![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tammaiyaI should go do some shopping in Musashi Sakai, but instead I am sitting here eating seaweed. Yeah, I don't know either. *munch*
I kicked off Monday bright and early, not because I had class first period (I had class second period, and that doesn't start until 10.40) or because I particularly enjoy waking up in the morning (because I REALLY, REALLY DON'T), but because my body hates me and woke me up with a hypo at 7.30. At which point I went, you know what, screw it, I'm awake and I may as well just STAY that way. On a semi-related note, I heard birds and realised it was the first time since I'd come to Japan. You hear them all the time in Canberra.
Then I bummed around, updated LJ, had a shower, ate breakfast, decided to fry myself an egg because I had 5 eggs and their best by date was fast approaching, and managed to be about five minutes late to class AGAIN (although again, it hadn't actually started as such) despite waking up three hours early and living five minutes away.
That just takes talent, really. I am a special little snowflake. ~_~;
Anyway. While I had a placement tests and my first Japanese class last week, officially the term didn't begin until this Monday. However, my first class on Monday was in fact the same class I'd had on Friday, in the same timeslot, in the same room, but with a different sensei.
And I have to say, an hour and a half totally IS too long for my pitiful little attention span... <<; Yappari. Hopefully I'll get used to it though.
I'd gone through the grammar points for the first passage on Sunday night, but as it turned out that was mostly a waste of time because we spent the whole class on them. XD; Maybe it helped me understand them better... but the teacher's explanations were pretty easy to follow, despite that she was explaining concepts of Japanese grammar in Japanese to second language speakers. I now know what to expect from the pace, though, and it seems reasonable enough. We went through four of six grammar points in the class, and as homework we had to copy out the exercises in the book that we'd done in class (fukushuu - revision) and write two sentences each for every structure we'd covered (renshuu - practice), which SHOULD have been 12 sentences, but I wrote 16 because I'm a douchebag who misunderstood her hastily scrawled notes under "homework" and wrote two sentences each for every usage of "ni yotte" (by, on the basis of, as a result of) before I realised that 1(a),(b),(c) was in fact referring to ni yotte, ni taishite and ni oite, which for some reason had been classed together under grammar point 1. ><; Oh well. I got them done. Despite that I hate making up sentences. I like grammar, don't get me wrong! Tell me to translate a sentence using a particular structure and I'll happily do it. But I hate having to think up things to write. Ugh.
After second period, there's an hour long lunch break-- and seriously, guys, SERIOUSLY, I feel like I'm back in highschool except for the fact I don't have class as often. There are desks, and white/blackboards, and periods, and-- this is what totally caps it off-- BELLS, GUYS. THERE ARE BELLS BETWEEN PERIODS.
Bell: *rings*
Me: ... eeeeeh, MAJI?! Oh my god, I'm back in highschool! XD
My international friends asked me if I wanted to eat with them, but they decided to forgo the cafeteria on the basis that it was too crowded and I was too lazy to walk to the station/bakery/wherever (not to mention, I still hadn't eaten there and I was determined to achieve this, dammit), so I said I'd see them later. I then ran into Kaori and one of her friends doing the same course as her at the cafeteria, so I had lunch with them. ♥
Which means yes, I finally had lunch at the cafeteria, which is apparently the second best in Japan. It kind of shows, too. It was yummy! Also, cheap. I got a huge bowl of miso ramen (which, as Kaori noted, was the same thing I'd had at the airport, only a billion times better and not drowned in spicy flakes in the way of all cheap noodle dishes-- I'd chosen on the basis of asking Kaori's friend, whose name I have forgotten gomen!, which was a not spicy dish) for like, 3~400 yen. And there's free green tea which is surprisingly unbitter. Plus, I didn't actually have to wait in an enormous queue-- there are different queues for different kinds of food and the noodle queue was really short. WIN.
Also, because Kaori is an incredibly nice person, she found and bought Japanese jellybeans and a hanko for me. A hanko is like a Chinese chop-- it's a name stamp, and you have to have one to open a bank account here, even if you're a foreigner. Not that I can open one anyway until I get a visa, but when I do, I need the hanko. And it's not that easy to get one with katakana on the bottom instead of kanji, apparently. It was really sweet of Kaori to get it for me. ♥ She saw it when she was in Sendai over the weekend visiting her friend. (Which is a very expensive exercise, by the way, I was wincing sympathetically when Kaori told me the shinkansen cost like 300,000 yen.)
Then I had to run, because I had a kanji placement test third period and I didn't want to be late. I have no idea how it went, honestly; they broke it up into class levels so you could see which kanji were for which level, and theoretically the class that matches the 500 level classes is kanji 902. By and large, though, my kanji is pretty good, so I was hoping to get into the class above... I don't know. I think I actually knew more of the 903 kanji than the 902 kanji, which is just cracked out. >< I get the results tomorrow, anyway.
