...I find myself in Seoul.

Say what you want about the evils of globalisation (which are indeed myriad); this aspect of it rocks.

I'm also kinda going through a weird process which may(?) be culture shock. I've spent almost my entire adult life (and 20% of my life for that matter) in Japan, so moving back this fall...was no different than moving into a new apartment. Seriously, I arrived at Kankuu, hopped on the shuttle to Kyoto and continued living my life. In fact, there might have been less adjustment involved than there was with moving back to the States. Moreover, I've been listening to Japanese as if it were English and reading it as if it were English.

Which is why Seoul is kinda freaking me out, because it's so close to Japan, but just slightly off. I also read sign Korean as if it were Japanese/English, which makes the moments when I run into something I just don't understand all the more jarring. As are the conversations overheard on the subway, which I tune out in the same manner I tune out languages I understand...until I don't understand something. In other words, my listening experience goes something like this:

"Made me wait for 30 minutes at Gwanghwamun xxxxxxxxxxx made it to Starbucks xxxxxx my sister said xxxxx and xxxxxx it xxxxxx it xxxxxx to xxxxxxx won't be until tomorrow.

Which is also actually pretty cool, considering how little time I actually spend listening to Korean.

That will be all.

Score! A friend and I spent a couple of hours rummaging through the local used book store today. This place has grown tenfold during the three years I was in Japan; what started off as a two-room storefront operation has expanded into two levels and myriad little rooms branching off in unexpected locations, in the traditon of the finest used book stores in the world. (I'm looking right at you, Caveat Emptor!)

Anyway, while poking around I came across a book entitled Second Year Latin, and whose name was that on the spine if not Mr. Charles Jenney's himself! Predictably, I was ecstatic, as it was priced at a mere $9.99 and still in pristine never-been-touched ex-schoolbook condition.

I have a great deal of love for Jenney's latin textbooks and their wonderfully unapologetic focus on grammar, and the fact that they're organized more intelligently than the other systems. (I'm looking at you Wheelock's; you're one of the main reasons I dropped my Classics major the other being that pesky Greek requirement.) My heart will always belong to the Cambridge Latin Series, but Jenney's is much more suited to individual review and as a grammar resource for all those bits I never quite picked up in class.

"Enjoy it," the Owner Lady told me as I left the store. "I guess..." (I doubt this was a book she'd ever expected to see leaving her store.)

But alas, my enthusiasm has faded slightly in the intervening hours, as I am not certain if what I purchased was in fact, Jenney's Second Year Latin or Scudder's Second Year Latin, and a Library of Congress search has not yeilded definitive results. But hey, it still contains Caesar's De Bello Gallico, which is what I've been itching to read of late (and the reason I'm brushing up on Latin in the first place).

That will be all.

Took a trip up to the nearest Big City today. Kicked around in a Barnes and Nobles for an hour, which was just long enough for me to forget the names of every single author whose works I've been yearning to read for the past twelve months. But this is how it always goes in libraries and bookstores in the West.

But this matters not, because what did I happen to stumble upon but the Unit 2 textbook for the Cambridge Latin Course!

Clemens! Quintus! And most importantly, Bregans!!!
Waa, natsukashiiyo!

I then continued to increase my ownage by buying seasons one and six of Highlander at half off, plus Lyra's Oxford, which I just read, and which has counteracted the effects of the several mediocre books I've just finished reading.

That will be all.