zzzz...

I reached school today at 11am for a design meeting that, for unforeseen circumstances, was cancelled. I was supposed to meet my design project’s mentor but to cut a long story short the meeting was cancelled. That only made the trip here even more painful because I could have stayed at home till 3pm!!

My next lecture is only at 4pm. I have now managed to spend 2 hours or so doing some stuff and studying my Japanese a little. Unfortunately, I still have another 1 ½ hours to go. And there is no way I can cram any more Japanese into this English brain of mine. Now I know how a sponge feels like. I feel so bloated... and sleepy too...

Although I’m totally saturated with Japanese, I’m at least finally starting to get used to the idea of recognizing Japanese alphabets. I even think Japanese is easier to learn than Chinese because with Chinese, there is no alphabet! Everything is just about memorizing. There is no rationale as to why the word for “mu” (wood) was drawn that way. Some cave man just decided that “wood” looks something like a tree and drew it out. Then another guy decided to simplify it further and now the character looks like a cross with 2 chicken wings at the side. =P

However, I think Chinese is such a beautiful written language. After all, have we ever heard of English calligraphy? I suspect it probably exists but it just isn’t as prominent as Chinese calligraphy because Chinese characters in themselves are already mini drawings. And the best part about calligraphy is that a calligrapher seems to have a “poetic licence” whereby they can write the strokes in their own way. For instance, I remember how Ong Teng Cheong once wrote a beautiful word called “shou” (longeivity). He made the downward stroke extra long because he wanted to convey the idea that this word represents things that are meant to last as long as possible. I thought that was quite cool. Now if only my secondary school Chinese teacher could be as appreciative as me when I wrote a stroke too long. =P

Japanese looks nice but I think Chinese still tops the chart for the most elegant calligraphy. Arabic is quite nice too but I guess it’s harder for me to appreciate the calligraphy when I don’t understand the meaning behind it.

Nonetheless, my favourite language will always be English. After all, a language at its most basic level is something used to communicate your thoughts and feelings to others. And I know that English is the only language that could really allow me to do just that.

And it’s an added bonus when some people even find it humorous too.