Let freedom ring around my rosie.

Hello, long time!

Okay, don't kill me.

I'm currently in my common room-- just finished up all the homework I had. Oddly enough, I still feel as if I haven't done enough. Normally I don't have a lot of problems speaking Japanese, but for some reason I'm feeling nervous in class and stammering and having trouble pronouncing my words. So I tried to preview the texts a few times, since there's a lot of kanji/characters that I don't know how to read in Japanese.[if only this were China...!]

So, yeah. I realize the last entry with any real content was written after I'd just gotten here. A month later, some things have happened/changed.

1. Dining Halls are open. Yay. Selection sucks major ass. Boo, boo, boo. I'm better off cooking on my magnetic hot plate.
2. The other students are back in the dorm! Yay and Nay. Yay, I'm not alone anymore and have made some friends. Nay, compared to China, there are less kids here and they are less cool.
3. I have been introduced to a game called Jungle Law. It is the shit...and I possibly love it as much as/more than Set. Though it requires other people.[I'll go more into this later.]
4. I've sort of made a bet to bag three Asian boys before the month runs out...hmm. Which means I have to actually go out, I guess.

ETC!

A big entry needs to be reserved for my trip to Okayama, which was a moving and great experience. Reminded me that I really became interested in Japan because of my experience five years ago, when I went to Okayama and met my exchange friends. So meeting them again reminded me that I'm tired of not being fluent. This is a good thing in particular since I've been finding it hard to stay motivated.

But that will be next time.

What's been up, you ask? Besides being a school nerd and stressing not much at all. Classes just started last week[meanwhile, you guys are probably prepping for finals and getting ready for great summers-- HA!]. Oh, I've probably never been over my study plans for Kanazawa. Let's do that now.

Okay, so, I have a thing about arbitrary goals, as I mentioned two entries ago. I wanted to go to level E in the Japanese classes.[Because you forgot, classes go: A-->B-->C1-->C2--D-->E-->F]. I completely bombed my placement test. Failed, crashed, burned, was raped, etc. I wound up in C2-- this is funny, because I took the intermediate placement test, which was for placing from D to F. And I didn't even finish, so I expected to do badly.

Anyway, I'm, of course, used to unexpected failures and bombing placement tests[I bombed my Japanese placement test twice at Tufts, in fact], so. I went to C2 classes, tried my best to look bored and beg my teachers to let me move up. Now, I'm in D class, though things get "finalized" today? Or something. Meaning, I can say I want to go back to C2 if I want.

My problem is pretty much that the grammar isn't bad at all-- I mean, I've done maybe 40-50% of it already. But there are so many WORDS and annoying ways of reading things-- one of the many advantages Chinese has over Japanese. With Japanese you have Kun Readings[Native Japanese readings] and On Readings[Pseudo-Chinese Readings] for a single character, and sometimes you have multiple kun and on readings. The result is that you can't just look at a character and automatically know how it sounds-- you have to pay attention to context, or the whole word. Chinese, on the other hand, has *very* few characters that can be read differently-- I can think of maybe two on the top of my head, tops. Otherwise, a character is pretty much read the same all the time, though there are some things with tones that can make things tricky sometimes.

Anyway, sorry, that was a lot of text. Point is, I was trying to prep for tomorrow and it took at least two hours to do a few newspaper readings. Like, damn. I knew vocabulary would be my problem though-- even if I can figure out what stuff means sometimes, I never know how to pronounce things. Plus, considering how badly I did on the placement test, I think I'll stay in D. I may change kanji classes, however-- Kanji C2 was too easy, but even Kanji D seems pretty easy, considering the self-evaluation test we took in the first class.

So, that's the Japanese stuff. I'm also in a composition class that I skipped this morning-- it was 8:45. I woke up...went back to sleep...woke back up at 9. Oops. It's more like an elective class though, and since we're still choosing classes, I think I should be fine.

For non-Japanese classes, I'm taking Nature of Japan, Experiences in Japanese Culture, and Japanese Literature in Translation. While the NoJ professor is quite nice and all, learning about f*cking snow flakes is not a way I want to spend an hour and a half. But I need science credits to graduate, so I'd stay in the class even if the class was about Holocaust Denial.

Experiences in Japanese Culture has apparently given us a break for a few weeks. It's a 3 hour biweekly class that's apparently just trips and stuff. It counts as an art credit so...you know I'm there.

Japanese Lit in Translation, I had today. An annoying class-- besides the fact that a good number of the students don't speak fluent English, the professor is also arbitrary, unhelpful, and unprepared. And I got to work with this Australian girl, Cathy, who's normally fine, but was an absolute dick today. So rude, because she was the only one talking[I was trying to be sure of my translation and everyone else was just...non-assertive]. Anyway, she almost made some ghettoness come out...but I'm trying to keep it together.

So, this is my schedule. Besides the actual Japanese class, none of it is particularly challenging, at least yet. So. I'm supposed to be satisfying my extracurricular goals: finishing Kite Runner and my other books, studying for the LSATs, the JLPTs, the HSK, etc. 'Cause I know next year is gonna suck.

I could talk about the schedule I picked for next semester at Tufts[my final fall semester as an undergrad!], but maybe next time. Some other things I hope I don't forget:

This guy Sergei, who is seeming like my only tolerable hookup prospect in Japan.[Sorry. I guess I'm being more aggressive about the celibacy-termination]
My classes for next year.
How some kids here tried to hook me up with this gay japanese guy.[WTF. That must be a sign that I'm pathetic.]
My plans for trips and stuff. I decided I'm gonna be a weekend Asian explorer. Watch out, I'm ballin!
The Okayama trip.
If someone else says I LOOK LIKE JERO, I'm gonna cut a b*tch.[This deserves an entry in itself. Oh Lord...]

Etc. But I got class at 8:45 tomorrow, so...next time, champs!