Hello, everybody! It’s been a while since I’ve done a K.O., huh. 

Today’s Kanji Origins is #15, but that’s not really a milestone. I really should do this more often. 

空

This is the character for “sky”. It combines 穴 (space) and the phonetic reading of エ (work). So space + work = sky! I guess. (I feel it is important to note that the “space” we’re talking about here means like “empty space”, like “there is so much space between me and him”. Not “The Earth is in space”) . It’s pretty easy for me to remember because I really like the character. And by “character”, I mean Sora from Kingdom Hearts. \_(ツ)_/

Anyhoo, 空 can be used by itself to mean what it means. However, it also means “void”, “empty”, “vacuum”, and “vacant”. The amount of puns that the Japanese can make with this are staggering. I feel KH is one of the worst offenders, but that’s a different thing.

It’s also pretty common as a unisex name as well, like how people name their kids “Skye” or “Skyler” in English.

空港: airport

空気: air, atmosphere

架空: aerial, overhead

青空: blue sky

空洞: cave

Strangely, 空 is used a lot for “air” in English, but I guess the thinking is that things are in the “sky” rather than the “air”. 

中

中 tends to be a kanji a lot of people learn early on. It has a very simple form, and it is used in a lot of beginner’s grammar. It’s also directly from the Chinese language. It’s a 丨inside a 囗 . So, 中 means “inside”. By extension, it also means “middle”. The Chinese use this character in their country name, “中国”’, which refers to them as “The Middle Country”, or what they implied “The Center Country”. They believed that they were the center of the Earth (I guess some still do to some extent), but then a bunch of things happened with Japan (didn’t go well) and they got their first aircraft carrier a couple of years ago and America thought it was cute. 

Anyhoo!

中東: Middle East

日中: During the day

中学: Middle school, junior high

中日: China and Japan

中島: Island in a pond or a river

虫

虫 is a character that means ‘insect’ or ‘bug’. But would you believe me if I told you it is supposed to be an image of a snake? Yes, a snake. A very much not bug creature. (And for who knows what reason, they created a new kanji for snake as 蛇, which combines 虫 and 它, which means other. So they made snake ‘other bug’ rather than keep 虫 as snake).

To be fair, considering worms are bugs and do look snake-like, I can understand confusion in a time before etymologists and herpetologists became a thing. You can understand it looks like 中 a bit, but there’s really no relation other than pronunciation. You may also notice that 虫 is used in a lot of diseases in an interesting coincidence of a shared figure of speech; Having a ‘bug’ means that you’re sick, and that is something that is mutual in Japanese.

殺虫剤: Insecticide

虫歯: Cavity, tooth decay

水虫: Athlete’s foot

苦虫: Making a sour face (like you ate a bug)

虫垂炎: Appendicitis

防虫: Insect repellent

弱虫: Weakling, coward (weak as a bug)

交

Next is 交, which means ‘mingle’ or ‘association’. It’s often used in matters of connection and shared activity. It’s supposed to be a man ‘大’ crossing his legs  ‘乂’. 乂 is an archaic kanji that means ‘to mow’ or ‘subdue’, but it’s not entirely relevant here.

You need to be a bit careful when 交 is by itself though. Independently, it also has the adverb form of “in succession”, but most people write it in its hiragana form.

Now, I’m not entirely sure why a man crossing his legs was the main image for association, but I guess people don’t normally cross their legs when they’re alone, really only in public.

外交: Diplomacy

交流: Cultural exchange

交通: Traffic, communication

交える: To combine

交響曲: Symphony

交互: Mutual, reciprocal

校

This one should already be familiar as a ‘basic’ kanji. 校 means ‘printing’ or ‘school’, and it’s often paired with the previously mentioned 学 because ‘study’ + ‘printing’ = school. Or ‘learning’ + ‘school’ = ‘school’. Either way, 校 is a very educational kanji.

