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Excerpt from mail sent in 1998:
Shuumatsu ni, benkyooshite imashita.
On Thursday, I figured out I wasn't going to make it. There was no way I was going to be done reviewing Japanese I before I started my Japanese II class on February third. I'd figured out how many chapters I'd need to learn each weekend, and how many each weekday. Which was all very well, except that I really wasn't up to studying on weekdays. And on weekends, I kept getting distracted. After you've studied two week's worth of Japanese on a Saturday, Minesweeper becomes appealing.
So I cloistered myself in the Tahoe cabin this weekend. I studied and studied. I reaquainted myself with fun grammar, like that used to construct "okikunakatta" ("was not large"). I was reunited with some of my favorite pieces of vocabulary, including "tokidoki" ("sometimes") . I got through about seven weeks' worth of lessons. I studied everything I was supposed to; I accidentally studied two weeks beyond that before I figured out what was going on.
I was elated when I figured out I was done. I was in the living room; the only other one there was Alice, Dave Loftesness' and Veronica's puppy dog. "Alice, I'm done," I said. I flopped her ears around a bit, and said, a bit more loudly, "Alice-sama, shimashita, yo!" She didn't understand Japanese (typical American!), but good-naturedly tried to lick my face.
On the drive back to civilization, I had more fun than I've had in several weeks. Not because there was more fun stuff going on around me, but because I was relaxed for the first time in weeks. If I'm not prepared for that class now, it's the fault of the course catalog.