Welcome to Gaia! ::

Age: 25
Sex: Female
Ethnicity: Caucasian
Country: America
Major: Japanese
Minor: International Business
Post-Grad Goal: To be a translator for international businesses.

What made you want to learn Japanese?
To be perfectly honest, I started learning it because I was sick of Spanish. In the school system I attended, you had two choices for foreign language, Spanish I and Spanish II. Unlike it was when my mother attended school, we had no choice in what we wanted our second language to be. For her, she chose to be bilingual in Spanish, for me, I had no choice. I wanted freedom of choice. I decided on Japanese because no one else I knew at the time was studying it.

So Anime had nothing to do with your choice?
I guess one could say that it did. I didn't really watch Anime until my junior or senior year in high school. We had just signed up for cable and I stumbled on Cartoon Network one afternoon while they were doing their Toonami segment. I thought it was pretty neat at first but I got sick of the mundane shows rather quickly. A friend suggested that I check out the Underground stuff (you know, the kind that isn't and will not be released state-side anytime soon) so I did and found the differences in language interesting. I really wanted to know if the amateur translators had gotten it right. Turns out, some did, and some didn't lol.

So is Japanese going to be your only foreign language?
Far from it! I actually have a list of 7 languages total that I want to be fluent in. Languages are easy for me so I'm positive that I will become a polyglot.

What are you doing outside of college & Gaia right now?
Working. A lot. I'm part time but I try my hardest to get as close to 40 hours a week as I can. I'm only a cashier right now and I do get sick of people easily, but, as long it keeps paying the bills, I keep dealing with them. Just don't expect me to speak when I hit the clock.

What do you do to relax?
Read books and work on my own. My goal is to have at least one national best seller before I die and I'm chipping away at this damned writer's block every day. The worst part of it is how I can never work on it when inspiration hits me. It never fails; my head will be full of ideas while I'm behind the register but I can't stop and sit on the floor to scribble everything out and by the time I get to break or home, I'm too tired to remember what was so great.

Will you let us know when the book is ready?
Absolutely. It will be released through CreateSpace, a division of Amazon.com, and will be available for purchase through Amazon and the Kindle the moment I approve the Final Proof.