Happy new year!

[devi]

What, you mean the year doesn't start on the first of September? It certainly feels like that to me. A fresh start, blank copybooks, resolutions you know you won't keep, all that sort of thing. And a new batch of students, none of whom seem to be at all stupid! Wow.

There are too few of them, though. Far too few. I have half the hours of last year, acres of time and am going 'la la la, I can't hear you' to the big shaggy Poverty Beast slouching inexorably up behind me. I've so often wished for time to write, and hated teaching IT (there's hardly anyone doing IT this year, they must have figured out it's a crap subject). Be careful what you wish for, etc.

Where the heck am I going to get money? Anyone want their tarot read? Anyone need private tuition? Or perhaps you'd like an authentic, retro 1999-style website made for you? Want me as an extra in your blockbuster movie about short people? Or have you lot got any other interesting suggestions? (Anyone who suggests prostitution will get a slap. Or not get a slap, if a slap is what you'd like.)


My new obsession is Japanese characters. I've learned some basic ones, you know the sort you get on Feng Shui candles, wood, water, earth, fire etc, but today on the tube I started finding out how to put them together to make new words. The character for "man" is made up of the characters for "rice field" and "strength". How weird is that?

Comments

[fluffymormegil.livejournal.com]

ISTR being told that in Japanese text, some kanji are assigned to words based on their meaning and some are assigned based on what they sound like in Chinese. But I could be completely misremembering/misinformed.

[philipstorry.livejournal.com]

Anyone who suggests prostitution will get a slap. Or not get a slap, if a slap is what you'd like.

What about those that simply enjoy the anticipation of potential forthcoming slap? Surely they'd be happy for a short while either way?

It's a simple fact of life - you can only delay a good pervert. You can never stop them. And for every one you do stop, two more appear in its place... ;-)

[sciamachy.livejournal.com]

But it *is* the New Year - according to the Jewish calendar anyway. Happy New Year, Jewish people!

[absinthecity.livejournal.com]

Crumbs. I hadn't realised you were in *that* department too! Is that a new thing, or were you always doing IT as well as the sociology?

[mooism.livejournal.com]

When I was at school, there was a sense in which years started in September and ended in July; August was an intermission, an intercalary month which nonetheless occured every year.

[gnimmel.livejournal.com]

The putting together of Chinese characters sounds similar; 'argument' being three 'women' characters under a 'roof' character is the one I remember.
Sadly, though I've heard that one may express 'surprise' by putting 'horse' in 'doorway', further investigation didn't bear this out.

[miss-newham.livejournal.com]

You can teach me everything you know and name your price. For example, *whispers* erm, which is which out of Marx and Engels on that statue?

[saffronra.livejournal.com]

I've long since ceased to be amazed by what new madness the study of kanji will reveal.

It's great fun when you get to the kanji which can be used on it's own to mean something, as a verb (with hiragana) and in a compound and be pronounced differently each time.

Still, it's very pretty though.