Regrets I: Japanese

STRANGE TO SAY but until I was well embarked upon the project, I hadn't really considered that writing my memoirs would make me examine my past (yet again) and, of course, wonder where I went wrong.

Well here's one crux-point I can identify: university.

So let's rewind 17 years or so...

I had vast troubles deciding what I was going to study and where. In fact the whole matter was stressing me so very much I wimped out of applying for the next acacemic year and ended up applying late on deferred entry (giving me a gap year which I wasted - not through lack of will but lack of money and opportunity).

If one proverb applies to my life it's this one:

If you chase two rabbits you'll catch neither!

That was the problem I had with uni courses.

Basically I was interested in:
English literature
Russian literature (the great novels) - but wasn't really up for learning the Russian language

European languages
I was doing A levels already in French and German and could have started a degree in Spanish if I'd wanted, from scratch.

But my biggest daydream was
Oriental languages;
most specifically Japanese.

I have a fascination for all things Japanese. Japanese television, Japanese electronics, Japanese poetry, Japanese writing (most complexicated system of writing in the entire world: uses Chinese characters plus TWO home-grown syllablaries plus the Roman alphabet!)... everything Japanese, in fact, except the food (though I've had Japanese curry at a Soho restaurant called Zipangu and that was yummy).

Now I know myself and I'm motivated by novelty. If only I'd bitten the bullet and gone for Japanese ... I can see this now; my life might have taken a totally different turn altogether.
Rather than continuing on the tired old subjects I'd done at school the course would have entailed immersing myself totally in an alien langauge and culture... If I had done it, I'm not sure I'd have derailed like I did and ended up dropping out less than halfway through a four year course...

Guess what I chose in the end?
You guessed it: French and German.

How I wish I'd followed my heart!
I still get a little flutter inside when I think about the three courses I was interested (in descending order):
London SOAS
Cambridge
and
Oxford

As it turned out, however, my grades were one point too low for SOAS which asks for BBB. I got BBC. Good enough for the course I finally applied for... but on Results Day I cried. Because I felt I'd failed.

And THAT, dear Readers, was a turning point, a beginning of the end. For from that moment on I took to throwing opportunities away, one by one. Until, within a few years I'd taken my future, crumpled it in a ball and tossed it in the trashcan of life....

Where would I be now if I'd gone for that degree in Japanese I always wanted?

I wonder
I wonder
I wonder ...

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