Nearing two months in Japan!

 

Firstly, I realise that I haven’t posted anything for ages!  Sorry about that!  When I first arrived, I had lots of time to go places and take lots of photos and things, but obviously now University is fully underway I have less and less time for that – I’m having an amazing time though!

 

I have 21 hours of Japanese lectures a week, which is about twice as much as I had in Edinburgh *shock* but then in Edinburgh I suppose we got more homework, marginally I am glad though really, I think it’s good for me to be doing lots of Japanese!  All the classes are taught in Japanese which is helpful, and some of them have volunteers from the University who come in and, well, for example I had a guy in my writing class help me go through my essay (all about Amy Winehouse haha!) and make it more Japanesey and generally better!  We also have a class in Keigo, which is super-polite Japanese, which is barely used in day-to-day life, just in really formal situations.

 

I “only” have two 9 o’clock starts, my others are 1pm, 10.30am, and 1pm … some of my friends actually have lectures on Saturday morning too, but thankfully I don’t have any of those!!  I’m not going out clubbing and partying that much, but I’m so obsessed with actually getting better at Japanese that I don’t mind!  Anyone who has lived abroad will know that if you’re in a place where even going to buy groceries is an adventure, it doesn’t matter if you aren’t out clubbing and partying aaaaall the time!

 

At first I was finding it all really really hard, which I guess is understandable, but gradually I think I’m starting to adjust to the level although it was a big jump from the Japanese I was doing last year obviously!  There are so many Asian people on our course, and they of course you see have a very good knowledge (mostly) of Chinese characters.  Whilst this does mean that sometimes they are prone to insert Chinese words into Japanese essays, or Japanese words that they can’t pronounce properly, it still means that they have the edge when it comes to comprehension, with reading at least.  That’s the hardest thing at the moment, kanji kanji kanji.

 

All that said, I’m trying to adjust my Uni work schedule to spending about 35% of my study time per week on kanji, as I think that is the thing that will help improve my confidence the most – not so much the kanji themselves, but compounds.  I have a kanji class with weekly tests, about 120 words a week, which is quite a lot on top of everything else :S

 

So yes, all in all, lots of work, social life suffering a little bit, but I’m not being a complete hermit, going on little ’study dates’ and what not – it’s all very fun and educational!  I do also have the prospect of two months holiday at the beginning of next year which is rather exciting!

 

That, and also one of my friends from the last time I was here (when I was 16) is coming to see me from Kobe in November, I’m really excited about seeing him again!  Last time I saw him he was doing a homestay in England – I spoke to him on the phone the other day, in Japanese (teehee!) and he was very complimentary which whilst probably largely flattery was nevertheless encouraging!

 

There we go, a little bit of an update!  I would write about something other than work, but genuinely, I do relatively little else *heehee* I will try and think of an anicdote or two for next time!

 

(^_^v)

Ginza at night … I took some photos!  Kind of speak for themselves, I love it!  I love even more that it takes me like 20 minutes to get there!

I realise it’s Sunday now but, on Friday we had an International Society gathering at an Izakaya (sort of like a bar/restaurant … except you take your shoes off and things) and I had a few pictures on my camera so I thought I’d pop them up here!

The day of the typhoon everything sort of crunched to a standstill, so we went on a walk from where we live (Nishiwaseda) to Harajuku, via Shinjuku, taking pictures along the way!  Here we go!!

It is seen as polite to wear such a mask as this, in all common spaces… so I am!  It’s hot, right? …

… webcam quality picture, but, you get the idea.

Hello there everyone!  This may be a bit of a long post, so I apologise if it gets a bit rambly!  I just thought that I have been posting a lot of pictures but not much text … thought I would try and bring everyone up to date with how things were going for me at Uni here in Tokyo!

After arriving I had a couple of weeks to do a mixture of orientation, events organised by the international society (虹の会 they are called, or ‘Rainbow Society’), which usually end up with us all descending on the local park at Toyama, sometimes a group of 100 students or so, all drinking and generally being frivolous, often until 3am!

I’ve got to do lots of sightseeing already which you will know if you’ve been following my blog, with my photos from Akihabara and Harajuku – two of the places I’ve always wanted to go in Japan the most, and both of which are really really easy for me to get to now!

What has been a bit less exciting is how ill I have been!  I had a sort of coldy thing quite soon after my arrival … but then that went … but now I am ill again, sneezing and coughing all over the place and also currently battling with hiccoughs!  I wouldn’t mind so much only this week is our orientation week, when we really need to go to our classes and see what we like, what we don’t like, which ones we want to change, and whether we should go up/down levels.

In this programme (別科日本語) that I’m on at Waseda, there are 8 levels, 1 is the easiest and 8 is the hardest.  Levels 7+8 are pretty much fluent, mostly postgraduates and/or Chinese/Korean students.  I am in level 4, which means I’ll be in level 5 next semester all being well.  At the moment though I am in two minds.  I have been looking at the level 3 grammar, and I think I know about 30% of it, if that … which is a bit worrying considering I am in level 4.  However, at the moment I am hoping to be able to keep going with level 4 and fill up the level 3 gaps as I go along, settling into level 4 within the first month or so … however at the moment I am still not sure that I will do that, I may instead do level 3 this semester and then level 4 next semester.  As far as I can see, levels 3 and 4 have lots of grammar instruction but levels 5 and above (all quite advanced) really have no grammar explanations, or no formal grammar anyway.

My main reason I think I want to move down is it is just so demoralising in level 4 at the moment, I am probably in the bottom 20% of the class in terms of ability and it’s discouraging because I’m somewhere nearish the top back in Edinburgh … it just makes me think that my Japanese is really bad, and does detract somewhat from the enjoyment … being ill again and again isn’t really helping either!  If I am struggling SO much in level 4, I may actually end up not learning that much because I am *so* stressed!

Aside from concern about levels and being a bit poorly though, I really am having a lovely time!  Not much else to report as of yet, I will keep you posted though!

I am feeling really ill today *self pity* but I thought I would share the view from one of my classrooms today, it was quite cool although the weather was about to turn quite bad!