It’s supposed to be 木 with 交. 交 is simply there for pronunciation, and I’m not necessarily sure why 木 is involved, but I guess that many of the things essential for school and printing are paper and pencil/ink brush which wood was often a part of. 

校長: Principal

校舎: School building

母校: Alma mater

全校: The whole school

Why could I hardly take my eyes off the submerged plastic bag?

The sight did not fill me with joy, I did not come away feeling happy. Nor was I filled with contentment when I caught sight of it, it wasn’t that something stilled within me, as hunger or thirst do when they are satisfied. But it felt good to look at it, the way it feels good to read a poem that ends in an image of something concrete and seems to fasten on it, so that the inexhaustible within it can unfold calmly. Swollen with water, handles up, the plastic bag hung a few feet down in the water on this February day in 2002. This moment was not the beginning of anything, not even of an insight, nor was it the conclusion of anything, and maybe that is what I was thinking as I stood digging holes in the ground a few days ago, that I was still in the middle of something and always would be.

—Karl Ove Knausgaard, “Plastic Bags,” Autumn

Poem by Gooddaydom

Snap why_tho7397

Pat her head and tell her she is doing a good job. She is your big girl

I’m not sure who feels the same but I’ve discovered that Tumblr is like a fake place haha. Like people aren’t really what they post. This might be like duhhh to some but.. me, I’m actually this. I’m actually the exact thing I post or comment on. Just.. a random thought.

Shall I read to you?

Daddies get lonely to

Lifeguard is the weirdest job. It’s like hey, you’re 16 years old, make sure no one dies.

I’ve always tried to be a good daddy. I hear some many complaints about asswhole daddies but what about when subs play games with us.. you know what I mean. Like I’m not just a good daddy I’m a good person. For all the good daddies out there

wizardhecker:

I fucking hate game apps. I wanted to play tetris the otherday so I figured there must be a simple tetris app out there its the most basic game. But every app is like heres your daily log in bonus of 10 gold! You get 5 free plays a day. Here’s an ad. To replay a level costs 1 diamond. You can eart gold by earning points in levels. 1000 points = 1 gold. You can exchange 550 gold for one diamond but we have a sale right now that they only cost 500 gold. Heres an ad. You can buy a loot crate of diamonds for 5.99$! You leveled up! Heres 1 free diamond. Youve run out of free replays for today, would you like to buy some more diamonds? Heres your daily tasks, make sure to log in every day this month for a free reward chest. its free! Heres an ad. Would you like to sign up for this credit card to recieve 10 free diamonds? Invite a friend and you can earn points! Ding! Youve leveled up. Heres an ad. This is our special bonus play weekend, you get one free replay and a pack of diamonds only costs 4.99$. You can use your gold to purchase new skins for the tetris blocks. This ones shaped like cats! It costs 100 diamonds. You need to collect them all. Free to play, may be some in-app purchases.

I’m haunted by the times I chose not to act.

One time when I was driving a bus full of high schoolers, I saw three middle schoolers walking home (they get out at the same time in the district I worked for). There where two boys and one girl and as I got closer, I saw they were harassing her. It looked like they were pulling her back pack or hair and probably talking nasty. As I passed, she whipped around and yelled at them.

I’m so haunted by this memory.

I should have done something.

As I drove away I thought of the options, but I could quite possibly face legal consequences if I stopped and let her on my bus. As someone who was bullied, mostly physically, by my neighbors, and mostly at the bus stop, I die inside.

This memory, almost three years ago, still plays in my head. I still run through it and wish with all of my soul I could go back and have helped her. I would have brought her back to school and told her to go to the principle’s. I could have just drove her further up the road so she had some distance between herself and the boys. I should have done SOMETHING.

Fuck my job. Fuck what the police would say. Fuck the angry parents. I failed her. I became a bystander.

I will probably live with his regret my whole life.

That tiny moment haunts me.

As a school bus driver and someone that was bullied by my neighborhood kids, I need to tell everyone something.

