Hello My Life: May 2008

Friday, May 30, 2008

Contemplative Month

Woooah I haven't blogged in like 3 weeks! I've been so busy during the week and then the weekend just never seems right for blogging somehow.. it takes so long and I forget a lot that's happened during the week and I feel like I should be studying or something instead, but right now I'm kinda down and frustrated so I don't think I'll be very good for studying! Sooooo just a warning, this became a super super long post with not much to do with Japan and a whole lot to do with me contemplating my existence and future, soooo.... if you're looking for "We ate *eel* on rice the other day, isn't that wacky?!" you can just go ahead and not read this one ^^;;

The last three weeks have kinda stabilized in terms of my schedule and stuff. Japanese class is getting more predictable which means I know better what parts I need to study for the tests so I'm doing a little better. I've still been frustrated with the whole learning process though. I know I need to spend a lot of extra time studying to catch up for the proficiency test in the fall, but I feel like.. a sponge that's already completely saturated and nothing else is gonna soak in right now. And the stuff I'm studying in class feels so far beyond what I have a foundation in that it's like not even that wants to stick, so everything is just being sort of thrown at me and it feels like not much is really staying with me. I know that doesn't change the fact that I have to do as much as I can while I'm here if I wanna finish my major easily when I get back, it just gets to be really overwhelming emotionally sometimes.

G Splash practice is Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday, though it's gonna be every day for next week since we have a performance on Saturday. I'm still having fun, but there have been a few annoying things with that, mostly in just the way the practices are run, lack of information, and the amount of money they expect you to spend on the club. After club fees, two nomikais (meet and drink parties, pretty much the only way to get to know people in the club), performance fee (what?), and buying my "costume" for our performance I've spent almost $200 on this club. I understand that I'm paying for the experience, and the lessons, and meeting new people, it just seems excessive. On the upside, I did get to know this really nice girl at the last nomikai and she's absolutely perfect in that she wants to help me with my Japanese and wants me to help her with her English. I'm very excited for that =)

Speaking of dance, So You Think You Can Dance Season 4 started last week! I got totally hooked on that show last summer and it's the only thing I'm going to let myself watch on YouTube for the rest of the semester. I totally love it. I got nostalgic and started watching some videos from last year, and I really wish I could do the sort of moves Danny and Neil could do. They were both suuuuper trained in ballet. I kinda might like to take some real dance classes once I'm back in the states.

Watching that show really inspires me because of the way the people there can control their bodies and move so beautifully, but at the same it gets me so depressed and confused in a lot of ways. Once I start reading about how they've been doing dance for so long and worked so hard at it and now they're amazing dancers, I start wondering what I've done with my 21 years here. I've kind of gotten into some hobbies here and there, I was pretty good at music for a while, but I've always struggled with knowing that I've never really found that "passion" for anything. I've thought I might have found it a couple of times, but in the end I never keep the dedication or interest. I've always been extremely jealous of those kinds of people who find something, anything, that they're absolutely in love with doing and dedicate their lives to it and work really hard to become great at. I think this is different from the "What are you gonna do for the rest of your life" vs "Most people go through a lot of different professions in their lifetime" discussion. I feel like that discussion is for one type of people, the me type, and then there's the other people who find something they just must commit themselves to because they're so passionate about it.
I've always been a creative person. When I was little I always said I wanted to be an artist when I grew up, and I was always drawing or making something. I gave up that goal in high school on the basis that it didn't really seem like a practical profession where I could support myself, and I was getting irritated by my art classes then. I've played piano and French Horn since I was very young, and at about the time I moved on from my artist dreams, I decided I should probably go to music school for college since I wasn't really interested in anything else. I really really really didn't have the discipline or passion for it though and I couldn't even practice for my weekly lessons as it was. Then I really fell in love with my Chemistry class for a while and thought that would be my thing, I had encouragement from all around that someone who was a scientist and creative at the same time could go far. Chem II really kicked my butt unfortunately and I realized that dream was just a passing whim brought on from a really good teacher.

