Life is full of surprises. People are full of surprises. I usually think I like surprises until I come up against one that's a bit too surprising to handle!
I'm a big fan of s...
When I embarked on essay 1009 on 緯 (latitude; crosswise threads in weaving), I didn't expect to find that Japanese speakers and...
While writing the hot-off-the-presses essay 1938 on 廊 (corridor; gallery), I came upon something that stumped me in a passage from...
Let's start with a quiz. Find three pairs of words that intuitively go together:
1. bewilderment 2. pillow ...
One of the greatest joys of learning Japanese is seeing how words for concrete images go off in unexpected figurative directions. So it is with muddy waters, which 濁 often represents (in conjunctio...
I find myself preoccupied with two photos, both related to what I've most recently posted.
Radical Note...
Given all the insistence on precision in certain parts of the kanji world, I'm always shocked when native speakers take loosey-goosey attitudes toward a kanji matter. They do so quite often, bu...
Today I have a series of multiple choice questions for you, mostly about terms related to body parts or medical issues. Those topics just about guarantee a good time, don't they!? ...
As this is the 200th JOK Notebook post, I thought I'd do something a little different today—a Rorschach test! What do you see in this image:
...
Like Sheldon Cooper of The Big Bang Theory, I'm a big fan of homeostasis. As a Virgo, I need routines and predictabi...
The best thing about kanji is playfulness. The best thing about life is playfulness. Thus, kanji = life. Do I have that logic right?!
Thursday was one of the busiest workdays of the year, w...
Today I'll present a roundup of gleanings from the week, starting with a quiz. What do you think this term means:
交わり (まじわり)
On the surface, time seems inalterable. After all it's the fourth dimension, and we can't exactly take that on! However, we do manipulate time in all sorts of ways. Last weekend most o...
The new essay 1251 on 恒 (constant, established) includes this sentence:
惑星は恒星の周りを回る。 ...
For me this week has been about instability. Several surprises, both pleasant and unpleasant, have jerked my mood around in all kinds of directions. (One surprise was when my yoga teacher unch...
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