The Internet is Falling! The Internet is Falling!!!

I don't know what happened, but today, I opened up my browser and this page showed up. I HAVE NEVER seen a google page go down... EVER!!! This is the company that has thousands and thousands and thousands of computers, for the sole task of searching the internet!!!!

I was shocked. The Internet is Ending.


In other news, I took up my Kanji studies again. I'm doing a little each day. And with the help of http://kanji.koohii.com I'm getting more benefit out of using mnemonics to remember the Kanji.

for example: take

漁

for example. If we break it apart, on the left you have water (three drops) on top you have capture, the grid in the middle is a rice field, and on the bottom you have fire. It means "fishing." Normally Japanese just memorize it... but they learn all these over 6-7 years in school and have the advantage of starting when they're 5 and being surrounded by it everyday. I don't have EITHER of those luxuries. So I make stories. For this one (left to right, top to bottom) you're a Japanese farmer on the water. You capture the fish, go home and throw the head and guts in the rice field (for fertilizer) and then cook it over the fire. water, capture, rice field, fire! Easy! Take the water on the left off and you have 魚, fish(out of water).

Of course, there's more to it than that... and you have to build your way up to that... but now I can recognize seemingly complex kanji like 願 much more easily without studying for 6 years. By the way, it means petition and I remember it by imagine a huge wizard of Oz head in a meadow... don't ask. Of course, I still need to learn the pronounciations, but hey, one step at a time, right? I'm 10% done.

Anyway, it's interesting and Seiko gets a kick out of it... she doesn't see how I can get it... (Of course, because she has these characters etched into her brain from childhood)