Then I discovered brain machine interfacing, a type of new technology that links up a person's brain waves with a computer so that you can basically command a computer or robotics with your thoughts. This was right when I was starting to apply for college, so I applied to the engineering departments of all my potential universities. I really had no background in math or science though, and all my extracurriculars were in the humanities, and in the end I had two offers: 1) University of Illinois couldn't let me into their Biomedical Engineering program, but I could choose another area and transfer later, 2) UVa suggested I apply to the College Arts and Science instead. I chose the second one for financial reasons, with intentions to transfer to the E-school after a year, but my C- in Calculus 131 first semester quickly made me realize that just because I got an A in AP Calculus at my tiny high school didn't mean I was actually able to do any math.

I was also taking a Psychology class then and really really liked the teacher and content, started working in that professor's lab, and was pretty seriously considering a psych major. My grades were pretty dismal in that department too, though, and I didn't really think I'd like a career as a researcher or professor. By this time I was really enjoying my Japanese classes and learning a new language, so in the end I decided on a Japanese major because I was getting the best grades in those classes and it was the only homework I looked forward to doing. At the time I remember telling my mom "Choosing the Japanese major is the most sure I've felt about anything since I came to college." At her encouragement though, I also picked up the Media Studies major to add some more marketable skills to my resume.

I still haven't been able to answer the question of what I'm going to do with a Japanese major after college. At one point I was thinking that working for a magazine like Shoujo Beat (an English manga magazine) would be a lot of fun and use both of my majors. I think one of my big turning points in my philosophy on what I should do with my skills and career, however, happened when I went on the NYC Media Studies trip in January of this year. We went to a lot of different media places like magazine and newspaper publications, and heard from a lot of people in the media business. At this point, some feelings I had started to notice during the fall semester were becoming more defined. I started feeling very strongly that I didn't want to just work on another magazine to be put out there for someone to buy, or make another TV show for someone to watch. I think to put it simply, there's already enough consumerism in the world, and I don't feel like it would be a very justifiable use of my education and skills to just add to that. Nobody needs another magazine or TV show and there will always be people out there to make more without me in the group too.

My time in Japan has made that feeling even stronger, after visiting places like Shibuya and Shinjuku, and Harajuku, where consumerism is the very heartbeat of the city, but now I'm starting to question my position on creativity and art as well. This thought has just been wracking my brain for the last two months, and I don't even know how to begin to think about it, but more and more I'm just feeling like... art is selfish, hobbies are selfish, who am I to spend my time and energy and abilities just on things that are fun for me or something that I enjoy doing, when I've been so blessed with opportunities and have the power and option to use my existence to help others and the less fortunate. Some might argue that doing art and music is a wonderful thing that gives back to people and inspires people, etc etc, and I do feel it's a wonderful thing and its something I've loved my whole life, but what about those people who aren't in a position where they have the option of enjoying art? What about people who are barely making it day to day, or who live in a place that doesn't even have drinkable water anywhere nearby, or whose homes have been destroyed by a natural disaster? Is it really ok for me to use my education and stable financial condition to play on the computer, draw pictures somebody might like, become a dancer, sew myself some silly costumes, or have a career that can only help the people who don't really need it that much?

I feel responsible, and I feel guilty for being so far away from accepting that responsibility right now. Thoughts like these make me wonder how I made the decisions that got me here, learning a language I don't intend to use once I've graduated, just living day to day, spending money, using energy, the ridiculous things I've spent money on, the food I've thrown away, the sweets I've spent too much money on, the shoes I've bought, the pointless research I'm doing on game centers for my class that isn't going to help anyone, the time I'm wasting. I know none of these things change the situation I'm in and the fact that I just have to get through this semester and get home, but I can't shut these thoughts off somehow and they fill my head every single day and are just making it difficult to stay focused and positive.

