section on the gallery, and turned my daughter into a star. Of sorts.

Yay fun!