Daily Life Part 2

Alright, I've already talked about a normal weekday morning for me before school, so now I think I'll talk about my typical school day.

Usually I arrive at school at about 8:10 AM. Since classes start at 9:00 I just sit in the building where most of my classes are which is called 明々館 (meimeikan). I think that literally means bright building, but I'm not sure. At any rate, the first floor is basically a room with a whole bunch of tables and chairs scattered throughout. Most of the foreign exchange students have most of their classes in this building, so that's where we all usually hang out if we're not in class. People gradually begin to drift in, but usually I'm about the second or third person there.

Anyway, my first class everyday from 9:00 AM to 10:30 AM is Japanese language class. In this class we have different teachers. We see one sensei (a male) on Monday and first period on Friday. We have a really quiet female sensei on Tuesday and second period on Friday. And we have another female sensei who speaks almost no English on Wednesday and Thursday. Every Monday we turn in our homework and take a grammar quiz. Then we either learn new grammar, or we drill grammar that we've previously learned. On Tuesdays we turn in our homework, take a grammar quiz and go over kanji and old grammar. On Wednesdays we turn in our homework, take a vocabulary quiz, and practice writing essays in Japanese using grammar that we're learning. On Thursdays, we turn in our homework, take a kanji quiz, and practice conversational skills with Japanese college students who come into our class to help us out. We usually call them class guests, which is kind of weird, I think, but that's what I'm going to be calling them from now on.

On Friday we have two periods of Japanese language back to back. In first period we turn in our homework, take a grammar quiz, and learn new grammar. In second period we take a grammar quiz over the grammar we learned the previous period and continue to drill that grammar. We get about a 10 minute break in between periods. Some of my classmates run across the street to the コンビニ (konbini) or convenience store or the co-op and buy snacks or something while others either go to the bathroom or just stay in the room and start on the homework that we recieved during first period. Everyday we get 2 pages of homework, except for Fridays when we get 4 pages.

On Mondays during second period (10:40 - 12:10) I have an elementary kanji class which has been teaching us different ways to look up kanji in a dictionary, which is really really useful. On Tuesdays during second period I have survival conversation class which is full of all sorts of useful stuff. On Thursdays during second period I have a tutorial, which allows me to do anything I want as long as it involves learning or using Japanese. We get access to the Japanese language learning library and its resources. We also have access to class guests who pretty much talk with you in Japanese all period. I have decided to use grammar dictionaries and a vocabulary dictionary to translate the subtitles of one of my movies: Lemony Snicket's a Series of Unfortunate Events.

On Tuesdays and Fridays during fifth period (4:10 - 5:40) I have a Traditional Japanese Literature class that's really interesting. So far we've been covering poetry which was the basis of Japanese literature like in the Man'yoshu and Kokinshu. Lately we've been looking at the Tales of Ise (いせのものがたり）　and the Tale of the Bamboo Cutter (たけとりものがたり) which feature a bit more narrative. Although it's kind of funny because the narrative part is used to supplement the poetry. I think we'll be covering the Tale of Genji next which should be interesting. We've actually had to write two different poems for the class already.

And on Wednesdays for second and third period (10:40-12:10 and 12:50-2:20) I have a class called Fieldwork D. Basically it's a class where we take trips to local elementary, middle, and high schools and give presentations to the students there about our home countries. It's really kind of difficult for me because we have to do it in Japanese because of course the kids don't speak that much English. And on top of that most of the students in that class are from China and can speak really good Japanese. My host sister is actually in that class with me. We have a couple of classmates from Korea, two from Thailand, we had one from Mongolia, one from the Philippines (Pam), and only two of us are from the U.S. In fact I am the only white person in the entire class! The other girl from the U.S. is Hawaiian. But it really is a fun class. Tomorrow I'll be going to an elementary school to help the kids with their English lessons, so that should be fun.

Lunch is from 12:10-12:50, so we don't get a whole lot of time. On Wednesdays when I go to schools I usually eat the school's lunch with the kids and then play with them a bit afterwards. On any other weekday I'm on my own for lunch. Usually my friends and I cross the street and go to this small パン屋 (panya) or bread store and get sandwiches. It's called New Saffron and it's really cheap. Sometimes we'll go to the cafeteria called Sakura Cafe and get traditional Japanese food or something, but usually most of us are pretty tight with our money, so we just go to New Saffron.

Usually when I'm done with class I either hang out in Meimeikan or at a friend's apartment until it's time for kendo practice. But more on kendo next time.

As for the previous comments:

Yes, I have been to McDonald's here, but I will go into more detail on that later. We haven't had any snow yet, but I'm sure we'll be getting some by the time December rolls around. Yes I do have a boyfriend now, and NO, he's not Japanese! Haha, he's from the states as well.

Yes, I have found myself daydreaming about Austin. I kind of miss living on my own, where I don't have to account for my actions. Don't get me wrong, my host family is great and very generous. But I feel like I am constantly giving them a hard time.