I feel like a lot of people might tell me that it's crazy to feel guilty about doing things for yourself, and that I'm setting myself up for a miserable life to have that expectation of myself, and I agree that you'll go crazy without having things you just do for yourself and your own gratification, things you're interested in. But I don't believe in myself making a career out of it, as much as I enjoy art I don't have the passion for it first of all, and I don't believe in it as a justifiable career for me. Yet at the same time I watch these shows and see other people in artistic careers and just start longing for the things I might have done like that, or the ability to express myself that way. I need something in between somehow. Something that lets me truly help others but in a way that is satisfying to me. Now that I think about it, in all of my essays for study abroad programs/scholarships, when asked how I wanted to use Japanese in my future career, I said I didn't have any idea yet, and the only two things I did know I wanted to do was to help people and be creative. I think I'm just starting to understand the depths of those feelings now.

I would hate to say all these things and then say that I'm just being completely static here in Japan and not living in accordance to any of those life philosophies I believe in. I try and use as little energy as I can in my room, I've stopped buying sweets on a regular basis after I realized how much money I was just wasting away on them (particularly after I foolishly bought a really expensive piece of cake because it was a whole 10% off), when researching the game centers for my paper I don't really play any games while I'm there, I always give something to the homeless guy by my school if he's out, but that's about the extent of what my time and opportunities allow right now. I feel very stuck here, almost tricked. I tricked myself into coming here and now I have to finish what I've started whether I like it or not.

I'm not sure where I'll begin to look for jobs or career plans once I'm back in the states.. it's a matter of finding that passion in some kind of service. It's clear with my moves from art, to music, to chemistry, to biomedical engineering, to psychology, to japanese, to something completely different, that I am very very quick to fall for an idea and then abandon it after not too long. I'm just going to keep praying as hard as I can that God will show me the way to the most appropriate jobs for me, the ones that will make me the most happy and use my abilities as well as possible. Over Christmas break I started developing this feeling that I feel very powerful. I have my education, I have my financial stability, I can write, I have a computer, I can create, I have the venues and abilities to influence. I hold a lot of power and so do a great number of people in the world, I just don't think we realize it. I have an amazing power, I just don't know how to control it, or where to use it yet. I just know I have to use it somehow for good. I could try and ignore it and go back to the way I've lived most of my life, but I'm not sure I could. I think I could be happy in waves by ignoring it, but I'd have to keep trying to justify it to myself and make excuses, and I think knowing I was doing that would just make me unhappy.

I also want to say that I don't think these feelings apply to everyone. If your passion is art or dance or making a magazine or movie or TV show, then go for it. I know a lot of artists, musicians, actors, and other people who are doing things I could never do and I think it's a perfect fit for them. I think if you have a passion, that sort of trumps everything, there's no way you could try and do anything else and be happy. Maybe it's that I don't have a passion for something so specific, but my passion is for using my abilities in a certain way.

Sooooooo, that was a very long and personal post, which is kind of weird I guess, but it's been something I've been wanting/needing to talk about for a long time and I'm interested to see what others think about it. I guess I'm also trying to justify to myself why I can't seem to concentrate on anything and I'm getting lost in thought so often these days, and feeling frustrated. I think prayer is the answer for me, I just have to remember it and trust God and not get so caught up in my own emotions.

I should be about the same level of busy as I am now for the rest of the semester, so I'm not sure how much more interesting blogging I'll be doing from here on out, but if I have some time or something interesting happens, I'll try and post! Thanks to anyone who read through all this, and I'd be interested in hearing if you have an opinion on it. I hope I don't sound too serious or dramatic or whatever, I think just being here in general puts all my thoughts on hyper mode and emotions seem more extreme. Having an hour on the packed train every day with nothing to do but stare out the window and think might have something to do with it too!

Some things other people wrote that sound a little better:

"My mind races with all my longings
But can't keep up with what I got" - Bright Eyes, "Road to Joy"

"I noticed tonight that the world has been turning
while I've been stuck here, dithering around
...
I noticed tonight that the world has been turning
while I've been stuck here, withering away" - Keane, "Can't Stop Now"

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight." - Proverbs 3:5-6

"In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps." - Proverbs 16:9

"Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails." - Proverbs 19:21

"Do not wear yourself out to get rich; have the wisdom to show restraint. Cast but a glance at riches, and they are gone, for they will surely sprout wings and fly off to the sky like an eagle." - Proverbs 23:4-5

"Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy." - Proverbs 31:8

"Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins." - James 4:17

"Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. Make level paths for your feet; so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed." - Hebrews 12:12-13

"Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own: you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body." - 1 Corinthians 6:19-20

Sunday, May 11, 2008

3 Day Week

I have been toooo busy/lazy to blog!

