help please. someone posted this comment on my blog:
がいこくのことばをべんきょうするのはたいへんですよね。でもスペインごがはなせてべんりですね

...and I fumbled around with it for a while until I remembered that I CAN'T ACTUALLY SPEAK JAPANESE. seriously, I don't even recognize half the characters in the second sentence.

question: Is the gesture in this video used in a negative sense? Normally, in the U.S., "kissing up to someone" is equated with "brown-nosing", a social practice that, in certain contexts, is look at unfavorably. Is that how it is used here? Or is it a compliment to "kiss up to someone"?
http://one.revver.com/watch/48814

One interesting thing I've learned recently, related to Japan:
The Japanese have a very interesting and contradictory relationship to their chopsticks. Apparently, it is natural to develop a relationship with your own personal set, and it is considered unsanitary to eat with a "re-usable" pair in a restaurant. So, for a long time, people would carry their chopsticks around with them. But then, what started with a surplus in the lumber industry ended up being the beginning of the disposable-chopstick-industry. This seems natural enough, except for when you factor in the huge amount of waste (albeit, biodegradable) that comes with so many used chopsticks. This is where it gets tricky--the japanese have a fairly progressive stance on environmental issues, and this disposible chopstick phenomenon seems to run counter-intuitively. ah, how interesting when gastronomical tradition and environmental philosophy collide!

Also, I need help learning how to type in Japanese. I set up my computer so that I can do it, but when I tried to teach myself the keyboard basics, I got too confused. Can I bring my computer to class?