I Want to Go Home...

Just so I can come back AGAIN!

I am having a fabulous time here in Japan, and I am really liking the culture, food, language and way of life here. I've been a little busy the past couple days, but I told myself to write my blog before breakfast and laundry.

Thursday morning, I woke up around 7 o'clock in order to study. We had our second kanji quiz that day, and so I looked over the kanji and practiced the forms in my kanji workbook. I also had to reviews 11 and 12 for the day.

I got to class a little later that day, but I was still the first person there. I sat one seat over than normal so that I could see the cards that the teachers put up.

For class exercises, the teachers will often put up cards with a picture on it (a person eating, or two friends meeting) which represents a verb. We then apply the verb to the picture (rather than memorization) and then conjugate the verb based on what type of conjugation we are practicing/learning as a class. After we go through the entire set of verbs as a class, the teacher will then call on individual students to conjugate the verbs by themselves. It's very effective and a great way to learn a language.

We also practiced the Lesson 11 dialogue during our first class, which was with Yoshida-sensee. Our second class was also with Yoshida-sensee and we studied the kanji of the last three chapters of Genki 1 (Chapters 10-12). The entire class was dedicated to reviewing kanji, and to do so we played a kanji game, which the cards with the kanji on it were placed on the floor. Then, the entire class (Fifteen people now) would race against each other to grab the sheet with the appropriate kanji when it was called. I didn't get many because some of the other students would get a little pushy, but I made sure to focus and pay attention to when a particular word was called.

After the game, everyone had at least one kanji, and so each person would then say a sentence with the appropriate kanji, and then the rest of the class would write it down on a personal whiteboard. (I really love the whiteboards). The goal of this exercise was to recognize various kanji and then be able to use the kanji in a sentence. It was very effective.

For our third class we had Aizawa-sensee. He came in and we started right off the bat with our lesson 11 kanji quiz. The entire previous class had been dedicated to reviewing these kanji so I felt very confident. We had also gotten our kanji quiz back from the day before. I missed a half point because I had one stroke on one of the kanji facing the wrong way. To prevent this, I made sure to note every direction of every stroke for lesson 11 kanji.

After the kanji quiz, we went over the reading with Aizawa-sensee. The reading corresponded to the reading from the day before so we often had questions that tied both readings together. (The previous reading was a newspaper classified ad and the second reading was a letter response to the ad). These readings also correspond directly with the kanji that we learn in each chapter. For example, the reading that we had due today was part of the kanji exercises from chapter 11 kanji. The reading for yesterday used kanji from chapter 10.

After our third class, Heather, Niki, Pat and I all met and went to Coco's for lunch. Coco's is an American-style restaurant with American food and a Japanese twist. It reminded me much of Friendly's or a Bob Evan's type of atmosphere. I picked the special of the day, which was orange chicken, rice, and salad. It was very tasty. We also get a 300 yen discount when we go to Coco's, so that was another reason why we were interested in going there. I was a little unhappy how American-stylized Coco's was, (I was thinking I might be able to get some Tenpura or something) but it was good food for a rather cheap price.

Afterwards, we came back for our last class with Nakamitsu-sensee. We went over the vocabulary for Lesson 13 in Genki 2, (We had received Genki 2 textbooks and workbooks earlier) practiced then entire dialogue for Chapter 12, and then did exercises for Chapter 12 dialogue 1, which we had to memorize the night before. Time flew by and before we knew it, classes for the day was over.

After class, I returned to my room and studied, preparing for the next day. I also watched part of a movie and talked with some friends via skype. For dinner, I borrowed some rice from my friend, Niki, and made my first rice in the rice cooker. For my first time making rice, as well as using Japanese directions, the rice turned out to be pretty good.

Later in the evening, my friend Tisch, who is also in second year, came over and we did our last sheet of homework. The directions on the homework were a little unclear, but we managed to work out what we had to write about.

I eventually went to sleep a little later then usual, with the intent of waking up earlier than usual, but I figured that the next day was Friday, so it was okay.

I woke up early to try to skype with my parents. I also studied a little bit more before class. We had our first Tango Tesuto- Vocabulary quiz, but I had already studied the chapter at MSU so I wasn't too worried.

For our first class, we went over all of Lesson 12 and the dialogue. We also turned in our homework to the teacher. Yoshida-sensee stayed with us through our second hour class, which is when we had our vocabulary quiz. It was fairly easy, and I'm sure I did well on it. We also started getting into the Genki 2 textbook. Starting next week we won't need to bring our makeshift textbook of Genki 1 to class. For reviewing, we went through half of a textbook in one week. I'm really excited for this type of intensive course.

We also got our schedules for next week, we should be done with chapter 13 by Thursday, and halfway through chapter 14 by the end of the week. On average we are looking at about a chapter and a half each week. This involved, vocabulary, kanji, reading, 2-3 dialogues, and an expression note for each chapter. It doesn't look like there will be a chapter test, but we are supposed to have a midterm and a final, so everything will probably just be tested in the midterm and final.

For our last class, Nakamitsu-sensee came in and we reviewed the new grammar structures that we had learned in the previous class. We practiced those as a class and then moved on to the first dialogue for chapter 13. This particular dialogue had a lot of tongue-twisters in it, so we would often have to say it over and over again before it sounded correct. At the same time, we got lots of laughs out of the class.

Afterwards, I headed upstairs to my dorm where I made some ramen for lunch. I looked over my notes then had to leave a little before two for my homestay meeting. There, Kitamura-san gave us our bike and train passes and explained on a map how we would get from where we were living to JCMU. Today (Saturday) I will find out how to get to the train station from JCMU.

We also talked about living in traditional Japanese homes. There is a lot of stuff involved, but I'll make a brief mention here, and then full details when I move in on Tuesday. Apparently, the bathrooms are completely different, as well as the laundry. Dinner time as well as etiquette is also very different compared to the US. It should serve as an interesting blog. Look out for Tuesday and Wednesday (my time).

When the homestay was finished, I went to talk to Iga-san the student services coordinator about my trip to Tokyo in two weeks. For my birthday, I will be traveling to Tokyo to visit my friend, Ayami, and then we are going to Tokyo Disney for on Saturday, and then hanging around Tokyo on Sunday. Ayami is one of my friends from Japanese Conversation hour from MSU. I will be taking the Shinkansen (Japanese Bullet train) to Tokyo Saturday morning, and then coming back Sunday evening. The Shinkansen is rather expensive, but my roommate, (who studied abroad for a semester) tells me that it is an experience that everyone should take once.

Jackie (my roommate) and I then left to go to the super market to get some last minute things before my homestay starts. We picked up some rice and steak, and we had also hoped to get some tenpura, but it was already sold out. Jackie stayed to study a little bit outside of the center, so I rode my bike back to the center just at the sun was setting.

Once I got back, I made myself some dinner with the steak that I just bought. My head was hurting a little bit (my excuse for not writing last night) so I went to bed around ten in the evening.

And so, those are my updates of here in Japan. Today my friends and I are going to Viva City, so I'll write more about that later!