Kanji tests inevitably don't take very long, because you either know it or don't and even if you sit there glowering at the paper trying to force yourself to remember sooner or later you have to give up. So I had quite a lengthy gap during which I SHOULD have submitted that form which was due on Friday, but I forgot. Again. ~_~ MY STUPIDITY > YOURS.
Whichever way, I was chilling in my dorm when Kaori called me to say her class had finished early, did I want to go to the co-op to buy my textbooks before we had to go to fifth period? Which I did, so we went and picked up my language books. The two texts for my main class, a grammar textbook based on the JLPT 2 kyuu, and a kanji text also based on 2 kyuu. I haven't found out my kanji class yet, but 902 and 903 both use the same textbook and even on the small, remote chance that I got into 904, I'd want the textbook before it anyway.
After that, Kaori and I walked to class together, because I had my first ISEP class and it was located in the main undergraduate building, unlike all the language classes which are in the Japanese Language Centre close to my dorm. It was Japanese Religions, and it was EXTREMELY popular. It's taught in English and aimed at the ISEP (international student exchange programme) students, but there were quite a few Japanese undergrads in there too.
The first class was introductory stuff. Our lecturer told us a bit about himself-- he's actually a visiting fellow from another uni in Tokyo, and has spent a number of years in LA. His speciality is actually more mythology than religion, particularly comparative mythology, and I perked up with a lot of interest at this. Then he said the content of the course will actually depend on what we want to focus on-- we could look at it thematically (ie, state and religion, gender and religion), categorically (shinto, buddhism, christianity, etc) or historically. The latter is the one that most appeals to me. Depending on that, the text book we end up with will differ-- there were two possibilities, and we had photocopies of the contents pages of each.
I think I'm going to like this course.
Anyway, after that the rest of the class was devoted to self introductions: name, country, reason for coming to Japan (Japanese students: uh... pass?), whether or not you have a religion, and preferred topics. I don't envy sensei trying to formulate a course structure out of that. XD; He asked us to look up some more specific topics that interest us by next class and give them to him. I already have a fairly detailed idea of what I want to study, and I will fully admit that these things all show what a geek I am for my fandoms. (onmyoudou/abe-no-seimei + role regarding both shinto/buddhism and the state pre-meiji, the ikkoushuu sect, the role of religion in the civil war period, buddhist mysticism and gods like taishakuten, bishamonten, and ashura, the relationship between shinto and buddhism pre-meiji era, shinto creation mythology, shamanism and the role of women, Ainu religious mythology and/or portrayal of the Ainu in Japanese mythology. Obviously I don't expect we'll study all or necessarily any of them, but I'm upping my chances!)
After class Dawn and Debbie were going to the cafeteria to stake out an early seat for dinner, but I suddenly remembered the form I hadn't handed in, went O CRAP! and ran off to find that, as expected, the office was already closed, it being 6pm and all.
So I decided, fuck it, I'm going to go home and veg out, which I did, and then I cooked dinner: rice with chicken stock and fried onions, salad, fried egg (thanks for the suggestions on the other post, btw, they helped). Amazingly, it wasn't a failure! Except for the bit where I couldn't open the salad dressing because it turned out to have a cunningly concealed bottle cap and I didn't have a bottle opener. But other than that, arms of victory! \o/
The funny bit is my mother, though. I mentioned having eggs at dinner and she was like, "OMG, YOU CAN'T HAVE EGGS MORE THAN TWICE A WEEK."
Me: Oh... kay? Why?
Mum: They're high in cholesterol!
Me: *does not, in fact, have a cholesterol problem* ... right.
Mum: How much red meat are you eating?
Me: I unno. Some, I guess?
Mum: Then you WILL have to eat eggs twice a week.
Me: *apparently has to eat eggs EXACTLY twice a week, no more or less* ... Sure thing, mum. ~_~;
PS: The shopping occurred, and sucked. I never want to grocery shop ever again. Obviously that is an unrealistic aim in life, so it sucks to be me. Also, I was flipping through X16 in the bookstore and did some tachiyomi (standing there reading, essentially), and I am reminded... CLAMP really are evil soul-suckers, aren't they.
Also, that I need to continue boyband!X one of these days.
I kicked off Monday bright and early, not because I had class first period (I had class second period, and that doesn't start until 10.40) or because I particularly enjoy waking up in the morning (because I REALLY, REALLY DON'T), but because my body hates me and woke me up with a hypo at 7.30. At which point I went, you know what, screw it, I'm awake and I may as well just STAY that way. On a semi-related note, I heard birds and realised it was the first time since I'd come to Japan. You hear them all the time in Canberra.
