First post!!!

はじめまして！　Jackieです。どおぞ　よろしく！
わたしわ　あめりかじんです。ふろりだのたむぱから　きました。
せんこうわ　びじゅつのじんるいがくです。
わたしわ　のとるだむだいがくのにおんごのいちねんせいです！

Hello everyone! I'm Jackie, or koo-ka-burra. I usually use livejournal for blogging, so blogspot is new for me! This blog is mainly to catalogue my experiences in first-year Japanese at the University of Notre Dame! I'll use primarily English until I expand my Japanese vocabulary.
I'm an American hailing from Tampa, Florida - how I ended up in chilly South Bend no one will know.
I plan on majoring in art studio and anthropology (specifically a BFA in art studio, with a focus on drawing.) I love storytelling with art - you know, animated movies and the like. Hopefully I will one day be a designer / storyboarder for an animation company! Anthropology, though it may sound odd, really completes my ability to design characters, stories and worlds- to know their background, their psychology, their philosophy about life and survival. It clicks, weird as that might sound. I might post some of my art on here in the future (if I can get my camera working).
I (like a considerable number of Japanese students) first decided to learn Japanese because of anime/manga. However, I've drifted away from manga somewhat simply because I don't have enough time for it anymore. I have, however, become fascinated with Eastern philosophy/spirituality, especially Taoism. I first discovered Tao through Benjamin Hoff's book The Tao of Pooh. The concept of P'u, the Uncarved Block, as well as the Wu Wei explained to an incredible degree my own personal philosophy - to live without doing, causing, or making - to live without fretting about every little thing - it's brilliant. I can't describe it much more than that, or else it would Confuse things.

Hopefully that's a good enough post for now - I'm sure I'll update this a few more times before Thursday...
-Jackie
"Tao does not do, but nothing is not done."