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Oct. 18th, 2008 02:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tammaiyaY hallo thar, LJ, how you doooooooooooin'?
I am attempting to get back into the swing of this whole "posting" thing, and so I'm going to tell you about My Week. Yes, yes, very exciting, I know. I realise finally making one of those posts about my exciting travels would be more intriguing and different, but I still don't have all the photos from mum and dad and also it'd probably take longer than I have right now to go through, so.
At least I'm bolding relevant keywords so you can skim for the interesting bits? XD; IDEK, whatever.
* Tokyo Game Show was, of course, Sunday. You may all recall that I was totally beat after Sunday-- I'd had a big day on Saturday, too, what with sleep dep, work in the morning, going to Tokyo station to see off my sister, and then going from Tokyo to Ikebukuro for tutoring. Monday was a public holiday; it was not to be a day of rest, however, because I had received a sudden call several days before asking me if I could work a part time job at the neighbourhood aki-matsuri (Autumn festival) because someone had dropped out and I had agreed, in a somewhat bewildered fashion.
The festival started at 10 am, so I was told to rock up at a quarter to, which I did (more or less, I might have been 5 minutes late because I am punctuality-impaired). I met my fellow part-time workers (six of us total), who aside from me were all Asian and attending other universities in the neighbourhood. I was surprised I was the only TUFS student. Anyway, whatever, one of the girls and I were sent to work at the yakitori stall for most of the festival until it closed at around 1, after which it was clean up detail. My job was customer service; it was kind of fun, actually, I got to practice my service keigo. XD "Irasshaimase! Sen en o o-azukari-shimasu, go hyaku en o o-kaeshi-shimasu. Shou shou o-machi-kudasai! Hai, o-matase-shimashita! Arigatou gozaimasu!" *amused* The very major downside was that my body is messed up-- I mentioned this in the TGS entry with all the standing in lines, about how standing fucks my right leg/hip/back up something fierce, and I'd already been standing all day the day before. It was kind of agony by the time we were allowed to go at 3. I wasn't allowed to sit when I was telling people where to throw their garbage, either. *tried and got in trouble* ><;;
Anyway, despite pain, I'm glad I did it, and not just for the 5000 yen wage. It was an interesting experience to be on the other side of the counter for a change, I got to see some of the people (and dogs) I know from the dog cafe (I visited it on Wednesday last week after work, actually; it's the first time I'd been since before my parents came), and I got to watch the performances. It was more a neighbourhood cultural fest than a traditional Japanese festival-- the Brazil club from my uni did a long display of the samba, and the costumes were kind of mesmerising. There was also a little old lady in a clown suit and makeup who made shapes with this sliding bamboo cooking mat. Like the mat that you roll sushi with, but the sticks slid so it extended. I particularly like Tokyo Tower. *g*
I liked the taiko drumming in the morning, too, but the most interesting for me was this traditional Japanese style of dance I've never seen before which involved using clapsticks. I didn't catch what it was called or when it's largely from, but if I was hazarding a guess, I'd say judging by the hats that the dancers wore that it was maybe Heian/Nara period? But I could be wrong. Anyway, the music was the kind that you get in Okami, so obviously I enjoyed it, and both the dancing and the costumes were interesting, so I enjoyed it.
... Then I got roped into joining in, along with some other members of the crowd, mostly children. That was a little embarrassing. XD; Fun though, I got to use the clapsticks and everything.
* Tuesday was when classes resumed. Or, um, Tuesday was when I THOUGHT classes resumed. I discovered yesterday talking to a guy in my class that we in fact have class on Fridays, and as language classes ACTUALLY started on Friday, I'd missed the first class. WHOOPS. (Whatever, they count you as attending every class up until the 23rd when registration is over.)
It was kind of full-on for a first day back, because I go straight through from second period until fifth-- we do have an hour long lunch break between second and third, but all the periods are an hour and a half long and it's pretty gruelling on my pathetic attention span. Nevertheless, I did enjoy my classes, I'm happy with what I've picked. (Okay, to be totally honest my attention never lasts the full period for integrated Japanese, my main class. Still, the current chapter is on post-war Japan, which is more interesting subject matter than previous chapters have been.) It wasn't all greatness, though. I discovered I had to buy new textbooks, which I thought I was off the hook for this semester. I'm a bit grumpy about the new grammar textbook because I liked the old one better (the new one is published by my uni. I think this may be a key factor), but the thing that REALLY pisses me off is the new books for integrated, because I had to shell out 5000 yen JUST FOR NEW GODDAMN EDITIONS. What the fuck, universe?! And I'm even more frustrated by the fact that one of the books, the more EXPENSIVE one, that used to be the grammar book is purely vocab. Vocab which I could LOOK UP IN A DICTIONARY, but I still need the book because I have to know what vocabulary is going to be tested! ><;;;
... Okay, um, I can move on. *cough* /rant
So anyway. It was integrated (we were doing grammar, which we have to do from prints now it's been eradicated from the textbooks), then grammar, then my two ISEP courses. Fourth period comparative English and Japanese grammar, which Mochizuki-sensei, my boss at the Lingua House, is teaching, and my Austrian friend Elizabeth is taking with me, looks like it'll be both interesting and useful; it's taught bilingually, which I enjoy, because it's kind of the way my brain works these days, and just in the first lesson I feel like I now have a stronger grip on aspect, particularly perfect tense. Which is good, because I have to teach people how and when to use it. *shifty* Fifth period is Introduction to Japanese Mythology, or rather Shinwa-- Shinto myths. I love this class right from the start: when your teacher asks if anyone in the class has played Okami, you're onto a winner. XD But more seriously, the teacher is really nice and a good, clear lecturer, I couldn't be more interested in the subject matter, and the class is taught in Japanese, which I appreciate. Half the class are Japanese undergraduate students, too, so it's good for mingling. (On that note, the vast majority of students in comparative grammar are Japanese undergrads, so I'm quite pleased about that.)