Then I bummed around, updated LJ, had a shower, ate breakfast, decided to fry myself an egg because I had 5 eggs and their best by date was fast approaching, and managed to be about five minutes late to class AGAIN (although again, it hadn't actually started as such) despite waking up three hours early and living five minutes away.
That just takes talent, really. I am a special little snowflake. ~_~;
Anyway. While I had a placement tests and my first Japanese class last week, officially the term didn't begin until this Monday. However, my first class on Monday was in fact the same class I'd had on Friday, in the same timeslot, in the same room, but with a different sensei.
And I have to say, an hour and a half totally IS too long for my pitiful little attention span... <<; Yappari. Hopefully I'll get used to it though.
I'd gone through the grammar points for the first passage on Sunday night, but as it turned out that was mostly a waste of time because we spent the whole class on them. XD; Maybe it helped me understand them better... but the teacher's explanations were pretty easy to follow, despite that she was explaining concepts of Japanese grammar in Japanese to second language speakers. I now know what to expect from the pace, though, and it seems reasonable enough. We went through four of six grammar points in the class, and as homework we had to copy out the exercises in the book that we'd done in class (fukushuu - revision) and write two sentences each for every structure we'd covered (renshuu - practice), which SHOULD have been 12 sentences, but I wrote 16 because I'm a douchebag who misunderstood her hastily scrawled notes under "homework" and wrote two sentences each for every usage of "ni yotte" (by, on the basis of, as a result of) before I realised that 1(a),(b),(c) was in fact referring to ni yotte, ni taishite and ni oite, which for some reason had been classed together under grammar point 1. ><; Oh well. I got them done. Despite that I hate making up sentences. I like grammar, don't get me wrong! Tell me to translate a sentence using a particular structure and I'll happily do it. But I hate having to think up things to write. Ugh.
After second period, there's an hour long lunch break-- and seriously, guys, SERIOUSLY, I feel like I'm back in highschool except for the fact I don't have class as often. There are desks, and white/blackboards, and periods, and-- this is what totally caps it off-- BELLS, GUYS. THERE ARE BELLS BETWEEN PERIODS.
Bell: *rings*
Me: ... eeeeeh, MAJI?! Oh my god, I'm back in highschool! XD
My international friends asked me if I wanted to eat with them, but they decided to forgo the cafeteria on the basis that it was too crowded and I was too lazy to walk to the station/bakery/wherever (not to mention, I still hadn't eaten there and I was determined to achieve this, dammit), so I said I'd see them later. I then ran into Kaori and one of her friends doing the same course as her at the cafeteria, so I had lunch with them. ♥
Which means yes, I finally had lunch at the cafeteria, which is apparently the second best in Japan. It kind of shows, too. It was yummy! Also, cheap. I got a huge bowl of miso ramen (which, as Kaori noted, was the same thing I'd had at the airport, only a billion times better and not drowned in spicy flakes in the way of all cheap noodle dishes-- I'd chosen on the basis of asking Kaori's friend, whose name I have forgotten gomen!, which was a not spicy dish) for like, 3~400 yen. And there's free green tea which is surprisingly unbitter. Plus, I didn't actually have to wait in an enormous queue-- there are different queues for different kinds of food and the noodle queue was really short. WIN.
Also, because Kaori is an incredibly nice person, she found and bought Japanese jellybeans and a hanko for me. A hanko is like a Chinese chop-- it's a name stamp, and you have to have one to open a bank account here, even if you're a foreigner. Not that I can open one anyway until I get a visa, but when I do, I need the hanko. And it's not that easy to get one with katakana on the bottom instead of kanji, apparently. It was really sweet of Kaori to get it for me. ♥ She saw it when she was in Sendai over the weekend visiting her friend. (Which is a very expensive exercise, by the way, I was wincing sympathetically when Kaori told me the shinkansen cost like 300,000 yen.)
Then I had to run, because I had a kanji placement test third period and I didn't want to be late. I have no idea how it went, honestly; they broke it up into class levels so you could see which kanji were for which level, and theoretically the class that matches the 500 level classes is kanji 902. By and large, though, my kanji is pretty good, so I was hoping to get into the class above... I don't know. I think I actually knew more of the 903 kanji than the 902 kanji, which is just cracked out. >< I get the results tomorrow, anyway.
Kanji tests inevitably don't take very long, because you either know it or don't and even if you sit there glowering at the paper trying to force yourself to remember sooner or later you have to give up. So I had quite a lengthy gap during which I SHOULD have submitted that form which was due on Friday, but I forgot. Again. ~_~ MY STUPIDITY > YOURS.
