Oh my fucking fuck, Chinese is SO HARD. Fuck ME. I have really caught myself wishing I hadn't smoked so much reefer in my life, that's how hard it is (and then I watched an episode of Sister Wendy's History of Painting, and decided to get some reefer so that I can enjoy it to the maximum). But at the same time - call me an optimistic retard - I am starting to suspect it's a door that'll open with a lot of hard work.
So that's what I'm gonna do. I figure that even if I get pregnant five minutes after getting back from Canada in October, I can still complete all of the Chinese language courses on offer through Griffth's University before a baby comes out and all of my accomplishments grind to an enervated, sleepless, hormonal and worried halt until the child and his or her potential siblings move out in 20 or so years. And I'm pretty sure that if I don't get fired, at some point in the next few years I can argue my way into half a year or a year in Shanghai, hence subjecting both myself and my offspring to the language in an immersive fashion.
The characters, for example - I believed, and still do, to a great extent, that a language based on such characters is one that's meant to keep as many people as possible illiterate, because it's so damn hard, relative to a language that's based on a phonetic sort of alphabet system. But there is also something about the characters that are really lovely.
I think it is how they are so old, and have been used in some form or other for so long, that it as though they were designed to be written, in a way I've never quite appreciated with my own alphabet (probably because my cursive script varies between medical-grade illegibility and My-Little-Pony-esque careful girlish curlicues). And there is something so mysterious and story-telling about the radicals. Especially the woman radical - 女- the way she's always popping up in funny places. What is she doing there? She's probably been there for thousands of years; who put her there, and why?
Anyways. I've got fucking homework to stop procrastinating from.