In conclusion, Tuesday was long but fruitful.
* Wednesday I just have integrated. This is in fact a running trend for the entire latter half of my week-- it's the same on both Thursday and Friday. Wednesday and Thursday it's second period, same as Monday and Tuesday, but on Friday it's inexplicably first period which fills me with hate. Actually, I'm generally just resentful of the fact that I have to take the class every day. Last semester we only had it on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, which means my contact hours have increased by 3-- and it's that much more ironic when I don't have any other classes 3/5 days of the week. Goddamn, I could have Thursday off again if not for stupid integrated. *sulk* Anyway, whatever, class is class-like, we have Takano-sensei on Wednesdays and I really like her-- I think she might be my kanji teacher this semester, too. I hope so. She was really funny and interesting and nice.
After the class I finally decided to bring up with her the subject of my extended run of planned absences, which has been weighing heavily upon my mind since I got my timetable. Basically the issue is that when my mother booked my flight home, I'd assumed winter break started on the 13th of December (my birthday, as it so happens), so we booked the flight for the evening of the 14th, the Sunday, to arrive in Australia on Monday. This assumption was, in fact, incorrect; I'd reached it on the basis of my work calendar, thinking that Lingua House would probably match up to uni, but uni doesn't go on holidays until the Emperor's birthday on the 23rd. So I'm missing 6 days of classes there. Then, once I come BACK to Japan, I am of course going travelling with Rohan-- and we don't get back until Saturday the 17th of January, which again is a week after classes start. On the bright side, classes start on Tuesday and Wednesday is a public holiday and Friday is a break day for exam prep. On the not bright side, Tuesday is the one day I'd really rather NOT be missing. On the extra bad side, Rohan, Kaori and I are going to Disney the week after-- and we booked a triple room at the Mira Costa hotel. For monday night. To go to Disneyland (or sea) on the TUESDAY. You know, the day I can't afford to miss? ><;;; I'd initially thought it'd be my LIGHT day, because integrated is only on Mon/Wed/Fri, right? Yeah. RIGHT.
Anyway, the upshot of all this is, I can only afford to miss 20% of a class before it's failtown. I hadn't calculated the percentage, but it really didn't look good; Integrated HAS a lot of class, so you can miss more, but I'm also MISSING a lot of classes. I'm also missing a Thursday next month to go to Enoshima. (Where books 13-14 of Mirage are set! ...okay I'll shut up now.) Talking to Takano-sensei did not allay my fears, because the 20% rule is enforced fairly strictly, and I was definitely on the borderline. Plus Itami-sensei is the course convener, so it was really her I ought've been speaking to. She's my grammar teacher too, so really I needed to be speaking to her in any case.
So I troubled about that for the rest of the day (during which I met up with Akane-chan for lunch and went to work at the Lingua House in the evening for two hours, nothing spectacularly different), and when I spoke to my mother in the afternoon I raised the issue with her and brought up the possibility that I might have to change my flight home to Australia. She was understandably not keen about the idea, because it would mean she and dad would be paying $2000 for me to come home only for a week and a half, which is kind of wasteful. But if it was that or fail, she accepted it was really unavoidable and told me to check to see if there were still flights available and talk to Itami-sensei.
* Thursday I only had one class, same as Wednesday, but it was nevertheless a fairly tiring day. At the start of fourth period I met up with Kaori so we could work through my homework-- and also Kaori witnessed my vote because it's election time in Canberra. Whooo. Absolutely thrilling. I would have preferred to get out of it if I could because it's not like I know what's going on in Canberra politics lately, but whatever, I donkey-voted for the Labor party, que sera sera.
As for homework, having only had three days of classes I didn't really think I had that much yet, but it took about an hour to get through it. Partially because we took ages trying to figure out the best way to word this one sentence from my two sentences of grammar, but mostly because I had comprehension questions due on the first text about post-war Japan. Those comprehension questions always take longer than I expect them to. It was a relief to have Kaori there to help me get through it quicker than I otherwise would have.
Then in the evening I went out to the Wadas' place to tutor Mayuka and Saki, which I enjoy. Sometimes it's a little frustrating when one of them isn't in the mood-- usually Mayuka, I can only think of one time when Saki didn't like the textbook and totally shut down and stopped talking, she's almost always enthusiastic-- but I have fun with them. They really are kind of like little sisters. In the way where I let Mayuka do weird things to my hair and play with my DS. XD; We'd organised to start late this time because Reiko-san was having a very busy day, so it was already 8 by the time we had dinner-- we went out this time, to eat ramen. Afterwards when we were leaving the restaurant and I was about to head for the train station Mayuka was like, "you should go shopping here! Don't you need to buy anything for breakfast?" and I was kind of like, huh? no? what? but while I was on my way out I realised Reiko-san was doing the supermarket shopping and Mayuka wanted me to stay a bit longer. Aaaaaaaaw. *feels warm and fuzzy*
On my way home, I have to catch three different train companies-- Keio Inokashira from Shimokitazawa to Kichijouji, JR Chuuou to Musashi Sakai, then Seibu Tamagawa to Tama. Since I had to leave the gates at Kichijouji ANYWAY, I gave in to my aforementioned urge to indulge in rampant consumerism and stopped by at Book Off, where I proceeded to, shall we say, trip and "accidentally" buy myself a PSP. Along with Sigma Harmonics for the DS (it freezes every time I try to save it on my R4 cart) and Tales of Phantasia: Full Voice Edition for said PSP.