Tuesday

After my big day of travel on Monday (haha) I stayed in on Tuesday and rested up since it was the last day of Golden Week and all. And I studied! I continued studying kanji and such and kind of did my homework. Yawn, I don't think anything important happened on Tuesday.

Wednesday

School again, ho hum.
We got our kanji tests back from last week, and I got a 44% on my kanji test. Yep you read it. I studied for like 8 hours for that thing. I think the key is to have studied properly for the quizzes and reviewed in between, and I had forgotten we had quizzes and not reviewed, thus the 44%. The cool part though was that I totally aced the kanji quiz we took Wednesday, so don't worry parents and teachers, I'm trying to get back on the right track =)
At lunch I went and picked up my hanko (stamp with your name on it for signing things) which is totally sweet. The guy at the shop is so nice though, and when I showed him my pickup slip, he was like "Ah! Wilson-saaan, Wiilsoon-saan" in kind of a sing-songy voice while he looked for my hanko, haha. After he found it, he started asking me things about America and New York and 9-11, and maybe about how he knew someone who died in 9-11.. I wasn't really sure, and I didn't really know what to say, so I left pretty soon after that.
I had some stuff to do for my other class so I didn't try and do the bank thing that day, and did class stuff instead.
Hometime after that, or so I intended. Instead, I ended up finding a place to get a haircut! I went to a place called "Wiki Wiki: A Beauty Shop" (that's right Mom and Dad and John, I went to the beauty shop this week! =D ) I knew I wanted it shorter, but I thought I might try and go for way shorter like I've always been wanting to since I'm in a foreign country and everything.
The haircut guy was soooo super nice and awesome, and talked to me a long time about the style I was choosing and my concerns about it and stuff. Then the whole time he kept coming up with things to talk to me about and he was just really nice and cool =) It was the second longest Japanese conversation experience I've had here so far. I've really gotta fix that somehow... but being in class with foreigners all morning (and sometimes afternoon) and knowing if I don't go home and do my homework and study I'm gonna keep getting 44% on my kanji tests, I'm really not sure what else to do..
My haircut turned out great! I was a little unsure at first if I really liked it or not, but I've been getting lots of nice compliments. It takes a little effort to style in the morning, but it's not bad at all. I feel hip and fresh. I'll put up pics some other time.
After haircut, I met up with Hunter, Greg, and Jeannette for dinner, except Jeannette and I didn't want what the guys picked so we ditched them for Mos Burger. I had a big late lunch, so I just got some chicken nuggets (JUST 5 CHICKEN NUGGETS COST OVER 300 YEN THERE, UUGHH MOSBURGER WHY)
Finally home, homework, you know the drill.

Thursday

Class, yeah, whatever. We had a test on the last unit.
We presented our research topics in ethnography which was way cool! Three of ours were on some aspect of arcade gaming, so that was neat, and the class had a lot of good input. I love that class!
Then I went home, and that's about all I remember about Thursday!

Friday

Class. We got back our chapter tests from last week, and I got a 66% on my chapter test. *Sigh* But, again! I felt a whooole lot better about this week's test. I finished early, I didn't feel stumped by anything, etc etc.
I tried to get a bank account at Mizuho bank after that, but the lady was saying that I had to be living in Japan for 6 months to get one? I don't understand at all, Hunter and Teresa both got accounts at the same bank... I need to go back with some better dialogue prepared or a Japanese person or something... maybe Yuujiro could help me out.
I went to Harajuku and did some clothes shopping that afternoon and some other stuff that evening.

Saturday night was the first real G Splash practice, woo! We did cute little self-introductions for a long time, and then the rest of the night was all basics training. They kept saying like, we know this is boring, but you really need to learn it!! It was nice, we seem to have a nice group =) And we foreigners have decided that on Tuesday practices, we're not allowed to talk to each other! (well, for as long as we can stand it anyway) Only to Japanese people!

