Eva Moe

Tag: writing

  • Language Learning and Opportunity Cost: Follow the passion

    “A dream without a plan is just a wish.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

    One of my dreams since about 2007ish (middle school era where all dreams begin) has been to become fluent in a second language. Reading, writing, speaking, listening. Fluent in all areas. It was just a wish back then.

    The past two years, I’ve been studying Japanese to such a degree that it is now part of my lifestyle. I enjoy my daily anki and daily immersion. Seeing a grammar point or vocabulary word I learned that morning in a podcast or anime is a dopamine rush stronger than anything coffee or cake could bring me. As such, learning Japanese is truly a fulfilling practice that I have no interest in giving up or toning down in any way. And yet.

    Back in middle school, my best friend was from El Salvador and we had a small group of Spanish speakers + me, a monolingual white girl. I had no idea what a rare opportunity that was to learn Spanish. Didn’t even consider it. I chose French instead because my relatives who lived nine hours away in Canada spoke French as their first language. To this day I am baffled I didn’t choose the language my best friend and a significant portion of my own country spoke. Maddening.

    So, in middle school and high school I studied French, just as I did for the first few semesters of college. Omg I’ll be fluent in French soon! My dream! I was only one semester away from completing my language requirement, but one thing led to another and I found myself in summer school. Studying Mandarin by choice. Definitely didn’t have to be there. The classes were pretty hardcore for me. It was a summer crash-course that met four hours a day, Monday-Friday. One entire school year of Mandarin in three months. It was grueling, horrible for my mental health, and also incredibly valuable. However, that fall semester, I couldn’t keep up with the class and ended up failing, something I’d never once done in my entire school history.

    Then, fortune struck and there was an exchange program opportunity. I went to live in Beijing for 3 months towards the end of 2015. There, I studied Mandarin with friends, took lots of photographs and ate so much food that the staff at a local restaurant recognized me as a regular and wished me luck when it was time to leave. Got back to the US and ACED my next Mandarin class. From complete failure to success. It’s a redemption story I would later tell many sad students after passing them back a failed test. A kind of failing sucks but you can’t avoid it, so keep going talk.

    After two intense schoolyears of study, I was speaking Mandarin at an intermediate-to-advanced level. Not fluent, but getting there. I could talk about current events, share my opinions, complain about things and encourage others. Omg I’ll be fluent in Mandarin soon! My dream! Oh really? I haven’t studied Mandarin since I graduated in 2016. I’ve missed it for nine years and have always planned to return to my studies one day. One day.

    Naturally, when I started learning Japanese I felt a little guilty. First, I discarded French to study Mandarin. Then, I discarded Mandarin to [do whatever I was doing from 2016-2023] study Japanese. Where is my sense of loyalty? Where is the determination to achieve my dream? Am I incapable of finishing anything at all? Can I even wash all the dishes in one go?

    I now find myself in a similar predicament as Middle School Eva. At my job, most of my coworkers and clients are native Mandarin speakers. I’m at work 40 hours a week. I could become conversationally fluent in a relatively short amount of time. This is the ultimate opportunity! The redemption from my childhood I could so easily take for my own! Rule the worl– achieve my dreams!

    And all I want to do is study Japanese. What the hell is wrong with me? And how much does a sacrifice weigh? Do I surrender my love of Japanese for an old dream? Waste a precious opportunity for my current obsession? Perhaps the answer lies with an old student of mine.

    I once had a Brazilian student (I was an ESL teacher for 3 years) who was in his 60s and was a joy to have in class. A cliche line that holds up in this case. He argued that a person should be fluent in at least one language in its entirety. All receptive and productive skills you’re physically able to do – listen, read, write, speak – at least one language must be mastered. He said a person should also be conversational or even fluent in speaking in at least three others. Four total. The language your country speaks, two major languages, and the language of where you want to travel or whose media you want to consume.

    To learn a language “efficiently,” it’s imperative to pour as much time and attention as you can into it. I can’t dial down my Japanese study if my end-game is to engage with native material and native speakers. Just like I can’t dial up my Mandarin study to the same intensity as Japanese. Aside from the common advice, “don’t learn two similar languages at once,” I just don’t have it in me.