Brendan: When you say you tripped, does that mean you fell over and stumbled onto a PSP display where you knocked a PSP onto the sales counter and the exact amount needed to purchase it simultaneously fell out of your wallet?
Me: ... Something along those lines, yes! In a manner of speaking. *brightly*
I then spent some time cooing over Tales of Phantasia, which is SO PRECIOUS with all its voicing and subtly improved graphics, and then tried to get ISOs to work on my PSP, which I soon learned was a futile effort with a slim PSP. Alas. After which I gave up and ordered Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology (The Best) off Amazon. I'm going to have to pay mum back for all these Amazon runs; I only use it for things that I can't find anywhere else, like Mirage of Blaze volumes (which I now have all of anyway. Actually I'm about 30 pages from the end of volume 39, and then I'll be on the last volume. Everyone should be prepared for the inevibility of the sky falling in) but sadly you can only pay by credit card, which is even more of an issue with the exchange rate as it is. (See further below.)
Then I tried to get SNES roms to work on my PSP and encountered the same issue. GODDAMN. I don't want to buy a pandora's battery, especially with no idea what I'm doing, but...
Does anybody with a PSP slim have experience getting ISOs and ROMs to work?
I know, I'm a terribly copyright breaking law student, but the thing is, it's not even exactly like I object wholesale to paying for games. I will buy games I really feel are worth my money, especially when there's a shop like Book Off around. It's the not being able to play SNES roms that really bugs me, because a lot of SNES games like Secret of Mana are among my all time favourites but have never been remade. And I'd really rather play them on the PSP than the computer.
Anyway, advice appreciated.
But the upshot of all this is that I went to bed far too late, especially considering I had class first period the next day. HAH. HAH. HAAAaaargh.
* Oh, Friday. I hate first period. On the other hand, I got out of bed and dragged myself to class more or less on time, and it was more interesting than usual because we were reading a paper on how Japan's divorce rate was much higher in Edo and Meiji periods than it was in Showa or the current Heisei period. This involved tangents on Japanese divorce law and the social structure of Japan under the Tokugawa shogunate, including things like how Kagoshima-Japanese is so different from standard Japanese partially in order to make Tokugawa's spies stand out. It was, shall we say, relevant to my interests.
I also talked to Itami-sensei about the continuing saga of my attendance dramas. On Thursday, I'd calculated, by cross-reference to a calendar and a list of term dates and Japanese public holidays, the total number of classes (66), the number you could miss before failing (13), and the number I would be missing (11 including the Friday I missed last week, but as that apparently doesn't count, I'm sitting on 10). This left me in the clear, just. So Itami-sensei (who had heard the basic gist from Takano-sensei already) said that was fine. The problem was the grammar class; it seems that the 20% rule was going to be strictly enforced for that class too, and it wasn't like I WANTED to miss 3 Tuesdays, especially not in a row, but it became even more imperative that I not do so when it became clear that this would mean automatic fail. Other than integrated every other class runs only once a week, so 20% is only 2 classes.
This meant I was going to have to either move my flight home or move Disney. Rohan and I had been discussing moving Disney, but I had been discouraged by a combination of looking at the available rooms on their online booking site, the ridiculously limited hours their reception is open and the hoops you have to jump to to talk to someone over the phone. Desperation drove me to it, however, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that there was no issue with moving our booking from the Monday night to the Wednesday night. HOORAY. Problem solved! I had even been considering just writing the flight home off as not worth the hassle at one stage, which I didn't want to do because I've been looking forward to it and there's some stuff I need to do while I'm home, plus I didn't want to be by myself for Christmas and (as my brother pointed out) mother would be unhappy if I didn't come home. So it was good that I sorted that out.
Then I had the whole rest of the day open, so I went and bought some fruit and vegetables from one of the local greengrocers, paid my electricity bill, and cleaned my room. Thrilling, I know. You should be aware that this was cleaning of an EPIC NATURE, however; not only did I clear my floor, take out all the trash and clean my toilet and sink (I wish Phoenix Wright would come obsessively clean MY toilet. Or better yet, my drains; I just can't bring myself to touch them), I did the one thing that I have been too daunted to do, even when I cleaned everything else up for my parents' arrival.
I reorganised my shelves.
Seriously, this DESERVES to be called epic. The whole endeavour took something in the order of two or three hours and a lot of energy, and I was so pleased with myself I took photos. There's also photos of my room in general, since the desk got cleaned up at the same time and I put up some stuff (mostly maps of various places; Fuchuu, Shinjuku, Kyoto, Osaka, Miyajima, the JR train map) on my billboard so all in all it actually looks like someone lives here now. Plus I haven't taken any photos of my room with a proper camera or actually at all since April and it's been brought to my attention that there's not a lot of photo evidence of my life in Japan, so I decided now was a good time to remedy that.
