Today's Discovery

Class today was pretty pointless. In my Japanese class we reviewed a bit of grammar, then had a mini-party / lunch type thing. It was one of those parties where everyone brings a little something so everyone ends up with a feast. The problem was it ended up being mostly sweets. I think only half of the food got eaten by the time everyone decided to quit. Before lunch I saw Junko inside Building 22 and talked to her for a couple minutes. She went off with 2 of her friends to lunch while I waited for Vaso and Mike to show up. I am still kicking myself about not eating with Junko, she did invite me (although it could be part of the Japanese tradition of being homely (course that has never stopped me before...)) I ate lunch with Vaso and Mike at Building 29. We grabbed some ice creme afterwards and I headed off to find something to do. My original intention was to sit down and play Advance Wars: Days of Ruin, but I couldn't find anywhere to sit. I got to thinking about my Genji paper that is due next week and figured that comparing a manga version to the actual text could be interesting. Therefore, I went to the nearest book off in search of a couple volumes. I ended up buying a bunch of other manga instead because I could not find Genji anywhere. Even the store clerk didn't know if they had some or not.

While waiting for Genji class to start, I cracked open my purchases and started reading Ranma 1/2. It's about this kid Ranma who turns into a girl when he gets wet. He turns back into a boy with boiling water. Apparently there was some cursed ponds in China that Ranma and his father fell into. His father turns into a panda in water... Right. It also features the typical high school life, full of bully fights. It is pretty weird so far, but it is an easy read.

Also of note in the book off; I saw a Panasonic Q for $80 and almost bought it on the spot. For the less enlightened, the Panasonic Q is a Gamecube made by Panasonic that also plays DVD's. It is silver, roughly 2 inches bigger than the Gamecube on all sides, features a sliding CD drive, and comes with a remote. Like I said, I almost bought it. If it were not for that copy of Smash Bros that has my name on it ^_^

I also picked up this weird manga entitled "Super Mario Kun" (Kun is a suffix for Japanese names usually used with young males.) The manga features Mario and pals in a very stylistic way. It was printed in 1993, before Mario 64 was released. I am very amused at the story.

So finally, my discovery! I realized that instead of playing video games and whatnot, I should be reading Manga! OK it is not that big of a deal, but still, I couldn't bring myself to do it until this point. So from today onward, I will not use my DS or PSP (unless used as an MP3 player) until the end of Spring Break. I am doing this in order to keep my Japanese skills up to par (as there are no classes for 2 months) and also for enjoyment. I have realized that I can actually read and understand what is going on without my dictionary! For example, after reading the first volume of Ranma, I only had a page long list of new vocabulary. Most of them are not crucial to the plot (aside from things like 変態 (metamorphosis) and the like.) Also by this point I have built up a library of 60+ volumes from different series. I want to start finishing the collection of some of my series (I'm looking at you Yu Yu Hakusho) and getting to know new ones. I also want to read them too! At this point I have only read maybe 4 volumes. I would love to do one per day, but that may be a bit hard until school lets out.