The way you get to and from school, whether it is walking, bus, or public transport, when you are on your way to and from school, that IS SCHOOL PROPERTY and bullying/ harassment can be turned into the principal and THEY WILL GET PUNISHED AS IF THEY DID IT IN SCHOOL.

Example: You are on the bus and someone hits you, tell the bus driver so they can pull the video (yes, they DO work) and write a report, then tell your principal. The bus is SCHOOL PROPERTY.

Example: your bus driver is texting while driving or making you feel unsafe or harassing you, tell the principal. The bus is SCHOOL PROPERTY. (Even on a field trip or after school events).

Example: I walk home from school and another person I walk with grabs my ass. Tell the principal. Your way home is SCHOOL PROPERTY.

Example: while waiting for the bus in the morning, someone steals your backpack, tell the principal and bus driver. Your bus stop is SCHOOL PROPERTY.

Example: you are on a public transport on the way to school, subway or trolley, and something happens, tell your principal. I have to admit, I dont know enough about this transportation too much, but it would NEVER hurt to tell the principal and driver (if there is one)

YOUR WAY TO AND FROM SCHOOL IS SCHOOL BUSINESS, SCHOOL PROPERTY, AND THE SCHOOL MUST ACT. If they dont, tell the police. School property is government property, police are public servants. If they cant do anything, they can at least help point you in the right direction.

There was a shit head that always made fun of me. I’m a bit weird, so it happened. He used to throw rocks and sticks and anything he could at me because he knew I wouldnt fight back. After I showed my excitement about a new DS game I got, almost everyone at the bus stop started making fun of me. Walking home from the last day of school before Christmas break, him and maybe two other people started throwing wet snowballs at me. If you wet a snowball and pack it, it’s basically ice. They kept pelting me and I usually walked faster than them to avoid them. I got hit on the back of the head and on the back of my thigh. I had a bump on the head and a welt on my thigh.

My mother wanted to call the cops, I convinced her not to because I knew that the guy doing it was ‘one step away from juvie’ as he put it and I didnt want to be the reason. I should have. The only way they stopped was me telling them that my mother was ready to call, and I was too if he didnt stop. He did stop, but I should have reported him. I should have spoke up. If not to the police than the school.

YOUR WAY TO AND FROM SCHOOL IS SCHOOL PROPERTY! REPORT ANY HARASSMENT OR ABUSE TO THE SCHOOL AND THEY MUST ACT.

MALVOLIO

M, O, A, I; this simulation is not as the former: and
yet, to crush this a little, it would bow to me, for
every one of these letters are in my name. Soft!
here follows prose.

Reads

‘If this fall into thy hand, revolve. In my stars I
am above thee; but be not afraid of greatness: some
are born great, some achieve greatness, and some
have greatness thrust upon 'em. Thy Fates open
their hands; let thy blood and spirit embrace them;
and, to inure thyself to what thou art like to be,
cast thy humble slough and appear fresh. Be
opposite with a kinsman, surly with servants; let
thy tongue tang arguments of state; put thyself into
the trick of singularity: she thus advises thee
that sighs for thee. Remember who commended thy
yellow stockings, and wished to see thee ever
cross-gartered: I say, remember. Go to, thou art
made, if thou desirest to be so; if not, let me see
thee a steward still, the fellow of servants, and
not worthy to touch Fortune’s fingers. Farewell.
She that would alter services with thee,
THE FORTUNATE-UNHAPPY.’
Daylight and champaign discovers not more: this is
open. I will be proud, I will read politic authors,
I will baffle Sir Toby, I will wash off gross
acquaintance, I will be point-devise the very man.
I do not now fool myself, to let imagination jade
me; for every reason excites to this, that my lady
loves me. She did commend my yellow stockings of
late, she did praise my leg being cross-gartered;
and in this she manifests herself to my love, and
with a kind of injunction drives me to these habits
of her liking. I thank my stars I am happy. I will
be strange, stout, in yellow stockings, and
cross-gartered, even with the swiftness of putting
on. Jove and my stars be praised! Here is yet a
postscript.