There's also a photo of my PSP, on the grounds that it's awesome. :D
After that I played Tales of Innocence for a while and did my laundry. My life really is that exciting. Then when I put the washing loads in the dryer at 10.30-ish I was so tired I thought, bugger it, I'll get them out when I wake up and went to sleep. And woke up at 1.30. Which on the one hand was good because I hadn't turned my DS off or had my insulin or rescued my laundry, but on the OTHER hand, I had work this morning and I didn't manage to get back to sleep until 4 or so. faklfjkfljdahjds. This was, mind you, after 4 hours on Thursday night and less than adequate sleep over the course of the rest of the week except for Saturday night. My insomnia has been fairly legendary of late. Oh well, ce la vie, I'm sure it'll work itself out sooner or later.
Just, right now I'm so very tired.
Anyway, there are photos and I'm about to upload them, but I'll link them below, outside of the cut.
* On a slightly random note that is partially connected to my inability to sleep well last night, not worrying about my attendance rate has left me free to worry about the economy instead, or more particularly the exchange rate. This is partially due to the excess of the night before; I don't exactly regret it because it was cheap for a PSP, I always intended to get one in Japan and I just really, REALLY wanted one, plus I've been spending the vast bulk of my money on food and bills and transport for 6 months by this point and it's wearing when you're used to having so much disposable income. I do feel slightly guilty, however, and I was stressing out bigtime over whether I'm going to have enough money to support myself until the end of my exchange. If I wasn't going travelling around Japan with Rohan, there wouldn't be an issue; with the money my parents left, the money I saved, and the money I'm earning, I'd have surplus to spend. In fact, if the dollar hadn't crashed, I'd still probably be reasonably in the clear.
The problem is that the money I have in my Australian bank account is now worth 2/3 of what it was a mere 3 months ago, which is insane. I'm INCREDIBLY frustrated with myself for not moving it all to my Japanese bank account, but I put it off because I already had my brother and parents' money in my account and I thought it would get too confusing trying to remember what money belonged to whom and I just didn't want to deal with it. I now sorely regret that. It's also just bugging me that I didn't get a scholarship, because at this point it seems every bloody exchange student in Japan except me has or had one and I don't understand WHY. I didn't even get offered one of the TUFS scholarships my uni here apparently gives out to some people who don't have other scholarships. The universe clearly just hates me.
But in general I'm basically over the scholarship thing. It's the exchange rate issue that makes me want to cry with frustration, mostly over my own stupidity more than anything. I wouldn't be IN this situation if I was smarter and more proactive. UGH.
On the bright side, my parents will support me if I need it, although it would make me feel guilty and mean not having money to spend on things outside of living expenses. They're not terribly keen on the idea, but it's annoying because they just don't seem to want to talk about money, like the whole thing will go away if they ignore it. I think it's a conflict between concern for their finances and not wanting me to be stressing out over my own or have to bring everything into monetary terms. I tried to point out that I might be very reliant on them come January and that the best solution might be for them to just accept that for now on the understanding that I'd pay them some percentage of my weekly wage once I'm back in Australia earning a disposable income again, but mum didn't want to talk about it and was all "we can discuss that when you come home for christmas".
Le SIGH.
I do feel better after I used the latest exchange figure (70 yen to the dollar) to calculate how much my bank account is worth in yen, however. It's a drastic drop, but it's still enough to cover what Rohan has estimated for the Japan trip-- and he's been pretty meticulous and OCD in his calculations, so I'd guess they're fairly on the mark. In that case that'd leave the money in my Japanese account and my earnings here to cover my day-to-day expenses and I might not have to rely on my parents after all. Either way, I remain hopeful that the dollar will recover at least SOMEWHAT-- I don't expect it to go back up to 100 yen, but I'm praying that it goes up instead of further down from here on out.
* Today I have not done very much. I got up at 9, whimpered a little at my lack of sleep, spaced out and accidentally took the long route to work, and worked from 10 until 1.30. Got back to my room at 2-ish and have been basically working on this post ever since. Ahahaha. I am the soul of conciseness, not. <<;
* Totally random conclusion to the post: Japan is really into this whole Halloween decorations thing. Seriously, there have been Halloween decorations in the shops and outside people's houses since the END OF AUGUST. Coming from Australia where Halloween is just not that big of a deal and most years I manage to totally forget about it until after the fact, this is a bit strange for me.
Also, Christmas may not be the huge thing in Japan that it is in the west, but this does not stop my local department store from gearing up with the decorations and Christmas music already. I guess you can never underestimate the power of commercialisation and consumerism. XD;;
As above-mentioned, photos of my EPICALLY CLEAN ROOM, with a particular focus on the shelves and the billboard above my bed.
And a photo diary of my totally average Saturday morning, because I had the camera, the camera had batteries, and I thought "why not"-- I might do more of these so you guys can get an idea of my day-to-day life here, but you know, whatever, I'm going to stop rambling now.
... Okay, I'll edit this when I have the second lot of photos up, I need to resize them and it could take awhile.
ETA: Photos of the Lingua House and random suburbia I pass through on my walk back to the uni. There are photos of the uni too but this whole renaming/resizing/uploading/annotating thing is very time-consuming. I'll get there.
I am attempting to get back into the swing of this whole "posting" thing, and so I'm going to tell you about My Week. Yes, yes, very exciting, I know. I realise finally making one of those posts about my exciting travels would be more intriguing and different, but I still don't have all the photos from mum and dad and also it'd probably take longer than I have right now to go through, so.