The rest of this weekend has been ok, but suuper rainy. And now my room is suddenly super cold again and it's making me just want to lay in bed all day! =/ Arrrg it seems Golden Week didn't recharge me as well as I had hoped it would.. I need to get my head in the game, I know. Bleh.

Monday, May 5, 2008

Local Travel Day

I actually left DK House today! Wooo! It took a lot of effort for me to make myself, haha, but I had to go out and do something for golden week, right?

I got Yoshinoya for lunch on the way to the station and then headed for Akabane! No matter what route we take to...pretty much anywhere, we always end up stopping in Akabane or even transferring trains there. It seemed like a pretty hopping place, but we had never visited, so I made that my mission today! The verdict: Akabane is a pretty cool place! A little ways down the road out of the station, there's a covered street of shops and restaurants called LaLa Gardens. It's really long and had lots of cheap food options and some cheap clothing stores too. The best part, there's a DAISO store there! It's 5 floors! Daiso is a 100 yen store that was one of the places I went all the way to Harajuku to find and turns out there's one right in our backyard, haha. I saw one on my way back at the Kawaguchi station too! There was also a small arcade so of course I had to stop. I thought I saw a woman who was going to play some games, but when I followed her in she was just going to play the slots =/ This arcade was pretty small, but it made it a lot more accessible and friendly-seeming than the one in Shinjuku. There was only one Tekken station, and I challenged a guy and lost =/ My little percentage thingy on my profile is just gonna stay at 0% forever I guess, hah..

The entrance to LaLa Garden

I did some frivolous shopping at Daiso (a bottle of nail polish and two sets of little sock thingies all the girls wear with their uncomfortable shoes to make them more comfortable) and then did some more Akabane exploration. There was a big nice park! It had a really pretty fountain and playground stuff for the kids. The playground stuff here is neat and kind of unique, but most of it is just big concrete animal shapes or whatever, painted a million years ago so they look kind of sad now.. Still not much grass to be found in this park either.

It's a giraffe slide!!!

Woooaaahh!

Camel, Lion, and Squirrel stand watch over the sand pit.

Watch out little buddy!

Hahaha bear in a boat.

I walked back up and under the train tracks to the other side of the station and found a Baskin Robins (I was so tempted to get something... they were having a sale so a 400 yen item became like 240 or something amazing, but I wasn't hungry enough to really justify a whole ice cream cone) and then... Ito Yokado! Haha, it's the big one we can always see from the station. It's the span of the three story one in Warabi, but it's 6 floors! Woah! I was looking for some clothes there but didn't really find anything.. There was a whole clothes mall sort of place across the street though, but it was a little out of my price range.

You know you're in Ito Yokado when you see the glowing underwear mannequins. For serious.

Back to the station and it was time to move on. I needed to do some field research for ethnography, so I went on over to Akihabara. This was my first time going, and to those who don't know, Akihabara is known as Akihabara Electric Town, mostly because you can buy electronics there for cheap. There's also supposed to be a lot of anime stores and such there, but I didn't venture very far into the city before I found a SEGA arcade. It was full of all sorts of different people, lots of girls =) some foreigners.. I saw two people playing the same crane game win digital cameras within 5 seconds of each other! Every now and then I try and win something out of those, but I guess I don't have the touch, haha, and then I think about what I could've bought with that 100 yen I just spent....

There was a pretty big line of Tekken stations on the 4th floor (which was pretty much boys only, as usual. One girl watching her boyfriend play I guess when I left), and after watching for a while, one of the stations opened up with no challenger on the other side! Woo! I jumped in and happily played up to stage 3, trying to sort of train and figure out how the game works a little better, before some guy challenged me =/ I beat him once, but then he destroyed me ~__~ He would hit me with the same move at the beginning of the fight and I would pretty much be done from there. *sigh*

Then I saw that they had the Gundam game on this floor! It seemed kind of crowded, and since it was Akihabara of all places, I felt kind of intimidated, but I saw a little boy and his grandpa buying a card for the boy to try and play for the first time, so I felt more confident and got in line behind them. When it was almost my turn, I got up some confidence and asked one of the guys sitting next to me: "Excuse me, it's my first time trying to play so... are there any important details you could teach me about?" and got the becoming-standard "Err... you're first time playing..um....it's difficult to explain..umm..." look. His friend asked what I'd said, and he told him I wanted him to teach me about the game. I told him I had done the training but not played a game yet, and he looked at my card and said something about that the fact that I had done the training ok was amazing? Iiii'm not sure that's what he said at all, but I think he was trying to reassure me that it would be fine, which was nice, but after that he was pretty much done talking to me. He did say if I wanted to play with them I could wait for the next round, so I did that.

