Japanese is not Easy #5

It's so very not easy!  I've given up.

At the beginning of February, I was so engrossed in Japanese language an culture.  Learning about it didn't take commitment.  It's what I wanted to be doing.  So I went for it.  I studied everyday for like ten weeks.  And then my enthusiasm fizzled out.

So it was time to commit, and push myself to obtain what I wanted.  But I just couldn't.  In my ten weeks, I felt like I was accomplishing so much, because it was so different, and so hard to do.  But in reality, I learned so little.  And like I knew from the start, learning Japanese doesn't have a huge payoff.  It is only spoken in one country.

So if I'm going to push myself to learn a new language, it should be Spanish.  That's a language that would be useful.  And I already know so much more Spanish than Japanese, despite all of my hard work.  I already know their alphabet, for example.  And I can count to 100.  So I bought Rosetta Stone for Spanish, and it's waiting for me in the mailbox.

As for my trip to Japan, I think it's off.  Japan would cost over $1,000 to get to.  I'm thinking I'll want to try my Spanish somewhere instead.  When I went to Costa Rica, it was because Colombia looked dangerous to me.  Now I've been around a bit, and I feel a little more confident.  Colombia's murder rate is only about twice that of Minneapolis, and even less so if I stick to a tourist area like Medellín.

I told my cousin this, and he thinks I can get tickets to Japan in the $500 range if I wait til we're 3 months out.  I told him I'm still in if that's true.  I don't think it is.