At least I'm bolding relevant keywords so you can skim for the interesting bits? XD; IDEK, whatever.
* Tokyo Game Show was, of course, Sunday. You may all recall that I was totally beat after Sunday-- I'd had a big day on Saturday, too, what with sleep dep, work in the morning, going to Tokyo station to see off my sister, and then going from Tokyo to Ikebukuro for tutoring. Monday was a public holiday; it was not to be a day of rest, however, because I had received a sudden call several days before asking me if I could work a part time job at the neighbourhood aki-matsuri (Autumn festival) because someone had dropped out and I had agreed, in a somewhat bewildered fashion.
The festival started at 10 am, so I was told to rock up at a quarter to, which I did (more or less, I might have been 5 minutes late because I am punctuality-impaired). I met my fellow part-time workers (six of us total), who aside from me were all Asian and attending other universities in the neighbourhood. I was surprised I was the only TUFS student. Anyway, whatever, one of the girls and I were sent to work at the yakitori stall for most of the festival until it closed at around 1, after which it was clean up detail. My job was customer service; it was kind of fun, actually, I got to practice my service keigo. XD "Irasshaimase! Sen en o o-azukari-shimasu, go hyaku en o o-kaeshi-shimasu. Shou shou o-machi-kudasai! Hai, o-matase-shimashita! Arigatou gozaimasu!" *amused* The very major downside was that my body is messed up-- I mentioned this in the TGS entry with all the standing in lines, about how standing fucks my right leg/hip/back up something fierce, and I'd already been standing all day the day before. It was kind of agony by the time we were allowed to go at 3. I wasn't allowed to sit when I was telling people where to throw their garbage, either. *tried and got in trouble* ><;;
Anyway, despite pain, I'm glad I did it, and not just for the 5000 yen wage. It was an interesting experience to be on the other side of the counter for a change, I got to see some of the people (and dogs) I know from the dog cafe (I visited it on Wednesday last week after work, actually; it's the first time I'd been since before my parents came), and I got to watch the performances. It was more a neighbourhood cultural fest than a traditional Japanese festival-- the Brazil club from my uni did a long display of the samba, and the costumes were kind of mesmerising. There was also a little old lady in a clown suit and makeup who made shapes with this sliding bamboo cooking mat. Like the mat that you roll sushi with, but the sticks slid so it extended. I particularly like Tokyo Tower. *g*
I liked the taiko drumming in the morning, too, but the most interesting for me was this traditional Japanese style of dance I've never seen before which involved using clapsticks. I didn't catch what it was called or when it's largely from, but if I was hazarding a guess, I'd say judging by the hats that the dancers wore that it was maybe Heian/Nara period? But I could be wrong. Anyway, the music was the kind that you get in Okami, so obviously I enjoyed it, and both the dancing and the costumes were interesting, so I enjoyed it.
... Then I got roped into joining in, along with some other members of the crowd, mostly children. That was a little embarrassing. XD; Fun though, I got to use the clapsticks and everything.
* Tuesday was when classes resumed. Or, um, Tuesday was when I THOUGHT classes resumed. I discovered yesterday talking to a guy in my class that we in fact have class on Fridays, and as language classes ACTUALLY started on Friday, I'd missed the first class. WHOOPS. (Whatever, they count you as attending every class up until the 23rd when registration is over.)
It was kind of full-on for a first day back, because I go straight through from second period until fifth-- we do have an hour long lunch break between second and third, but all the periods are an hour and a half long and it's pretty gruelling on my pathetic attention span. Nevertheless, I did enjoy my classes, I'm happy with what I've picked. (Okay, to be totally honest my attention never lasts the full period for integrated Japanese, my main class. Still, the current chapter is on post-war Japan, which is more interesting subject matter than previous chapters have been.) It wasn't all greatness, though. I discovered I had to buy new textbooks, which I thought I was off the hook for this semester. I'm a bit grumpy about the new grammar textbook because I liked the old one better (the new one is published by my uni. I think this may be a key factor), but the thing that REALLY pisses me off is the new books for integrated, because I had to shell out 5000 yen JUST FOR NEW GODDAMN EDITIONS. What the fuck, universe?! And I'm even more frustrated by the fact that one of the books, the more EXPENSIVE one, that used to be the grammar book is purely vocab. Vocab which I could LOOK UP IN A DICTIONARY, but I still need the book because I have to know what vocabulary is going to be tested! ><;;;
... Okay, um, I can move on. *cough* /rant
So anyway. It was integrated (we were doing grammar, which we have to do from prints now it's been eradicated from the textbooks), then grammar, then my two ISEP courses. Fourth period comparative English and Japanese grammar, which Mochizuki-sensei, my boss at the Lingua House, is teaching, and my Austrian friend Elizabeth is taking with me, looks like it'll be both interesting and useful; it's taught bilingually, which I enjoy, because it's kind of the way my brain works these days, and just in the first lesson I feel like I now have a stronger grip on aspect, particularly perfect tense. Which is good, because I have to teach people how and when to use it. *shifty* Fifth period is Introduction to Japanese Mythology, or rather Shinwa-- Shinto myths. I love this class right from the start: when your teacher asks if anyone in the class has played Okami, you're onto a winner. XD But more seriously, the teacher is really nice and a good, clear lecturer, I couldn't be more interested in the subject matter, and the class is taught in Japanese, which I appreciate. Half the class are Japanese undergraduate students, too, so it's good for mingling. (On that note, the vast majority of students in comparative grammar are Japanese undergrads, so I'm quite pleased about that.)