The game has a headset sort of thing where you can talk to the other people on your team. I'm actually not sure if they were on my team or not, but it seemed like it. It was hard for me to say much and I couldn't understand most of what they were saying... except lots of "Sorry" at the end when we lost, haha. I think I said "I died already" and "It's hard to move!" It's a fun game, but it's so hard to get the hang of the controls. Listening to them yell and get frustrated was funny though. My first game I got 4 points but my second one I got 20, so I guess I'm improving a little!

Afterwards I tried to like, initiate some kind of dialog with the two guys by hanging around as they met back up with some other friends waiting for the game. I told the one who had helped me, "It was hard!" but he just smiled and bowed a few times, so I left. I've gotta figure out what to do to get more socially involved with these people if this research is going to go anywhere. It's just weird to me because I know if anyone ever asks me or Nick to help them out with a game that we're really good at, or explain something, it's hard to get us to stop talking about it, because we're excited to share what we know and explain the ins and outs and make sure they have fun. Maybe it's just the nature of this game in particular.

I thought about looking around Akihabara some more, but it was starting to rain a little and I was getting a little tired of walking around. I'll probably go back sometime to check it out since it's fairly close to school. On the way home from our station I got a 7-11 spaghetti dinner which was OK. I'll definitely be eating a lot of Italian pasta when I get back to America =) I also enjoyed some of the Oreo's I bought last week! That's something nice to have here. I ate soo many Oreo's before I left because I thought I wasn't going to get any in Japan, haha. They are kind of expensive though, so that wasn't totally unjustified =)

Now I've painted my toenails (with regrettable results on the first foot unfortunately..) and blogged so I think I'll work on some studying and maybe get a game plan together for tomorrow's studying since it's the last day of golden week! As Nick said, the best part of a four-day weekend is the three-day week that comes after it, so I'm not too worried about this week =) That's it!

Sunday, May 4, 2008

Kanji Power Day

I can feel it.... the kanji power! More on that later..

Today I got up and went to church. It was really nice out today, kind of cool and a little overcast. I wore a white dress with pink flowers and my good old pink sweater with my other good old white strappy shoes. We continued reading from Acts today, and it seems like that's how the sermon works at this church. I wish I could understand more of it, but I think he's just elaborating on the lessons learned from the chapter we read from the Bible. There was a cute moment for me when the Jr. High girl next to me had to help me find the chapter in the Japanese Bible... I still don't quite understand the page numbering ^^;; Haha, and one of the greeter ladies in the front hall said something like, you weren't here last week, I thought you had returned to America! hehe =)

I had big plans today to try and do some local traveling since it was nice out, but instead I just ended up talking to Nick for a long time and watching Naruto together online ^^; Then after he went to bed.. I took a nap! For like 2 hours! I was supposed to go eat lunch, but I took a really long nap instead, haha. And by the time I got up it was already like 3, so I decided to postpone lunch until dinner and try and get some studying done in the meantime. I did a little bit but somehow ended up laying in bed again, this time contemplating the state of my existence. Then I fell asleep for another two hours.

After a little more studying, I decided to get some dinner since it was late enough for dinner! I did do a little bit of traveling by exploring a part of our neighborhood we hadn't been to before. Here's what I saw!