    So when I think of my student’s opinion, which is so different from a typical monolingual person from the States, I can relax a little. I’m not giving up Japanese. Je refuse! But to be surrounded by native Mandarin speakers without even trying to engage in their language is an absolute waste I couldn’t forgive myself for.

    I’ll keep doing what I’m doing in Japanese. After all, if there’s one thing a person needs to become fluent, it’s motivation. But maybe I give up chess on Duolingo in favor of Mandarin. [Yeah, you can learn chess now. I’m terrible.] Take that basic Chinese vocab and speak to my coworkers more. Just small talk for now (you can imagine where I’m at in the “use it or lose it” timeline). Put more than zero effort into Mandarin again, grease up those wheels. If it damages my Japanese study, I’ll reassess.

    If you’re on a language-learning journey too, keep going!

    ???!
    -???

  • 7 Kilby Block Party Takeaways

    Just some notes for me, how I can incorporate what I saw into my own stage performances.

    Background info: 6 of us went out to Salt Lake City, Utah last week for the Kilby Block Party, an all ages music festival. Time of my life! 4 days of music is a lot for a current office worker but it was worth it. Financially, my friends and I must’ve seen well over $1k worth of shows for like half that price. We stayed at an airbnb and rented a car, we flew out from MSP to SLC. Flights were fine, SLC is a geologically awesome place, we love mountains and dinosaurs, etc.

    NOTES:

    First of all, I noticed how many women and femmes were on stage. I was looking forward to seeing Yo La Tengo’s Georgia Hubley on drums as it’s always cool and rare to see a fellow woman drummer. Thought she would be the last one, but I lost count! Not rare at all, it turns out. So many musicians like me were there and it was – dare I say – liberating. It’s not a boy’s club like it used to be.

    Highlights –

    1. Seeing Weezer play Only in Dreams as their final song of the night. That was my DREAM Weezer ending, and my first time seeing them. High School Eva was THRILLED.
    2. The Justice set was absolutely awesome. As the final set on the final day, I was wiped out. Knew I had no more dance in me. Then Justice went on, and I danced the entire set.
    3. Geese. What a VOICE.
    4. DEVO in general. The presence!
    5. St. Vincent stepping in someone’s nachos
    6. Beach House’s dreamy light show
    7. The sets weren’t too long (it’s a festival so they’re all limited on time)

    Lowlights

    1. A band I was excited to see didn’t play any songs I knew
    2. Saturday was way too long for me (but that’s our fault). We got there at noon, and went to the Tennis after party after Weezer’s headliner act. So it was 12 hours of music. Tennis was outstanding (Alaina Moore’s vocals are unreal. Even better live.) but I think we were all falling asleep while standing at that point.

    What I can bring home to my band:

    1. A band with good rapport between them makes for a fun show to watch. People can make mistakes on stage but they come across as funny if the band is goofy/lighthearted about it. Source: 2 of Peter McPoland’s guitar strings broke while on stage and they didn’t have a replacement for him so he had to keep going – Paganini style. It was super fun to watch them all improvise & you could feel their friendship from the audience. Seeing rapport like that makes me feel like I’m part of a big friend group that’s all hanging out together.
    2. Stage banter isn’t required for a good show. If I’m remembering correctly, Justice didn’t say a word to the audience. It was still one of my favorite sets though because it brought everyone together to dance, and I felt like I was safe to do as many of my kitchen dances as I wanted to. In my band, I’m the one that’s been delegated to the stage banter, and I’m honestly awkward AF. It might be time for me to re-adjust my method of just babbling about whatever I feel like and hope someone can hear me.
    3. Put the hits in the set. Obviously. This is more for festivals though, since there’s a higher percentage of people who haven’t even heard of you than there are at one of your own shows. Hits are fun plain and simple. A whole audience singing one song will grab people’s attention who are simply walking by. We don’t really have “hits” yet, or at least idk which songs are most popular. Rant: there’s one song we get requested, and it’s the only one I wrote. However, my band never seems all that interested in playing it. I hope they’ll agree to at least record it officially, put it on our album, and then we can see.
    4. I simply do not like audience participation requests from the stage. Personal preference, but I am uncomfortable when the band wants me to clap or sing a part. I’ve never liked that in any show I’ve been to, and already told my band long ago I’m not doing any of that. This just confirmed it. It’s not awkward for people in the tight crowds at the front, but it’s strange for people in the back who are spread out.
    5. Most of the musicians wore simple outfits. T-shirt and jeans basically. Again, festival attire. But they were still able to bring the vibes without any kind of special outfits. DEVO is an exception, but they’re DEVO. They can do whatever they want and it’s fun. In short, it’s fine if I just wear a basic outfit without becoming all cute and feminine. Other examples: Future Islands’ Samuel T. Herring dressed simply, but his passionate expressive energy kept my full attention. SASAMI wore a cool flashy outfit but I remember her wild chaos more than anything else!
    6. Full band coordination is cute AF – yeah I just talked about simple outfits. However. Peter McPoland’s band all wore 3 piece black and white suits. DEVO wore the same outfits on occasion (they somehow managed wardrobe changes within the time constraints, idk how they pulled it off…). Super cute. They even had choreography.
    7. Opinion – bad lyrics can’t be fixed by a beautiful voice or cool music. I’ll get some arguments on this. For me, unless you’re an instrumental band, lyrics have to be top priority. I crave your words and ideas! And I want those words and ideas to be well done! Yeah it’s subjective what constitutes “bad” lyrics. But if it’s just a boring story like “I called but you didn’t pick up, we keep doing this, what are we to each other” I can’t feel anything. I want the drama.