In conclusion, Tuesday was long but fruitful.
* Wednesday I just have integrated. This is in fact a running trend for the entire latter half of my week-- it's the same on both Thursday and Friday. Wednesday and Thursday it's second period, same as Monday and Tuesday, but on Friday it's inexplicably first period which fills me with hate. Actually, I'm generally just resentful of the fact that I have to take the class every day. Last semester we only had it on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, which means my contact hours have increased by 3-- and it's that much more ironic when I don't have any other classes 3/5 days of the week. Goddamn, I could have Thursday off again if not for stupid integrated. *sulk* Anyway, whatever, class is class-like, we have Takano-sensei on Wednesdays and I really like her-- I think she might be my kanji teacher this semester, too. I hope so. She was really funny and interesting and nice.
After the class I finally decided to bring up with her the subject of my extended run of planned absences, which has been weighing heavily upon my mind since I got my timetable. Basically the issue is that when my mother booked my flight home, I'd assumed winter break started on the 13th of December (my birthday, as it so happens), so we booked the flight for the evening of the 14th, the Sunday, to arrive in Australia on Monday. This assumption was, in fact, incorrect; I'd reached it on the basis of my work calendar, thinking that Lingua House would probably match up to uni, but uni doesn't go on holidays until the Emperor's birthday on the 23rd. So I'm missing 6 days of classes there. Then, once I come BACK to Japan, I am of course going travelling with Rohan-- and we don't get back until Saturday the 17th of January, which again is a week after classes start. On the bright side, classes start on Tuesday and Wednesday is a public holiday and Friday is a break day for exam prep. On the not bright side, Tuesday is the one day I'd really rather NOT be missing. On the extra bad side, Rohan, Kaori and I are going to Disney the week after-- and we booked a triple room at the Mira Costa hotel. For monday night. To go to Disneyland (or sea) on the TUESDAY. You know, the day I can't afford to miss? ><;;; I'd initially thought it'd be my LIGHT day, because integrated is only on Mon/Wed/Fri, right? Yeah. RIGHT.
Anyway, the upshot of all this is, I can only afford to miss 20% of a class before it's failtown. I hadn't calculated the percentage, but it really didn't look good; Integrated HAS a lot of class, so you can miss more, but I'm also MISSING a lot of classes. I'm also missing a Thursday next month to go to Enoshima. (Where books 13-14 of Mirage are set! ...okay I'll shut up now.) Talking to Takano-sensei did not allay my fears, because the 20% rule is enforced fairly strictly, and I was definitely on the borderline. Plus Itami-sensei is the course convener, so it was really her I ought've been speaking to. She's my grammar teacher too, so really I needed to be speaking to her in any case.
So I troubled about that for the rest of the day (during which I met up with Akane-chan for lunch and went to work at the Lingua House in the evening for two hours, nothing spectacularly different), and when I spoke to my mother in the afternoon I raised the issue with her and brought up the possibility that I might have to change my flight home to Australia. She was understandably not keen about the idea, because it would mean she and dad would be paying $2000 for me to come home only for a week and a half, which is kind of wasteful. But if it was that or fail, she accepted it was really unavoidable and told me to check to see if there were still flights available and talk to Itami-sensei.
* Thursday I only had one class, same as Wednesday, but it was nevertheless a fairly tiring day. At the start of fourth period I met up with Kaori so we could work through my homework-- and also Kaori witnessed my vote because it's election time in Canberra. Whooo. Absolutely thrilling. I would have preferred to get out of it if I could because it's not like I know what's going on in Canberra politics lately, but whatever, I donkey-voted for the Labor party, que sera sera.
As for homework, having only had three days of classes I didn't really think I had that much yet, but it took about an hour to get through it. Partially because we took ages trying to figure out the best way to word this one sentence from my two sentences of grammar, but mostly because I had comprehension questions due on the first text about post-war Japan. Those comprehension questions always take longer than I expect them to. It was a relief to have Kaori there to help me get through it quicker than I otherwise would have.
Then in the evening I went out to the Wadas' place to tutor Mayuka and Saki, which I enjoy. Sometimes it's a little frustrating when one of them isn't in the mood-- usually Mayuka, I can only think of one time when Saki didn't like the textbook and totally shut down and stopped talking, she's almost always enthusiastic-- but I have fun with them. They really are kind of like little sisters. In the way where I let Mayuka do weird things to my hair and play with my DS. XD; We'd organised to start late this time because Reiko-san was having a very busy day, so it was already 8 by the time we had dinner-- we went out this time, to eat ramen. Afterwards when we were leaving the restaurant and I was about to head for the train station Mayuka was like, "you should go shopping here! Don't you need to buy anything for breakfast?" and I was kind of like, huh? no? what? but while I was on my way out I realised Reiko-san was doing the supermarket shopping and Mayuka wanted me to stay a bit longer. Aaaaaaaaw. *feels warm and fuzzy*
On my way home, I have to catch three different train companies-- Keio Inokashira from Shimokitazawa to Kichijouji, JR Chuuou to Musashi Sakai, then Seibu Tamagawa to Tama. Since I had to leave the gates at Kichijouji ANYWAY, I gave in to my aforementioned urge to indulge in rampant consumerism and stopped by at Book Off, where I proceeded to, shall we say, trip and "accidentally" buy myself a PSP. Along with Sigma Harmonics for the DS (it freezes every time I try to save it on my R4 cart) and Tales of Phantasia: Full Voice Edition for said PSP.
