journal features

Wow, これいい！

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-eight years and a million words

Tokyo, 2009.03.16

Today he said, "Wow, これ　いい!" and "私は　ice cream!" Which would seem to mean a) wow, that's great, b) me ice cream, and c) someone other than his mother and I have been teaching him words, because I don't eat ice cream or feed it to him or use the word in any way and his mother only speaks to him in Japanese.

Or maybe ... he's been listening to us speak among ourselves in English and noted that his mother admits she wants ice cream. This means that he's capable of picking up words that we don't say directly to him. Oh, ####, time for certain Canadians in the boy's life to bleach their blue vocabulary.

rand()m quote

One day you will take a fork in the road, and you're going to have to make a decision about which direction you want to go. If you go one way, you can be somebody. You will have to make compromises and you will have to turn your back on your friends. But you will be a member of the club and you will get promoted and get good assignments. Or you can go the other way and you can do something [...] for yourself. If you decide to do something, you may not get promoted and get good assignments and you certainly will not be a favorite of your superiors. But you won't have to compromise yourself. To be somebody or to do something. In life there is often a roll call. That's when you have to make a decision. To be or to do.

—John Boyd, US Air Force