Friday, November 18, 2011

A New Beginning

Having arrived in Japan one week ago, I thought it would be beneficial to start an online diary of my time here to keep myself on pace and focused. The title for this blog is "Nulla dies sine linea." This is Latin for "never a day without a line," a phrase I learned early on from my great-grandfather Walter Alwin, a seminarian from Concordia University and graduate of Harvard Divinity School where he studied Semetic languages.

The phrase is used nowadays to inspire writers to delve into their trade and keep them motivated as a quick search on google will reveal a number of blogs relating to such. But the way Grandpa Wally taught it was like this: no matter what the task is at hand, no matter how big or small, just get started and keep at it. If you want to start a journal, write one line a day. If you want to learn a foreign language, for example Japanese, learn a phrase a day. Everyday work at said task line by line, letter by letter, or in my case kanji by kanji. And before you know it the task will be finished.

My task is to keep an online diary of my time in Japan. I dedicate this online journal to the memory of Wally Alwin.

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