Brendan: When you say you tripped, does that mean you fell over and stumbled onto a PSP display where you knocked a PSP onto the sales counter and the exact amount needed to purchase it simultaneously fell out of your wallet?
Me: ... Something along those lines, yes! In a manner of speaking. *brightly*
I then spent some time cooing over Tales of Phantasia, which is SO PRECIOUS with all its voicing and subtly improved graphics, and then tried to get ISOs to work on my PSP, which I soon learned was a futile effort with a slim PSP. Alas. After which I gave up and ordered Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology (The Best) off Amazon. I'm going to have to pay mum back for all these Amazon runs; I only use it for things that I can't find anywhere else, like Mirage of Blaze volumes (which I now have all of anyway. Actually I'm about 30 pages from the end of volume 39, and then I'll be on the last volume. Everyone should be prepared for the inevibility of the sky falling in) but sadly you can only pay by credit card, which is even more of an issue with the exchange rate as it is. (See further below.)
Then I tried to get SNES roms to work on my PSP and encountered the same issue. GODDAMN. I don't want to buy a pandora's battery, especially with no idea what I'm doing, but...
Does anybody with a PSP slim have experience getting ISOs and ROMs to work?
I know, I'm a terribly copyright breaking law student, but the thing is, it's not even exactly like I object wholesale to paying for games. I will buy games I really feel are worth my money, especially when there's a shop like Book Off around. It's the not being able to play SNES roms that really bugs me, because a lot of SNES games like Secret of Mana are among my all time favourites but have never been remade. And I'd really rather play them on the PSP than the computer.
Anyway, advice appreciated.
But the upshot of all this is that I went to bed far too late, especially considering I had class first period the next day. HAH. HAH. HAAAaaargh.
* Oh, Friday. I hate first period. On the other hand, I got out of bed and dragged myself to class more or less on time, and it was more interesting than usual because we were reading a paper on how Japan's divorce rate was much higher in Edo and Meiji periods than it was in Showa or the current Heisei period. This involved tangents on Japanese divorce law and the social structure of Japan under the Tokugawa shogunate, including things like how Kagoshima-Japanese is so different from standard Japanese partially in order to make Tokugawa's spies stand out. It was, shall we say, relevant to my interests.
I also talked to Itami-sensei about the continuing saga of my attendance dramas. On Thursday, I'd calculated, by cross-reference to a calendar and a list of term dates and Japanese public holidays, the total number of classes (66), the number you could miss before failing (13), and the number I would be missing (11 including the Friday I missed last week, but as that apparently doesn't count, I'm sitting on 10). This left me in the clear, just. So Itami-sensei (who had heard the basic gist from Takano-sensei already) said that was fine. The problem was the grammar class; it seems that the 20% rule was going to be strictly enforced for that class too, and it wasn't like I WANTED to miss 3 Tuesdays, especially not in a row, but it became even more imperative that I not do so when it became clear that this would mean automatic fail. Other than integrated every other class runs only once a week, so 20% is only 2 classes.
This meant I was going to have to either move my flight home or move Disney. Rohan and I had been discussing moving Disney, but I had been discouraged by a combination of looking at the available rooms on their online booking site, the ridiculously limited hours their reception is open and the hoops you have to jump to to talk to someone over the phone. Desperation drove me to it, however, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that there was no issue with moving our booking from the Monday night to the Wednesday night. HOORAY. Problem solved! I had even been considering just writing the flight home off as not worth the hassle at one stage, which I didn't want to do because I've been looking forward to it and there's some stuff I need to do while I'm home, plus I didn't want to be by myself for Christmas and (as my brother pointed out) mother would be unhappy if I didn't come home. So it was good that I sorted that out.
Then I had the whole rest of the day open, so I went and bought some fruit and vegetables from one of the local greengrocers, paid my electricity bill, and cleaned my room. Thrilling, I know. You should be aware that this was cleaning of an EPIC NATURE, however; not only did I clear my floor, take out all the trash and clean my toilet and sink (I wish Phoenix Wright would come obsessively clean MY toilet. Or better yet, my drains; I just can't bring myself to touch them), I did the one thing that I have been too daunted to do, even when I cleaned everything else up for my parents' arrival.
I reorganised my shelves.
Seriously, this DESERVES to be called epic. The whole endeavour took something in the order of two or three hours and a lot of energy, and I was so pleased with myself I took photos. There's also photos of my room in general, since the desk got cleaned up at the same time and I put up some stuff (mostly maps of various places; Fuchuu, Shinjuku, Kyoto, Osaka, Miyajima, the JR train map) on my billboard so all in all it actually looks like someone lives here now. Plus I haven't taken any photos of my room with a proper camera or actually at all since April and it's been brought to my attention that there's not a lot of photo evidence of my life in Japan, so I decided now was a good time to remedy that.