Whichever way, I was chilling in my dorm when Kaori called me to say her class had finished early, did I want to go to the co-op to buy my textbooks before we had to go to fifth period? Which I did, so we went and picked up my language books. The two texts for my main class, a grammar textbook based on the JLPT 2 kyuu, and a kanji text also based on 2 kyuu. I haven't found out my kanji class yet, but 902 and 903 both use the same textbook and even on the small, remote chance that I got into 904, I'd want the textbook before it anyway.
After that, Kaori and I walked to class together, because I had my first ISEP class and it was located in the main undergraduate building, unlike all the language classes which are in the Japanese Language Centre close to my dorm. It was Japanese Religions, and it was EXTREMELY popular. It's taught in English and aimed at the ISEP (international student exchange programme) students, but there were quite a few Japanese undergrads in there too.
The first class was introductory stuff. Our lecturer told us a bit about himself-- he's actually a visiting fellow from another uni in Tokyo, and has spent a number of years in LA. His speciality is actually more mythology than religion, particularly comparative mythology, and I perked up with a lot of interest at this. Then he said the content of the course will actually depend on what we want to focus on-- we could look at it thematically (ie, state and religion, gender and religion), categorically (shinto, buddhism, christianity, etc) or historically. The latter is the one that most appeals to me. Depending on that, the text book we end up with will differ-- there were two possibilities, and we had photocopies of the contents pages of each.
I think I'm going to like this course.
Anyway, after that the rest of the class was devoted to self introductions: name, country, reason for coming to Japan (Japanese students: uh... pass?), whether or not you have a religion, and preferred topics. I don't envy sensei trying to formulate a course structure out of that. XD; He asked us to look up some more specific topics that interest us by next class and give them to him. I already have a fairly detailed idea of what I want to study, and I will fully admit that these things all show what a geek I am for my fandoms. (onmyoudou/abe-no-seimei + role regarding both shinto/buddhism and the state pre-meiji, the ikkoushuu sect, the role of religion in the civil war period, buddhist mysticism and gods like taishakuten, bishamonten, and ashura, the relationship between shinto and buddhism pre-meiji era, shinto creation mythology, shamanism and the role of women, Ainu religious mythology and/or portrayal of the Ainu in Japanese mythology. Obviously I don't expect we'll study all or necessarily any of them, but I'm upping my chances!)
After class Dawn and Debbie were going to the cafeteria to stake out an early seat for dinner, but I suddenly remembered the form I hadn't handed in, went O CRAP! and ran off to find that, as expected, the office was already closed, it being 6pm and all.
So I decided, fuck it, I'm going to go home and veg out, which I did, and then I cooked dinner: rice with chicken stock and fried onions, salad, fried egg (thanks for the suggestions on the other post, btw, they helped). Amazingly, it wasn't a failure! Except for the bit where I couldn't open the salad dressing because it turned out to have a cunningly concealed bottle cap and I didn't have a bottle opener. But other than that, arms of victory! \o/
The funny bit is my mother, though. I mentioned having eggs at dinner and she was like, "OMG, YOU CAN'T HAVE EGGS MORE THAN TWICE A WEEK."
Me: Oh... kay? Why?
Mum: They're high in cholesterol!
Me: *does not, in fact, have a cholesterol problem* ... right.
Mum: How much red meat are you eating?
Me: I unno. Some, I guess?
Mum: Then you WILL have to eat eggs twice a week.
Me: *apparently has to eat eggs EXACTLY twice a week, no more or less* ... Sure thing, mum. ~_~;
PS: The shopping occurred, and sucked. I never want to grocery shop ever again. Obviously that is an unrealistic aim in life, so it sucks to be me. Also, I was flipping through X16 in the bookstore and did some tachiyomi (standing there reading, essentially), and I am reminded... CLAMP really are evil soul-suckers, aren't they.
Also, that I need to continue boyband!X one of these days.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-04-17 12:13 am (UTC)Like salt, individuals I know seem to be affected more or less by eggs, but this seems to be dependant on things like sausages, mayonnaise, etc accompanying the eggs rather than on the quantity of eggs themselves.
My mum, thanks to the stupid MLA ads, thinks that if I reproduce, my kids will die of brain lackingness, and I have to keep explaining protein and brains and nutrition to her lol.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-17 12:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-17 04:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-03 12:04 pm (UTC)*friends back*
no subject
Date: 2008-04-17 02:15 pm (UTC)http://www.cocomartini.com/
70% off discounts textbooks and all are brand new textbooks. I save more that $300. That's great!!!!