Hello world!

Hello world! To all those concerned,

Things are happening in New York right now, not the least of which is that from 4.10 to 5.25 in the PM, Monday-"R"hursday, in a small room just north of 116th street, a little group of students known collectively as "First_Year Japanesers" are studying the language of a small country over 10,500 km away.

To be one of these people is a fabulous thing.

But, it can also be quite demanding.

The difficulties one experiences in such an environment include, but are not limited to the following:

1) Utter embarrassment at not being able to tell someone your own birthday;
2) All-consuming frustration when you forget to say "desu." at the end of the sentence;
3) Extreme anger when you find out that sometimes "100" = "byaku", and not "hyaku", and sometimes   "9" = "kyu", but most of the time it's "ku";
4) Absolute fear when you realize you have 30 new vocabulary words to learn in 30 minutes;
5)Total insanity at trying to pronounce double consonants differently than long vowels;
6) etc., etc., etc.

But, while you may encounter all of this and more, nothing is equal to the reward received when you sit down at a table in your favorite japanese restaurant and, for the first time, are able to decipher the meaning of various words on the menu: pure bliss.