First Day of Classes

...was yesterday!

Kicked off with "The Latest Japan on TV News." It's basically a class where you watch the news and the teacher preps a vocab/phrase list to go along with it. So you study that and then each week there is a quiz on the previous week's content. There's one paper to write at the end about a news event and your thoughts on it.

Since all the classes are in orientation mode, they are only meeting for half of a normal period, and then repeating the same info for the second half. I get suppose it's useful if you aren't sure about which classes you will take, but if you registered with confidence it's annoying and makes your schedule really holey for the first week.

The next class I went to was "Developing Discourse Ability in Japanese." This is perfect for me because I actually get quite frustrated speaking. My conversational ability is pretty low on content, consisting of lots of fragments and basic info. This class is for learning how to make people listening to you really be able to imagine what you are describing and react to it emotionally. Like, they'll actually be interested in what you're saying because you're saying more than just, "Yeah, the party was fun." Stoked, even tho it will mean I'll have to talk a lot...


The last class of Friday was "Japanese Sentence Patterns for Communication (1)." This one worried me a bit because the pre-test was a little shakey. I'm considering taking the second half of level 4 simultaneously to review some of those patterns while learning the new ones instead of taking Extensive Reading (I think they meet during the same period, so I'll be able to take orientation for both on Monday and decide.) The other thing that is scary about these grammar courses is that everything depends on the tests (75% of your grade). That is a lot of pressure. If the tests are similar to the pretest I think it might be hard to figure out which pattern the teacher intends us to use...but maybe I'll get used to it through the homework. No matter what I have to take this class, so...

The Gundam Research Association was hanging out after school. I had to ask for directions to the meeting room, and then still got a little lost, but once I found them it was pretty fun. They planned a cherry blossom viewing party, and even though it was really cold we followed through and went to a park. Ate more chips 'n junk than I have in the past year altogether, haha, but it was fun to get try a bunch of different snack foods at once, since I don't usually buy them on my own. When we all got too cold at the park, we went on to round 2 at an izakaya near Waseda station. Everyone got prettttty plastered, but they all seem like basically good guys. Yeah, I'm the only girl :P Most people use Twitter and Facebook it seems like, so it's easy to stay in touch.

In other news, my homestay situation got messed up, so I quickly worked with a housing agency (?) to find an apartment near school. I haven't even moved in yet and I'm already getting teased for living in a boring neighborhood, but...I kinda feel like I'm lucky to have found such a sunny clean room within walking distance of school at such short notice, so I will just deal with whatever neighborhood it is for now. If I need to break the lease later, I guess that's just life. Sucks that they are all two years in Japan, though (just like phone contracts, which...yeah I have a phone now, too! Can't figure out some of the functions, but it's an iPhone so for the most part I'm used to it already. 4S, ftw!)

As for why my homestay got messed up, well, it seems like just a misunderstanding. I thought I got across the fact that I did not want to share a room. My understanding of 'share house' was that I would be able to share a house with a Japanese family, but if more people show up and the rooms are split with curtains, that is just not a comfortable scene for me. I feel bad to cancel, but I feel like we worked it out in a fair enough way.

I have a lot more stuff to think about like buying a fridge and laundry machine, futon, cooking supplies etc. I do want to try to cook! The latest issue of Tabeyoubi is all about things you can do with just a frying pan, which is perfect for my house haha.

Other random news, uhhh I joined the student co-op so I can get discounts on textbooks and cafeteria food. Today is Saturday but I'm still going to campus to take a tour 'n hopefully buy a book.

I'll try to post some picture next time so it's not as boring :P