Can Japan Be Average?

Today, Tuesday, was a fairly average day here in Hikone, Japan. At least, to one who has only been in the country for a week. 

It started off a little later than usual. Even after going to bed around 10:00 pm the day before, I still woke up at 7:30 am, even after I checked my phone several times before admitting that it was too early to get out of bed. I can only comprehend in the manner that I now believe that I am completely settled in Japan, at least sleeping-wise. 

After waking up, I studied a little kanji, as well as made myself my traditional peanut butter toast for the morning. I gathered all of my work, re-checked my homework from the night before, said おはよう (good morning) to my roommate, got dressed and headed off to class around 8:50, about twenty minutes before class starts. My aim was to reclaim my seat.

And my seat was open, so I managed to sit in my comfortable chair near the front of the classroom. Other students started filing in with a few stragglers dropping by just before Yoshida-sensee walked in. Our first class revolved around reviewing the last chapter of Monday and the new chapter in our packet. Overall, we touched on short form for the present and past tenses. (Casual speech and specific grammar structures). 

Our second class was with Aizawa-sensee, and the entire class was sitting with anticipation until he walked into the room. Without fail, he started off in normal Japanese speech in both accent and speed, allowing us to catch up as the class went on. By the end of the class, all fourteen of us were spent. It was rather exhausting. I've never had to really be on my toes for an entire fifty minutes during a class.

For our third and final class of the day, Yoshida-sensee came back to the classroom. We went over a bunch of kanji as well at reviewed all short forms and the grammar structures that went with them. The day ended at noon, as it was Tuesday.

Note: I'm not sure if I mentioned this before, but on Tuesdays and Fridays our classes end at noon, instead of another fifty minute class after an hour and ten minute lunch break. Tuesday classes are followed by a culture event, and Friday classes are simply let out early- though some events are also scheduled for the weekend. In addition, we are usually assigned more work for the weekend compared to the weekdays.

Directly after class, I was given a sheet of paper from one of the ladies in the front office. Earlier, in my mailbox, I had received a letter regarding my Japanese conversation partner. The letter had said that I was to meet my partner directly after class that day (Tuesday) however, because of the culture event, the lady told us that we were to meet our conversation partners the next day during our lunch break on Wednesday. 

Instead, we were to go with our original plan, which was to go on a group bike ride to Shiga Daigaku, or Shiga University. There, we separated into four groups, (My group consisted of Heather, Pat, myself and Keven, a third year student) and then our group was paired with two students from the University. The two students led us around the campus, showing us various buildings before we went into the cafeteria for lunch. The students were extremely shy, and no matter how many questions we asked them in order to start a conversation, it never really picked up. 

For lunch, I had donburi with pork. Donburi, as I mentioned before is some sort of food on top of rice. Last time I had tenpura, but this time I had pork. The pork was really delicious, and on top of the rice, there was also broccoli and a type of really thin lettuce. The donburi tasted really good and it is starting to become my favorite food in Japan. Anything can go with rice.

After lunch, we returned back to our original meeting spot, where we said good-bye to the students who gave us the tour. Our students had a finance class, so we were left on our own. With nothing else really to do around Shiga Daigaku, the four of us returned back to JCMU.

At JCMU I started my homework, as well as wrote my blog for Monday. Around 6:30 Pat and I met at Heather's dorm where we had decided to make steak, rice and いなりずし (inarizushi). Inarizushi is sushi rice with tofu. It can be eaten chilled or heated, but we decided to do the latter, which ended up tasting pretty good. 

I made the steak myself, by grilling it in the frying pan. After the meat had browned a little, I poured the same sauce that we had used to make stir fry with and let the meat cook in the sauce until it was finished. We all complimented each other on our cooking and enjoyed our meal. Our meal lasted an hour and a half, one hour and fifteen minutes more that I expected, (sorry, mom) but I had a lot of fun. Eventually, Niki, who had to go to Otsu (the capital of Shiga) because of visa issues, joined us for dinner and we all had a great laugh until we decided to return to our rooms in order to finish our homework and go to bed.

And so, with some help form my level-four roommate, Jackie and her level-four friend, Amanda, I managed to finish my homework. Jackie and I listened to some music for a while, (we have the same tastes) before I decided to come back to my personal room to finish this blog before I went to bed.

It's about 11:15 pm here in Japan, 10:15 am Eastern time (my brothers are eating lunch about now) and I'm about to rest before I wake up tomorrow morning for another day of school and Japanese culture.

I would say it was an average day, but can it really be average in Japan?

Oh, extra note: Yesterday, we met the director of the Center, Mr. Peter Morris. He spoke English for the entire time that we were in the orientation and was a very funny guy. He focuses on the era of Japanese history after the Tokugawa Shogunate- about the same time period that I am looking into. In addition, there was an hilarious moment when Mr. Morris was explaining the fire safety code at the Center. Apparently, in the past two semesters, there have been two fires, one each semester. Both fires were in the same room. When he asked who was in that particular room, the entire class exploded in laughter. The "fire room" as we now dub it, is the home to the two more rowdier boys in the program, who also happen to be from Texas, of all places.

I'm not one to be stereotypical, but even I find it funny. 

Anyway, more tomorrow. 

Laters!