I am starting this blog a month after receiving my Master’s degree in Linguistics. Since I will be out of school for the foreseeable future, I figure I needed some exercise to keep myself writing, as well as to upkeep and organize research. While it would be tempting (and easy) to keep a blog on linguistics issues, I am not doing so for a few reasons. One, no one would read it. I’ve tried this before and people tend to drop out once they have to commit terms to memory. (No fault of their own; people lead busy lives.) As most topics require a good deal of background information, I don’t want to go this route. Blogs that do deal with linguistic issues will either keep the lecturing below a paragraph or two, or simply be written for my own edification, with little thought to the befuddled reader. Another reason is that I’m no longer digging the whole Linguistics scene anyway. I dearly love studying languages, burying myself in data from across the globe, but the bigger questions most (successful) linguists are working to answer (how do we learn and store language, what would a model of this cognitive system look like, how much can it vary (or remain the same) throughout the world’s languages) are of little interest to me.
However, I did want this blog to have a more or less unified theme. Partly because I am giving myself weekly assignments to write about, simply as an exercise not to fall out of practice, and also because narrowing down the possibilities is the only way to keep myself involved. But also it just makes more sense than a random smattering of my own narcissistic impulses.
Therefore I chose to make this a blog on all things East Asian, from language to art (mostly in the form of movie or music reviews) to the infrequent political reflection, and whatever else may come up along the way. One thing I am considering in the nebulous future is a Phd in Asian Studies, and this may be my first step in that crossover from the soft science of Linguistics to the airy humanities of “Cultural Studies”.
Within that context, all things are on the table. I am much more interested in 20th century
I’m no fan of my own writing. I am wordy. I rattle on. I am prone to grandstanding. I thought about making this blog private, and then figured, what the hell, just use a pseudonym. While some proofreading and revising at a later date is not out of the picture (yeah, right), I am making it a rule to never delete a post. So consider it my disclaimer here: though I may finish a blog with a grin on my face and a pat on my shoulder, the next day I will surely be slightly nauseous to read back over what I’ve written. But then someone once told me that self-deprecation is the ultimate form of flattery.
I hope not. Thanks for reading.
