The Road Less Traveled

Wow…

Wednesday, October 1st, 2008 by Matthew Lanigan | Uncategorized

…It’s already October. Well, here anyway. Back in the States, it’s still Sept. 30th. But here it’s the morning of October 1st, and it feels like I’ve been here forever. But at the same time, it feels like I’ve barely been here any time at all. Which, when I actually think about it, is kind of the case. I only got here on Sept. 15th… that’s less than 3 weeks. That’s somehow amazing to me, because it really feels like I’ve been here forever. And yet when I think about it, it’s already been nearly a month, which is 1/11th of my entire time here.

So here’s the state of things, summed up: I have class Monday through Thursday. Fridays are reserved for practical experience with the stuff we’re talking about in culture class (i.e. flower arranging, tea ceremony, going to kyoto…), but we haven’t gotten to that point yet. Monday and Wednesday are short days. We start class at 9:30 and we’re done at 12:40. Tuesday and Thursday, then, are the long days… we do the same 9:30 – 12:40 deal as M&W, then have a 50 minute lunch break, and have another class between 1:30 and 3:00.

I have a bunch of different classes: Reading, Listening & Conversation, Grammar, Japanese Affairs, Vocabulary, Culture, and Composition. Most of the classes aren’t that difficult… except Reading. Which I’m sure I will grow to hate, and probably very soon. Of course, the main reason for that is simple… KANJI.

Between now and December 7th (if I recall correctly), I have to learn all 1023 kanji that are on the Level 2 JLPT test. I bought a box of flashcards for the 739 kanji that are JUST on the Level 2 test, and not the Level 3 or 4 tests, but that leaves me about 250 short… which honestly isn’t bad. But to achieve this goal, that means I have to learn about 85 kanji per week in the next 10 weeks. That’s a grueling pace, and although I’ve been keeping up with it so far, I’m not sure if I can continue to.

So far to learn the kanji, we’ve been simply studying constantly: practicing with the flashcards, writing them repeatedly, and quizzing ourselves constantly. Last week, we even met with one of the teachers, Ueda-sensei, for 2.5 hours on Friday AND 2.5 hours on Saturday to practice just one week of these kanji. We’ll be doing the same today after class…

In any case, things have been busy around here, hence the lack of posts. You know, since I really haven’t been off campus since Saturday, when we went to the Okonomiyaki place. Okay, that’s not true. I did go to a ramen place for lunch on Monday, and then went to the bookstore and bought a few more books (that I can’t read)… but nothing really exciting.

Anyway, it’s breakfast time, so that’s all for now. Sorry for rambling on so long…

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