American Breakfast for Dinner with Japanese Friends

Wednesday- the middle of the week, but one of my favorite days so far.

I have officially gotten used to sleeping in Japan. I now sleep when I want to, and wake up at normal times. The past week has been a blast, and I'm sure it will be only more fun later and as time goes on.

I started off the day around 6:30, a little earlier than usual because I wanted to study the kanji a little more today as we were to have our first kanji quiz today during the first class period. I made myself a piece of toast with peanut butter on top for breakfast before sitting at our table in the kitchen to review everything before class today.

Note: The idea of "you don't miss it until it's gone" can apply very well here with my stay in Japan. At home, I never ate a piece of toast with peanut butter on top- then as soon as I get here it's just about all that I eat. Yes, I am slightly embarrassed to say that I have been here a week and a half (one week with my luggage) and already I am just about done with my jar of peanut butter. This also happened in South Africa. I don't know what it is, but peanut butter tastes really delicious in foreign countries, even if it was bought and brought with me from the United States.

Some of you may be wondering why I don't just go out and buy more peanut butter. Peanut butter is very expensive here in Japan. Real expensive. A pint costs roughly about $5 here, which is ridiculous. If I ever live here, I'm probably going to have to add that expense to my budget.

And so, I went to class about twenty minutes early so that I could study without the distraction of my laptop. In addition, Lance (Armstrong) and myself are competing for the chair up front. I managed to get there first today, so it was mine.

First class was with Yoshida-sensee. We went over the dialoguefor Chapter 9 and we also reviewed Lesson 10 in the textbook. It was a rather simple review, but Chapter 10 involves a lot of tongue-twister like sentences, so I was falling over those for a little bit. We also had our first kanji quiz. I knew every kanji on the quiz and all the words and kanji forms that I had to write when changing from hiragana, so I felt really confident, but I should get my official grade tomorrow.

Our second class was with Nakamitsu-sensee. We went over a newspaper article from the book where four people were looking for friends in the classified sections. I volunteered as much as possible, and even did a small skit with Heather. The skit was where I called her after she had placed an ad in the newspaper. We said that we both liked movies and agreed on a time and day. However, barely a single person in the class could answer Nakamitsu-sensee's questions regarding our skit. (What type of movie did I like, what day we decided to go, etc.) In the end, I felt as though I gained a lot from reading and listening.

Aizawa-sensee came next, and like normal started shooting off questions right form the get-go. We covered a lot of stuff from the book, such as previous grammar structures and the dialogue for Chapter 10. The thing that I liked most of this class was the fact that we never really knew when he was going to switch topics. He combined all the focuses in the class into one big conversation that kept going for fifty minutes. In example, he would have us change parts of the dialogue to allow us to use various grammar structures that we had just reviewed or reviewed on Monday. It's a very applicable way of doing things and it helps us with our Japanese listening skills as we always have to be ready for anything that we have ever learned, not just what is in the chapter.

After our third class, we had our lunch break, but for the first twenty minutes, I met my conversation partner. There were a lot of JCMU conversation partner applicants for the summer program, so I am sharing my partner with Grace. We talked for a little bit, our partner in English while we would respond in Japanese. Our partner has a son who likes Japanese anime as well as Japanese history, (which is what Grace and I put down as our interests, respectively) so she asked us if it would be okay if she gave our e-mail addresses to her son. This way, we have two conversation partners, though we will be practicing more Japanese and English with her son.

We agreed to meet every Monday and Wednesday during lunch for conversation hour. However, we are starting the hour next week, as this week we hadn't planned ahead and pre-made lunch. next Monday I will let you know how it goes. She seems extremely nice though, and I am excited to work in two languages at one time.

Afterwards, I returned to my room, had a cup of ramen, and then returned early to the classroom once again in order to go over Chapter 11 before our fourth and final class of the day started. While looking through the textbook I had to admit that Chapter 11 was really easy for me. If I am correct, that was the one test that I did really really well on this past semester in Japanese 102.

Our teacher was Yoshida-sensee again, (we have her twice a day, every day) and I was able to participate a lot more than the first hour with her. In fact, the entire class was extremely active and even some of the slower students were catching on. I guess I wasn't the only one who thought that Chapter 11 was easy.

Afterwards, I was exhausted after a day of reviewing so I came upstairs and took a "conscious nap", as I like to call it. It's where I just lie on my bed and while I'm not sleeping, I'm not responsive to noises that I hear or the minutes that I feel passing by. I was "awoken" about an hour later when Jackie knocked on my door. She said that there was a fire drill going on (I had heard something on the loud speaker, but I really just toned it out.) and so the two of us headed outside into the warm sunshine on the Wednesday afternoon where a bright red fire truck was sitting on the cobblestones outside JCMU.

The four firemen explained to us (in Japanese, with one of the office workers for JCMU translating) what to do in case of a fire. We then all got to practice with the fire extinguisher, which Xiao and I had a great time with. (I mentioned that I could probably start a fire with a fire extinguisher.) Xiao was in my Japanese class first semester and so we often practice our dialogues in class together. He is a really funny guy and tries to make everyone laugh at least once a day.

Afterwards, I returned to my room and finish my "nap". After a half hour or so, I woke up and started on my homework, finishing a good portion of it before I headed over to Niki's dorm to make a huge American breakfast. Pat, Heather, Tisch, another guy from JCMU as well as one of Heather's friends from Shiga Daigaku. We made a bunch of pancakes, eggs, bacon (which turned out to be just pork), and nearly forgot about the rice in the rice cooker. (That was our dessert.)

Today was filled with a bunch of laughs, from fire extinguishers to pancakes to Xiao being Xiao.

Thanks for reading! More to come tomorrow!