Writing in Japanland

*This post is for an assignment

The Japanese written language was, unsurprisingly, ripped straight out of China. This posed a bit of a problem because of the stark differences between the two languages, and soon after its adoption Chinese writing was adapted to mesh with the intricacies of Japanese. Reconfigurations ranged from subtle to extreme. Japanese was initially modeled phonetically, using representations of sounds and syllables from the Chinese language and stringing them together to match a Japanese word. Eventually Japanese began to use the characters ideogrammatically, which followed the meaning of the Chinese word rather than its sound. These two techniques fused together came to be known as kanji. Japanese encountered problems when there were no words in the Chinese language that represented certain distinctly Japanese concepts, and the rules for spelling were a complete mess. Kana was soon introduced, which literally meant "borrowed words". Kana split off into two types, hiragana and katakana, of which hiragana became the dominant writing system in Japan. Reading Japanese requires the mastery of several different writing systems, including kanji, kana, and most recently, a knowledge of the European alphabet. While Japanese has its own unique history, its development was similar to those of many languages throughout the world.

Blogging is Serious(?) Business

Stream of consciousness style, huh... not exactly my forte', but I'll give it a shot. When I first started thinking about this whole blogging deal, I felt pretty unsure of myself. The thought of baring myself for all to see was and still is a little unnerving. I'd read blogs in the past, but the act of making and maintaining my own seemed like an alien concept.
Then I realized that I've done stuff like this all the time on a different scale.
Creating any kind of networked profile is relatively similar in execution, as is the simple act of keeping a private journal. The difference lies in potential. A blog post has the ability to reach a fantastic amount of people simply by existing, and this fact makes the act of blogging seem like a dangerous responsibility. Even while writing this fairly innocent reflection I'm second guessing myself, unsure if what I'm writing on this page is truly communicating what I want it to (which, when coupled with the issue of not knowing what exactly I'm trying to say, is doubly alarming).
To be honest, I'm not having the most enjoyable experience with this. I feel like what I'm writing is extremely contrived. The way that I bounce ideas around in my head isn't entirely tailored for this method of communication. Maybe it's just the introductory phase taking its toll. Perhaps I should try going the route of the vlog instead.
While I sit here pondering, I can't help but think that I chose a bad time to blog. This sort of business is largely dependent on the author's state of mind at the time of writing. This being for a class, my gift of procrastination had an effect on when I chose to write my entry. I'm not here to make excuses, so excuse me while I make one.
Does any of this really matter in the grand scheme of things? Not really. Should the collective populace care what I think? To say yes would be egotistic (and almost certainly false). As I etch this entry into the annals of internet history, the world continues unmodified. Sure I may feel liberated, and perhaps by a miniscule chance these words will induce an effect on someone else. But the effect, if there is one, is shortlived.
And so the internet shrugs, as it always has.