There's also a photo of my PSP, on the grounds that it's awesome. :D
After that I played Tales of Innocence for a while and did my laundry. My life really is that exciting. Then when I put the washing loads in the dryer at 10.30-ish I was so tired I thought, bugger it, I'll get them out when I wake up and went to sleep. And woke up at 1.30. Which on the one hand was good because I hadn't turned my DS off or had my insulin or rescued my laundry, but on the OTHER hand, I had work this morning and I didn't manage to get back to sleep until 4 or so. faklfjkfljdahjds. This was, mind you, after 4 hours on Thursday night and less than adequate sleep over the course of the rest of the week except for Saturday night. My insomnia has been fairly legendary of late. Oh well, ce la vie, I'm sure it'll work itself out sooner or later.
Just, right now I'm so very tired.
Anyway, there are photos and I'm about to upload them, but I'll link them below, outside of the cut.
* On a slightly random note that is partially connected to my inability to sleep well last night, not worrying about my attendance rate has left me free to worry about the economy instead, or more particularly the exchange rate. This is partially due to the excess of the night before; I don't exactly regret it because it was cheap for a PSP, I always intended to get one in Japan and I just really, REALLY wanted one, plus I've been spending the vast bulk of my money on food and bills and transport for 6 months by this point and it's wearing when you're used to having so much disposable income. I do feel slightly guilty, however, and I was stressing out bigtime over whether I'm going to have enough money to support myself until the end of my exchange. If I wasn't going travelling around Japan with Rohan, there wouldn't be an issue; with the money my parents left, the money I saved, and the money I'm earning, I'd have surplus to spend. In fact, if the dollar hadn't crashed, I'd still probably be reasonably in the clear.
The problem is that the money I have in my Australian bank account is now worth 2/3 of what it was a mere 3 months ago, which is insane. I'm INCREDIBLY frustrated with myself for not moving it all to my Japanese bank account, but I put it off because I already had my brother and parents' money in my account and I thought it would get too confusing trying to remember what money belonged to whom and I just didn't want to deal with it. I now sorely regret that. It's also just bugging me that I didn't get a scholarship, because at this point it seems every bloody exchange student in Japan except me has or had one and I don't understand WHY. I didn't even get offered one of the TUFS scholarships my uni here apparently gives out to some people who don't have other scholarships. The universe clearly just hates me.
But in general I'm basically over the scholarship thing. It's the exchange rate issue that makes me want to cry with frustration, mostly over my own stupidity more than anything. I wouldn't be IN this situation if I was smarter and more proactive. UGH.
On the bright side, my parents will support me if I need it, although it would make me feel guilty and mean not having money to spend on things outside of living expenses. They're not terribly keen on the idea, but it's annoying because they just don't seem to want to talk about money, like the whole thing will go away if they ignore it. I think it's a conflict between concern for their finances and not wanting me to be stressing out over my own or have to bring everything into monetary terms. I tried to point out that I might be very reliant on them come January and that the best solution might be for them to just accept that for now on the understanding that I'd pay them some percentage of my weekly wage once I'm back in Australia earning a disposable income again, but mum didn't want to talk about it and was all "we can discuss that when you come home for christmas".
Le SIGH.
I do feel better after I used the latest exchange figure (70 yen to the dollar) to calculate how much my bank account is worth in yen, however. It's a drastic drop, but it's still enough to cover what Rohan has estimated for the Japan trip-- and he's been pretty meticulous and OCD in his calculations, so I'd guess they're fairly on the mark. In that case that'd leave the money in my Japanese account and my earnings here to cover my day-to-day expenses and I might not have to rely on my parents after all. Either way, I remain hopeful that the dollar will recover at least SOMEWHAT-- I don't expect it to go back up to 100 yen, but I'm praying that it goes up instead of further down from here on out.
* Today I have not done very much. I got up at 9, whimpered a little at my lack of sleep, spaced out and accidentally took the long route to work, and worked from 10 until 1.30. Got back to my room at 2-ish and have been basically working on this post ever since. Ahahaha. I am the soul of conciseness, not. <<;
* Totally random conclusion to the post: Japan is really into this whole Halloween decorations thing. Seriously, there have been Halloween decorations in the shops and outside people's houses since the END OF AUGUST. Coming from Australia where Halloween is just not that big of a deal and most years I manage to totally forget about it until after the fact, this is a bit strange for me.
Also, Christmas may not be the huge thing in Japan that it is in the west, but this does not stop my local department store from gearing up with the decorations and Christmas music already. I guess you can never underestimate the power of commercialisation and consumerism. XD;;
As above-mentioned, photos of my EPICALLY CLEAN ROOM, with a particular focus on the shelves and the billboard above my bed.
And a photo diary of my totally average Saturday morning, because I had the camera, the camera had batteries, and I thought "why not"-- I might do more of these so you guys can get an idea of my day-to-day life here, but you know, whatever, I'm going to stop rambling now.
... Okay, I'll edit this when I have the second lot of photos up, I need to resize them and it could take awhile.
ETA: Photos of the Lingua House and random suburbia I pass through on my walk back to the uni. There are photos of the uni too but this whole renaming/resizing/uploading/annotating thing is very time-consuming. I'll get there.
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Date: 2008-10-18 02:49 pm (UTC)Step-by-step guide.
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Date: 2008-10-19 05:06 am (UTC)I feel you on the exchange thing - when I came, it was something like 115~120 yen to the (our) dollar, and I was all yay! +20% bonus and then by sometime during the second semester, that had shot down to just under 100 yen to the dollar and I started to freak. I also had most of money in my American bank account. Of course, the dollar rebounded a bit and that was in "the good old days." But maybe we'll see a similar turnaround! :D
P.S. that is an epically clean room, considering the story about the icebox >_> good job.