Languages!

I totally typed up a blog about my language choices ages ago, but it turned into a list of why I adore certain countries and that kinda wasn't my intention x3

Yesterday a bunch of us went to the University of Queensland to check out the campus and their courses. My decision? St. Lucia is a beautiful campus. It's huge and the buildings are magnificent. Their courses, on the other hand? Well, they're quite good as well, but, unfortunately for me, they don't offer quite what I'm looking for.

More research is needed, I guess, so I can find out what place offers the greatest course. I'm currently still aiming for Griffith university (Nathan campus, as it has the best courses for languages). At Griffith I can do a Bachelor of Arts in Language and Applied Linguistics, specialising in Japanese and Italian. That's enough to get me into translations for both languages. If I were to go to UQ I could do a BA in both Japanese and Italian, but I'd have to go a step further and do a Masters in Translation and Interpretation for one of the two. I'd much prefer not having to do a Masters degree, to be honest.

I love learning Japanese, and I adore the media from Japan (hence why I'd translate it, of course). That said, I absolutely adore Italy. I have more of a passion for Italy than I do for Japan. My love of Japan really does centre around their anime/manga/movie industries and the language, rather than the country, their history or the people. For that reason, even though I'm more set on translating Japanese, I'd prefer to go study abroad for a while in Italy.

At UQ one of the speakers mentioned that you really need a few languages to get into these fields, not just two. Especially if you're doing a European language, because a lot of Europeans have 2, 3 or even 4 languages under their belts. Fluently. I only know one, and it's the only language I've ever spoken my entire life. I've only ever been required to know one. Australia is mostly monolingual, so it's never been compulsory for me to learn another language. For a country that attempts to define itself as multicultural, we really aren't...

Aaanyway. I'm really looking forward to uni now. Really. One guy learnt Japanese and German, and actually studied in Germany for awhile. While there, he got to learn Old Norse and translate documents from Old Norse into German. Why? Why not, I guess... Rule of cool, or something. I think that's damn awesome. Studying overseas really does sound epic, and I'm looking forward to it. I'd love to go study in Italy. There's so much history to study and architecture to admire and gorgeous landscapes to gaze at and delicious food to try and a beautiful language to listen to and oh my God the entire place would give me a brain aneurysm.

Ahem. Moving on. I have a lot of languages I want to learn. My list is as follows:

1. Sicilian
2. Japanese
3. Standard Italian
4. German
5. Spanish
6. Macedonian
7. Russian
8. Latin
9. Greek

I cannot actually think of a tenth language that I actually care about enough. =(
Truly, only the first 5 or 6 are really ones I'd like to learn. The last 3 are also epic, but not to the same extent. You know, Romance languages are my favourite. They sound amazing. Funnily enough, only 4 made it onto the list (with Latin being a dead language and all). Also, I don't care if Sicilian is just an Italian dialect, it's freaking epic and is practically it's own language. I adore it. Sicily is very underrated. I love the south kthx.

I really hope I'm not disappointed by university life. I'm looking forward to it. A lot. And I'm really looking forward to just plain immersing myself in the languages. I'm just looking forward to the future, I suppose. It's nice to have ambition for once =P

Now, the Obligatory Emo Teenager Post

Not that I'm in a depressed mood or anything. Just... out of it. And tired.

I feel that I cannot trust my eyesight. Colour is just a frequency that we can see, right? Meaning that everything around us isn't actually coloured.
It's all just... blank? Uncoloured? I'm not sure if it's additive or negative, so it's either all black or white.
Just nothing.

I was talking about stuff with my Dad. Something I've noticed is how melancholy abandoned buildings are. I relate it to how we rarely see them. You look at the buildings in the street and it's like they'll be there forever; They're so strong, right? They protect us, shelter us, give us somewhere warm and safe.
But without us keeping them in top condition, they fall apart.
Nothing's permanent.
Memento Mori;
We aren't permanent, either.


I've counted my life in coffee spoons, and all that (<--Good poem, that one. Go look it up).

I have to believe in something. I don't know why, but I just do. I'm not an idiot. I know what I've seen, what I've learned... we evolve. Darwin's theory is hardly immaculate, but it's close.
I just can't explain away morals. Yes, we are social animals. Yes, that means we will conform to and use (and, I suppose, abuse) social graces.
But morals are nothing like that. Everyone's moral compass is different. Why do we have morals, anyway? How would that help us with survival? Why are there things that are physically possible, and yet my brain goes no, you can't do that. I'm sorry, it's not morally right.
What.
Love is another thing. I understand mating for life in animals. I understand not mating for life as well. But why is the human race different? We can't be categorised like other animals can.
Why will a man jump in front of a bullet to save his best mate, or his lover, when he could save himself? Isn't passing on our own genes some driving force for us? Surely getting killed is a little bit... I don't know, unproductive?

So for that reason, I believe that there is someone who has created us, with a sense of morals and justice. I have no opinion on the afterlife. I don't care so much for the bible. And I really do despise the religious who are all self-righteous about what they believe in.

That said, I cannot believe that there is no higher power. It's too depressing, for me at least. Maybe that's weak of me. But, even so, who cares if I need to believe in something to be strong?

(Wow, totally just went off on my own tangent there. I love my ramblings. They make no sense.)