Reads

'Thou canst not choose but know who I am. If thou
entertainest my love, let it appear in thy smiling;
thy smiles become thee well; therefore in my
presence still smile, dear my sweet, I prithee.’
Jove, I thank thee: I will smile; I will do
everything that thou wilt have me.

Exit

Act II Scene V, Twelfth Night; or, What You Will, William Shakespeare

(c.1601)

Poem from Llanybri

If you come my way that is …

Between now and then, I will offer you 
A fist full of rock cress fresh from the bank 
The valley tips of garlic red with dew 
Cooler than shallots, a breath you can swank

In the village when you come. At noon-day 
I will offer you a choice bowl of cawl 
Served with a ‘lover’s’ spoon and a chopped spray 
Of leeks or savori fach, not used now,

In the old way you’ll understand. The din 
Of children singing through the eyelet sheds 
Ringing smith hoops, chasing the butt of hens; 
Or I can offer you Cwmcelyn spread

With quartz stones from the wild scratchings of men:
You will have to go carefully with clogs 
Or thick shoes for it’s treacherous the fen, 
The East and West Marshes also have bogs.

Then I’ll do the lights, fill the lamp with oil, 
Get coal from the shed, water from the well; 
Pluck and draw pigeon, with crop of green foil 
This your good supper from the lime-tree fell.

A sit by the hearth with blue flames rising, 
No talk. Just a stare at 'Time’ gathering 
Healed thoughts, pool insight, like swan sailing 
Peace and sound around the home, offering

You a night’s rest and my day’s energy. 
You must come – start this pilgrimage 
Can you come? – send an ode or elegy 
In the old way and raise our heritage.

'Poem from Llanybri’, Lynette Roberts

(1944)

Le Chat

Viens, mon beau chat, sur mon coeur amoureux;
Retiens les griffes de ta patte,
Et laisse-moi plonger dans tes beaux yeux,
Mêlés de métal et d'agate.

Lorsque mes doigts caressent à loisir
Ta tête et ton dos élastique,
Et que ma main s'enivre du plaisir
De palper ton corps électrique,

Je vois ma femme en esprit. Son regard,
Comme le tien, aimable bête
Profond et froid, coupe et fend comme un dard,

Et, des pieds jusques à la tête,
Un air subtil, un dangereux parfum
Nagent autour de son corps brun.

Charles Baudelaire, ‘Le Chat’, Fleurs du Mal

(1861)

The Cat

Come, superb cat, to my amorous heart;
Hold back the talons of your paws,
Let me gaze into your beautiful eyes
Of metal and agate.

When my fingers leisurely caress you,
Your head and your elastic back,
And when my hand tingles with the pleasure
Of feeling your electric body,

In spirit I see my woman. Her gaze
Like your own, amiable beast,
Profound and cold, cuts and cleaves like a dart,

And, from her head down to her feet,
A subtle air, a dangerous perfume
Floats about her dusky body.

trans. William Aggeler,

(1954)

II. A Game of Chess

The Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne,
Glowed on the marble, where the glass
Held up by standards wrought with fruited vines
From which a golden Cupidon peeped out
(Another hid his eyes behind his wing)
Doubled the flames of sevenbranched candelabra
Reflecting light upon the table as
The glitter of her jewels rose to meet it,
From satin cases poured in rich profusion.
In vials of ivory and coloured glass
Unstoppered, lurked her strange synthetic perfumes,
Unguent, powdered, or liquid - troubled, confused
And drowned the sense in odours; stirred by the air
That freshened from the window, these ascended
In fattening the prolonged candle-flames,
Flung their smoke into the laquearia,
Stirring the pattern on the coffered ceiling.
Huge sea-wood fed with copper
Burned green and orange, framed by the coloured stone,
In which sad light a carvèd dolphin swam.
Above the antique mantel was displayed
As though a window gave upon the sylvan scene
The change of Philomel, by the barbarous king
So rudely forced; yet there the nightingale
Filled all the desert with inviolable voice
And still she cried, and still the world pursues,
‘Jug Jug’ to dirty ears.

