マギ: My latest favorite anime

こんばんは!

Lately, I'm watching this truly magical and highly inspiring anime, Magi: The Labyrinth of Magi. It's an action-fantasy anime highly inspired by the tale of The Arabian Nights. The plot revolves around Aladdin, a young boy who is deemed a magi (someone who chooses kings and guides them), who goes on journeys around the seas with his friend and chosen king vessel, Alibaba. Together, they conquer dungeons and meet several wondrous people along their way to growing stronger to defeat the dark power in their world, known as 'The Organization.' Their story is a testament to friendships, facing destiny, fighting for justice, and reflecting on several profound philosophical, social, and political themes. Watching this during my free time has given me a lot of room for reflection on my personal ambitions and purpose on the kind of person I want to become as I find myself a step closer to graduation. I've also been paying more attention to the grammar patterns the characters would use, especially taking note of the different dialects, accents, and contextual differences in speech, such as formal vs. informal speech. I strongly recommend everyone to give it a watch if you're looking for a new anime :)

カタカナ

I've always thought katakana originated from loan words from Western words to produce sounds that do not exist in Japanese alphabet. But after doing a bit of research into the history of how katakana came about, I was suprised to learn that it was originally developed to help Buddhist monks in reading difficult Chinese texts/characters and was used as an annotating tool to mark pronounication. Over time, katakana later became adopted as part of the standard Japanese alphabet for foregin words, onomatopoeia, and technical terms.  

Interestingly, a lot of the katakana "loan" words don't sound like their English equivalent word. I've found that there are a lot of reasons for this but some of the most interesting ones are as follows: not all katakana is from English; many were borrowed from diverse languages like German, Dutch, Portuguese, and hence, why some katakna words are harder to recgonize than others. There is also the concept of "wasei-eigo" which means Japanese-made English; Japanese folks like to shorten their words or combine them differently to better fit their native alphabet structures that can make it unrecognizable to native Enlgigh speaekrs. For example, "good luck" is ファイト and convenience store is コンビニ.

Here's a photo of a cute cafe in Miami that uses katakana on their merch! I ended up buying this blue tote bag www

What I Do

わたしはまいにちコーヒーをのみます。ときどきカフェでのみます。よくうちでのみます。 わたしはぜんぜんマンガをよみません。でも、アニメがすきです。よくアニメをみます。わたしはりょうりがすきです。それから、よくうちでりょうりをします。それから、あまりレストランにいきません。

Here's a photo of tteokbbokki and fish cake soup I made some time ago for my friend :P

A Day in My Life

こんたちは！わたしはまいにちごぜんくじにおきます。ごぜんじゅうじごろあさごはんをたべます。ごぜんじゅういちじにがっこうにきます。ごごごじごろにうちにかえります。ごごろくじにジムをきます。そして、ごごしちじごろばんごはんをたべます。ごごくじにしゅくだいをします。ごぜんいちじはんにねます。やすみはきんようびとどようびとにちようびです。ありがとうございます！