A grocery store, smaller than Yaoko but maybe a little closer to us
An A-frame house with a blue roof
Two little girls riding unicycles (!?)
A much larger grocery store! Probably the same size or a little bigger than Yaoko, but with a huuuuge parking lot. It made me feel at home.
A tiny little stand-up fast food place. It seemed to be selling sort of udon/rice/etc sets. I might get it for dinner sometime.
Lots of people who, in general, looked a LOT more normal and laid-back than I'm used to seeing. Everyone was wearing jeans and a comfortable shirt. This was very reassuring since all I see every day are materialistic college students who put a lot of effort into their appearance. It was nice to see that once you get out of the city, things seem to go back to normal.

I checked out the big grocery store without any real intentions to buy anything, but I ended up buying three things.

Gum.
My first souvenir! This one is for my dear Eba of course, who I'm sure will not mind that it came from a grocery store. I won't say what it is, but it's super cute and I know she'll like it. I thought about getting one for myself, but it's not really the type of thing I would buy for myself, so I'll just be happy to have it out in my room and I can look at it for a couple months before I give it to her =) (unless I decide that it really is too cute and I must have one as well)
Rose?/Roast?/Something like that Katsudon set. I needed dinner and it was starting to get dark out, and I saw this dinner set. They sell them at Yaoko and I had been notoriously waiting for "something really good to happen" as an excuse to spend the 580 yen on one. Well, this one was marked down 100 yen since it was getting late in the day, and that was good enough for me. (Plus it's Golden Week!) I had been prepared to spend 480 on a large gyuudon anyway, so I felt justified. It was pretty good, and had kind of a different flavor to it. I guess that was the rose/roast/whatever. It wasn't spectacular though, so I'm glad I wasn't eating it in celebration.

Back at the ranch, I thought about my reasons for studying Japanese, and how they seem to be becoming fewer and fewer. The other day I told Nick that I feel like I need to start treating learning Japanese like it's my job while I'm here, and I just have to do my job. I think for the most part right now, I want to get rid of that feeling like I'm struggling to stay afloat every day in class because of kanji and vocab. I hate feeling like I'm the only one who doesn't know something in class, and it's not a feeling I'm used to. I feel like the only way to correct that this late in the game, however, is some hardcore dedication.

I'm not sure if I have it in me or not, but I decided to go ahead and turn on the Naruto music and buckle down with studying kanji tonight. I learned the first half of this week's new kanji for Wednesday, and also went through the first lesson in the Basic Kanji Book I bought the other day. Learning the new compounds and reinforcing the old ones gave me a little bit of a feeling of accomplishment, like I might actually be able to remember and use some of them. I feel like to get where I need to be, I would need to be constantly reviewing the kanji we're learning in class, and then try and do at least 2 or 3 lessons in the basic book a week. Somewhere in there I want to study grammar from the IJ book too so I'm not missing all that for the placement test in the fall.

It's sort of my nature to really decide to dedicate myself to something, stick with it a few days, and then forget about it. (With the exception of a few small, habitual things I've been able to change or make a habit of doing, like drinking only water at meals and reading the Bible every night) So even if I feel pumped up and think to myself, "Ok, I'm going to study kanji for at least an hour every day, and study IJ grammar every other day," or even a smaller more manageable goal, I can't truly believe that I'm going to do it because there are so many other things I can think of that I've abandoned so easily. But when I did think about this plan, I felt for the first time that I might actually make a good grade in Japanese this semester, learn something, and have a chance at passing the placement exam when I get back. It's just scary knowing I've been here over a month and I can honestly say I haven't really learned anything. It might just take a level of dedication I'm not capable of committing myself to, I'm not sure yet.. I think I might have had a better chance if I had been here a year ago when I was feeling more "into" learning Japanese, or maybe if I was in Greg's class where I would get the feeling that I was learning and I was progressing, and not that I was just barely hanging on. We'll see how this all pans out I suppose.

For now I think I'll look at the IJ book until Nick gets online and think about what strategies I can use to make a new Japanese best friend once lock practice starts next week. And eat my next piece of tiny cake.

Saturday, May 3, 2008

A Good Day

Here's a list of the things I got done today!

