*get comfortable, it's a long one*
I have been looking forward to posting a happy blog for once, and I definately have one. It hasn't really gotten any easier, but I have had a lot of fun. I honestly dont mind getting my ass kicked out here language wise, in fact I kind of expect it. But I hadnt really done anything else so it was grating on me.
木曜日
Lets see.... Thursday night Taka, a friend from last year who is now living in the Ihouse with all the gaijin (foreigners) threw us a welcome party. Was a blast. Up way too late and everything, but hey thats normal here. See, most other students start class like 11am and end at like 2... I dont mind, for a month I can draw up some super powers. Everyone is so wonderful here that I dont want to miss a thing.
金曜日
Friday night was a chill night. We took a test Friday (I got 94/115 others got it out of 111, no idea what the difference is.) And afterwards just had a few beers and hung out doing nothing. A rare and valuable thing, but often feels like we missed out.
土曜日
Well we made up for it the next two days. Saturday was the day trip to Nara, seeing all the same temples I saw last year but still enjoying the company and such. I spent a lot of the day talking to one of Zack's conversation partners Izumi. I have noticed this year the American to Nihonjin ratio on trips and such is rather low this year which makes it hard to pracitce Japanese. I was glad to get the practice in.
Afterwards we went to a bar with Paul (program co-ordinator) briefly. He couldnt really hang out since he has a 2 year old and one on the way, but we happened to run into a group of the conversation partners and they invited us to a nomihodai. (all you can drink) Now they arent stupid, service was rediculously slow, especially for one of the most customer service oriented customers in the world. All you can drink came with lots of food (none of which I could eat) and lasted 2 hours, but it took about 20 mins to get my next drink every time. We ordered a couple rounds of shots that were much more like spoonfulls. Still, everyone was absolutely wonderful, especially Yoshiki who seemed to be running the show. Out late meant walking home about 20 mins from Kamigamo Jinja (jinja = shrine) in the rain, but I didnt mind at all.
日曜日
Sunday - was the best day yet by far. We met Meg (YAY!) and Mariko (my conversation partner from 2 years ago) at Shijo station and went to Osaka to meet Chikara, Isson, Keiji, and Tsu-kun who were all CPs from last year. It was rediculously hot and humid in Osaka, but still just soo much fun to see everyone. Was really just a wonderful day. Makes me wish we could have lots more time to just hang out like last year rather than just make them show us around random places.
月曜日
Monday - like I said, Japanese really hasnt gotten any easier for me. I keep making fun of Onozaki sensei calling him kibishi sensei. Kibishi means strict, and Kishi is another teacher that runs the program but is mostly too busy to actually teach us now. Today we got to have Kishi sensei for the first time, and it was a nice change. Onozaki sensei gives 0 english and 0 furigana. (furigana is the readings so you can at least pronounce kanji you dont know) In many ways this is very good, Kishi sensei actually gives too much furigana, for words that we should have known long, long ago. But the 4-5 word explinations of new gramar in english make everything click. Back to Onozaki sensei tomorrow, who is already in full swing sending us links in Japanese we cant read on our presentation topics. I picked noodles, well... mostly because I couldnt think of a god damned thing. Should be interesting.
Right now I am in the computer lab pretending I am actually studying. Planning on reading wikipedia about noodles.... well assuming I dont spend all night tagging pics. If I do you may see some new ones!
Links of the day!
I have not been at the computer at all lately, so I dont have crap. Hopefully you found this post somewhat interesting.
