Burning Desire, Baby
This one got a laugh in the grad lounge.
I’m going to quote verbatim from an addendum to the course syllabus of Classical Japanese here at the University of Hawai’i, and I want to stress that I am not indulging in typographical embellishment with the boldface—no indeed, that was on the handout as well.
…prior experience, or even a high level of proficiency in modern Japanese, is not the primary prerequisite for success in this course. The most important criterion is a burning desire to read classical Japanese literary texts in an authoritative, accurate fashion, no matter what the cost in hard work in frustration. If this is not one of your most deeply held ambitions in life, JPN 461 is not for you.
I found it as intimidating as my upperclassmen found it hilarious. Suffice to say that the class was somewhat thinned down after that first day.
September 2nd, 2005 at 12:31 am
Now you know why I’m not going to grad school for Japanese.
It’s weird to feel so alienated from one of my life’s passions. But Japan feels like an awkward ex boyfriend for me right now.
September 2nd, 2005 at 10:40 am
Yeah, I wouldn’t have been able to do this a year ago. Even now, I’m not convinced that I’ll be finishing my MA, but I’ll do it for as long as it seems right.
Ironically you’d find it much easier than me, since I have to look up an embarrassing amount of the kanji in the readings and don’t have the literary background that you do, but oh well.