To most, language is just a collection of sounds arranged in a pattern, absent of any beauty and used solely for the purpose of communication.  Yet, from just a few "sounds," one can take another to the bustling streets of London, describe the ebb and flow of Pacific waves hugging the beaches of Hawaii, or simply ask a question.  Language can be delivered through soft, delicate whispers or through rough, bursting shouts.  One can ride its rhythms and notes through a melodic song and end up a seemingly different person.
   

I've always had a passion for languages.  As early as fourth grade, I had aspirations to learn and become fluent in languages such as French, Spanish, and even German.  I loved the elegance of French, the convenience of Spanish, the heritage of German.  To me, it's always been fascinating to consider that there are over 7, 100 living languages in the world, and that, while I understand and speak English on a daily basis, someone else might not have a clue as to what I'm saying.  And each language comes with its own unique history: the Vietnamese language, at one time, utilized Chinese characters to represent its language, yet after the French occupation of Indo-China, now uses a Latin script similar to what we use in English.
    Although language has always caught my attention, I could never really begin learning a language and translate that into fluency.  I would always learn the basics, and sometimes even step into intermediate territory, and then suddenly quit because of captivation with some other foreign language.
   

On March 11, 2011,  I woke up to a news broadcast headlined "9.0 Magnitude Earthquake Hits Japan."  The broadcast featured a multitude of videos in which helpless Japanese people suffered through the recurring tremors of the earthquake and, in some cases, survived buildings collapsing.  The other portion of the footage included the tsunami and the damage it did to the countryside of Japan.  Throughout the whole ordeal, I remember feeling a desire to do anything that I could to help the relief efforts in Japan.  I wanted to become fluent in the Japanese language; I wanted to visit Japan (and possibly even move there); I wanted to donate money, and I wanted to, well, just help.  However, since I was barely about to start high school and did not know the means by which I could do most of this, I decided to start by learning Japanese.
   

Learning the Japanese language has definitely been an experience.  I started casually learning it around the beginning of ninth grade and slowly developed a sort of obsession with it and anything else to do with Japan, as anyone who knew me at this time probably remembers.  By the time I reached tenth grade I was at a sort of intermediate level in the language, yet because of school, I began to feel as if Japanese was just more homework added on to my already busy life.  It became a chore.  At the time, I did not know how to respond to this.  More than anything, and ever since I was a kid, I had wanted to become fluent in a foreign language.  And at this point, I had to face the fact that I might have devoted over a year of my life to something that may not even be in it within a month.  I felt as if I had wasted my time.  When summer came around and junior year was about to begin, I barely even knew how to read the language anymore, let alone speak it. 
   

Over the entirety of my junior year, I was empty.  In my free time, I didn't really do anything productive; at most, I would play video games or maybe make plans to see my friends.  I experimented with other languages to see how I liked them but everything would fizzle out in the end.  So, around December of 2014, I made the bold move to begin learning Japanese again, essentially from scratch.  It's been rough, and I've still gone through periods of time where I've wondered if I want to continue, but ultimately I have stuck with it and will continue to do so, because, I feel, it's a part of me.