Just to run through the basics, school has been about as normal as usual and things are starting to feel much like the monotonous day to day school I always experienced in America. You go to class, you do your homework, study, go eat food at the cafeteria or run to Lawson's to pick up a sandwich or a rice ball.
Things do seem a little easy though, schools been going on for around three weeks and we haven't had one assignment that has been properly graded yet. Elize and I have the theory that they're just letting us settle into the life of another country before loading on the tests. I think this is nice, but it does make me worry. If this is just to let us settle, what is class gonna be like when it really does get serious?
I would honestly appreciate it if they gave us some form of syllabus though. That way we have some grasp of the plans for this semester, and how the grading will work for our classes. Not having this structure is somewhat of a shock to me. It's really hard to feel comfortable when you can't even guess how everything is going to work, even after three weeks of class.
Come on teachers, you're making us nervous! :(
Have I told you how many people are in my class yet? Three. There are three people in my Japanese class... Here, let me break it down for you:
There were many many more but we were separated into three different classes for our "levels", beginner, advanced, and Chinese. I'm not joking. Two of my friends, Name (nickname) and Stephan, and some dude from Butan are in the beginners level. Elise, Chris (A German exchange student, he really gets on Elise's nerves, and I'm starting to see why), and I are in the advanced levels. Then there's the "Chinese" level, which houses all the Taiwanese exchange students who already know Kanji (
Needless, to say, with our small classes, each day is rather intense. The teacher literally has time to hover over our shoulders as we answer a question, and we get called on like crazy. At least I know I'm getting plenty of practice.
In other news, my Japanese teacher, Suzuki-sensei, really likes getting her way. She asked us if we wanted to go to a concert this Sunday, (the 16th), a week or so ago.
Elise and I had arranged plans to go to Disneyland on Sunday with Cho and Sarah, but Cho fell down the stairs and fractured her butt bone. Needless to say, our plans for Sunday were canceled.
When she heard, all she said was "so you're free?" Yes Sensei, we are indeed free. So now we're going to be going to a concert with our Japanese teacher this Sunday instead of to Disneyland..... This actually turned out to be a nice set up though. Because we agreed to go with our Sensei, she decided to be super cool. She cancelled half of our Japanese class on Thursday, is giving us the tickets for free, and is treating us to lunch. For a poor student in a different country (who lives off of rice balls from Lawson and curry from the cafeteria
I'll be sure to take lots of pictures of wherever we're going. Unfortunately, I won't be able to post them up until I get my memory reader, and I don't know when I may get that.
That's what's coming up. Lets move on to what's happened in the last week or so.
Well aside from a few trips to Aeon, (pronounced Eon/Ion go figure), and the normal school days, I can say that this week has been a rather interesting one. On Thursday, after my fourth period class (ends at 4:20), I decided to go to Nakano. Now I had no idea how to get there, so I asked my Japanese teacher, and she wrote me a basic idea of how to get to Nakano from where I live in Minami Kashiwa. It was all in Japanese. Good thing I was able to make it out with my meager Japanese.
Just in case, I decided to take a map anyways...
The problem was that this was my first time going somewhere further than Kashiwa on my own. In fact, this was my first time riding the train by myself. I didn't know much more than how to buy a ticket. It took me four different buses and three different tickets to get there, but I did make it.
Imagine my surprise in finding out that it's the glory hole of Japanese Anime. Okay, I lied, I wasn't surprised. I knew Nakano was the glory hole, that's why I went there. It also just so happens to have the biggest Mandarake in Japan, the best second hand shop I have heard of. You can find some of the rarest things there.
Anyways, Nakano is well known for being a place that sells Anime goods up the heezy. This is often mixed up with Akihabara,
I didn't spend a lot of money on anything, most of the stuff was pretty expensive, and it was my first trip there. I really just wanted to look around. In total I spent 4000 yen on books, and about 1200 on travel fees. I don't know if I'm going to go back there, but I didn't take any pictures of the place and I do want people to have some sort of clue about what Nakano looks like.
On Saturday, the foreign exchange students and the members of Rifa went together to Ueno to visit a museum. This was actually a nice trip and I took plenty of pictures on my phone. I just don't know when I may be able to upload them. We went on Saturday because foreign students were being admitted for free along with one student they brought along with them. Essentially everyone got in for free.
I haven't seen so many Americans in one place since I left America! The museums were fun, there were four in the area and we went to three of them. We got to see a lot of old artifacts that I would love to post photos of, maybe I can when I can use wifi or something...
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