    All in all, the Kilby Block Party was a great time, and I hope I can make it to next year’s festival! The inspiration gained is already helping me level up.

  • group chat name: tall ppl only (3) [personal essay]

    Hope is the thing that lasts the longest, and the thing that hurts the most. I say this to my friends at dinner, slurping our way through our favorite Vietnamese place. We talk about relationships and I space out, letting my recent slow-drip heartbreak run down my ribs like dipping sauce.

    We pay for dinner and learn that the owner is from Hà Giang and has lived in Japan for ten years. He shows us Tiktoks of people there dancing, working on fields, passing through the tall green hills and clear rivers. He says every word with so much pride that I picture myself swimming in the jewel-blue rivers feeling the same joy. I think of my hometown with its long grey winter and short summer, how people are happy enough to bake casseroles to keep their hands warm and never see Vietnam. I’m returning to Minnesota in a few weeks and maybe I’ll finally learn to care about tater-tot hotdish.

    We say gochisousama deshita and walk to the Lawson down the block because there’s more to say and it’s chilly. The hot chocolate looks watery, but maybe we’ll get lucky and it’s only a trick of the light. It’s not. We pay and head to the river. One of us finds a good spot far enough away from others and we marvel at how you don’t have to search for things to do in Kyoto. You can always go to the Kamo River and sit, and maybe Trumpet Guy by the bridge figured out how to play this time.

    It’s dark enough to be anonymous. The three of us watch the black river trickle down its thin steps as other friends, couples, bikers, and runners pass behind us. The friend we haven’t seen in months talks about relationships again. There’s a woman waiting for him and he has to tell her not to. My problem is the opposite; I’m waiting for someone and tell myself not to. I wipe a line of hot chocolate from my chin and wonder if things will ever stop dripping.

    I fill him in on the crush I had for months, the one I’ve given up on a few times. He says He’s a great man. What did you like about him? Every time I sip this cocoa, I hope it’s rich and creamy like the kind I make at home, but it’s only sugared water. He seemed so warm and kind, but never let me know him. I don’t say that I’m grateful for the years I spent learning to be funny if only to be the reason he smiles. That’s too serious. If only my jokes wouldn’t catch in my throat.

    We say a quick goodbye and make a plan for our real one, the last time the three of us will be together. The last time we’ll be at our favorite mom-and-pop restaurant in Higashiosaka, the city we became friends in. I walk home, remembering that soon I won’t be able to walk alone at night without a turtle shell of fear at my back.

    Towards the East is a star pattern that looks like a check mark, and underneath it is my home. The tree-lined mountain looks black against the navy blue sky and I look forward to seeing it again in the morning, green and glistening. Can mountains be grateful for the years they spent forming if only to be the reason someone like me has something to worship? I shake what’s left in the bottle and wonder if a soul mate could be a place instead of a person. My head tilts back and I finish what I’m drinking.