"Travel is the only thing you buy that makes you richer"


Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Just practicing my Japanese...

~*~* Nothing really happened today, but here's something to keep you all busy while I'm traveling :) *~*~

Thursday, May 1

Today was the day of the huge kanji test!
The 400 kids had their party today, so they'd all brought food. Emma had made delicious brownies and she gave me one this morning before everyone ate them at the party. I said if she had any left over to give them to me at lunch!

After Mutsukawa sensei went over the conversation test tomorrow some more, he let us study for the kanji test for 30 minutes since we couldn't really focus on anything else, haha. Then he left the room so we could fill out our evaluations for the communication class
Then we had the kanji test. I forgot one part of the kanji for "okiru" (to wake up) and that really irritated me. Otherwise, there was only one I didn't know on the whole test! It was a word made of two kanji that we had to write in hiragana and Heather and I, the two best in the class, both couldn't remember what it was! It turned out it was "kesseki," to be absent. Rawrrr.

After the test we were allowed to leave. I was going to meet Emma for lunch and we were going to get some food at 100 Lawson's and then eat it in the green area. So I had time to wait now. 

I went downstairs and saw Yukari sitting on the bench in the CJS lobby playing with cards, so I asked what she was doing. She showed me this movie she was watching on her phone of how to do cool things to shuffle cards. I told her how I've always wanted to do the bridge thing when you shuffle cards, and she could do it! So she sat with me there and slowly stepped me through (in Japanese, lol) how to do the bridge. It took me a while but I finally got the hang of it! She's so awesome and was a really good teacher!
I invited her to join Emma and me at the green area for lunch. She said she might join us later. She was worried it might rain because the sky was really dark, but it ended up being fine!

I waited for 10 minutes for Emma outside H building. While I was waiting, the guy who had talked to Natalia on Monday came over and asked me where she was. She'd told me earlier they were eating lunch together. I told him I didn't know. And he was all like oh, you're separate today?
After 10 minutes and no Emma, I just headed to 100 Lawson's by myself. The sushi and inarizushi combo was 30 yen off, so I got that and a bunch of four bananas on sale for 50 yen! Such a steal today!

When I passed H again, I still didn't see Emma so I headed to the green area. As I walked down the stairs to it, I saw her coming up them. She said she'd been cleaning up after the party for 15 minutes and must have just missed me at H. So we walked to the green area and saw Yukari sitting with Oswald and two Japanese guys.
The Japanese guys introduced themselves and then shared a bunch of the snacks they had. There were cookies, m&ms, chocolate, bean buns, etc. It was awesome!
Here's the Nagoya gold dragon/fish thing themed anman I got!



We all sat and talked for a bit. I love all this Japanese practice I always get at lunch!! It makes me wish I had done fall semester, when the Japanese kids were on campus for the whole semester.

Then I headed to the computer building to watch Dragon Ball. I was never into Dragon Ball, so I didn't want to watch it, but that's what my group had decided to watch to analyze the folktales in for our final project. Emma was going to come watch it too, but the computer rooms were so crowded, we couldn't find two computers together, so she just went back home.
I was able to watch the first three episodes and it actually wasn't that bad! Some of it was really funny and I was cracking up, which was super awks with all the Japanese students around me...

Then it was time for class. In class we did evaluations, listened to the lecture, and then talked in our groups about which part of the paper we're each going to write. I'm glad I watched the first three Dragon Ball episodes before class, so I could follow along with a lot of what everyone said, but they all still know way more about it than I do and still brought up stuff that happens later on in the series. This is going to be so hard to write! I wish we'd done something I was more familiar with, like Naruto, (which does have a lot of folklore in it!) but there was no majority vote for it like there was for Dragon Ball.
We finished class at 10 after 5, and everyone was allowed to leave because she decided to do this week's movie presentation and discussion in the extra classtime that we still have in order to make up for that one class that she cancelled because she was sick.

Literally everyone left except the group presenting, 2 girls, and me. So I guess the group discussion wasn't going to happen. I stayed until 5:30 and then had to leave to get home on time.

For dinner tonight, we had fish. The fish where it's the entire freaking fish and we have to use our chopsticks to pick it apart and take the bones out. Ken told me again that I was really good at picking the bones out! Yay!! I had thought it looked pretty clean when I was done.
He asked again if the fish in America had bones when you buy them and I said no, and he was so amazed I could pick I apart so well. 

Then I went to my room to finish up my PowerPoint and practice my presentation. I didn't study at all for my communication test, so I hope it goes well! I'm a little worried about it, but more worried about the presentation.

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