.
The Waste Land, T.S. Eliot
(1922)

ENOBARBUS

I will tell you.
The barge she sat in, like a burnish’d throne,
Burn’d on the water: the poop was beaten gold;
Purple the sails, and so perfumed that
The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver,
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
The water which they beat to follow faster,
As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,
It beggar’d all description: she did lie
In her pavilion–cloth-of-gold of tissue–
O'er-picturing that Venus where we see
The fancy outwork nature: on each side her
Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,
With divers-colour’d fans, whose wind did seem
To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,
And what they undid did.

AGRIPPA

O, rare for Antony!

ENOBARBUS

Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides,
So many mermaids, tended her i’ the eyes,
And made their bends adornings: at the helm
A seeming mermaid steers: the silken tackle
Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands,
That yarely frame the office. From the barge
A strange invisible perfume hits the sense
Of the adjacent wharfs. The city cast
Her people out upon her; and Antony,
Enthroned i’ the market-place, did sit alone,
Whistling to the air; which, but for vacancy,
Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too,
And made a gap in nature.

AGRIPPA

Rare Egyptian!

Act 2, Scene 2, Antony and Cleopatra, William Shakespeare

(c.1606)

   After the two nephews had been cleaned up they went to see Math, who said, ‘Men, you have earned peace, and you shall have friendship. Now advise me which virgin to choose.’ Gwydyon replied, 'Lord, that is an easy choice: Aranrhod daughter of Dôn, your niece and your sister’s daughter.’ The girl was sent for, and when she arrived Math said, 'Girl, are you a virgin?’ 'I do not know but that I am.’ Math took his wand and bent it, saying, 'Step over that, and if you are a virgin I will know.’ Aranrhod stepped over the wand, and with that step she dropped a sturdy boy with thick yellow hair; the boy gave a loud cry, and with that cry she made for the door, dropping a second small something on the way, but before anyone could get a look at it Gwydyon snatched it up and wrapped it in a silk sheet and hid it in a little chest at the foot of his bed. 'Well, ’ said Math, 'I will arrange for the baptism of this one,’ referring to the yellow-haired boy, 'and I will call him Dylan.’ The boy was baptized, whereupon he immediately made for the sea, and when he came to the sea he took on its nature and swam as well as the best fish. He was called Dylan son of Ton,  for no wave ever broke beneath him. The blow which killed him was struck by his uncle Govannon, and that was one of the Three Unfortunate Blows.

'Math Son of Mathonwy’, The Mabinogion

c. 11th century

trans. Jeffrey Gantz (1976)

  And there was the falling star. Sophie could see it, a little white descending flame shape a few yards beyond the dark movements that were Michael. The bright shape was coming down slowly now, and it looked as if Michael might catch it.

  Sophie dragged her shoe out of the boot. “Come on, stick!” she crowed. “Get me there!” And she set off at top hobble, leaping across tussocks and staggering through pools, with her eyes on that little white light.

  By the time she caught up, Michael was stalking the star with soft steps, both arms out to catch it. Sophie could see him outlined against the star’s light. The star was drifting level with Michael’s hands and only a step or so beyond. It was looking back at him nervously. How odd! Sophie thought. It was made of light, it lit up a white ring of grass and reeds and black pools round Michael, and yet it had big, anxious eyes peering backwards at Michael, and a small, pointed face.

  Sophie’s arrival frightened it. It gave an erratic swoop and cried out in a shrill, crackling voice, “What is it? What do you want?”

  Sophie tried to say to Michael, Do stop – it’s terrified! But she had no breath left to speak with.

Howl’s Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones

(1986)