Slept in
Almost did a handstand a few times!
Used the traditional just-sitting-in-front-of-everyone shower station things in the shower room (although nobody was in there)
Did leg stretching exercises for 40 minutes
Organized my class papers and wrote down assignments for next week
Bought groceries
Finished Kanji worksheet for Wednesday
Wrote about half of task reading worksheet for Wednesday
Made online Kanji flashcards for Wednesday's quiz
Wrote some emails
Contemplated my purpose in life
Drew a picture
Ate a tiny piece of cake (for golden week! it says so on the box)
Watched some Naruto with Nick
Thought some more about my purpose in life

That all chalks up to a good day in my book =) Why can't every week be Golden Week?

Friday, May 2, 2008

I <3 Friday Day

Friday morning was finishing up homework on the train morning, and I got it all done! Awesome! Then we had Kobayashi sensei for the first half of class. It was fine and normal at first, but then we were supposed to move on to using the grammar book which almost nobody brought, including me, aaand apparently we were supposed to have already done the like 6 pages of exercises in that book, which almost nobody had done, including me. I don't ever remember him telling us to do those before hand and we did them in class last week... I was panicking the whole time because he was calling on people to read the sentences and what they filled in the blanks, and not only did I have no clue on most of them, they were all full of kanji I didn't know! So as soon as I knew I wasn't called on for one sentence, I would rush to start looking up all the kanji in the next sentence in case he called on me. Miraculously, out of like 6 pages I didn't get called on (I think maybe he was trying to stick to the people who had actually done the exercises in advance, and I clearly looked like I hadn't, haha), but needless to say I didn't learn a THING in that class because, once again, looking up kanji overrode listening to Kobayashi's helpful grammar points. *sigh*

I got to take a nap during the break between the two halves of class which was super nice, and it felt way longer than 15 minutes =) The second half of class wasn't bad at all. It was the ridiculous Noguchi sensei who always says something or does something hilarious. That class always seemed to be too laid back and drug out though. We did some simple listening practice for a loooong time and then we continued a video that we had started last class. It was by some famous sci fi author guy I think? It was about the idea that in the future, you could have a lock on your door or bag or something that was voice activated (in this case, represented by a large human ear model, creepy) and you used a word or phrases only you knew. (As Noguchi pointed out though, someone could hear you saying it though...) But then they had a really cute little mini-drama about a couple who gets in a fight and the girlfriend changes the password to her house. It was so sweet and the ending made me tear up in class ^^;;;; I need to gain more control over my emotions, haha.

The end of this class marked the beginning of Golden Week for me! It's just a week in Japan where a lot of their national holidays and stuff happen to fall, so I think maybe a lot of kids get off school the whole week or some people get off work. We get Monday and Tuesday off from school which is amaaazziing. I'm still trying to decide if I want to try and travel anywhere, but for now I'm just taking advantage of the free time to do things I want to do and get caught up on some studying.

After some lunch and computer labbing I went on home for the day and took a celebratory nap from 4:00pm to 6:00pm which was a great idea if I may say so. I needed that nap! Then I managed to feel motivated enough to clean my room and blog! Wow! The rest of the evening was spent eating dinner, getting my butt kicked at Smash on N64 (aahh it feels like such a different game.. I was embarassed), and talking to Nick. And that's about all that happened on Friday!

Silver Week

Recap! I'm not sure if there is a Silver Week, but this coming week is Golden Week, sooo, yep.

Monday

I don't even remember....haha.
G-Splash practice was Hip Hop trials, which basically means it's your last chance to check it out and decide which genre you want to do for the next month. They taught us a short part of a routine to House of Pain's "Jump Around" which was totally awesome. As soon as Jen and I heard it come on we started dancing, haha. And we started jumping EVERY time he told us to jump around. Us crazy Americans.
I liked this routine a lot better than the audition routine, it was way more fun and I could get into it a lot easier. It was a workout though! Hip hop wears me out, haha.
I think we got katsudon after practice? I don't remember...

Tuesday

NO SCHOOL YEESSSSS!!
I erroneously stated in a previous day that this was due to Children's Day, but it was actually for Showa Day which is.... some other holiday, haha. Nothing exciting happened, but we got out of school, so it's a wonderful holiday.
I think I slept...some? What did I do that day? I went to the grocery store...I meant to study all day, but I didn't really start until later afternoon. OH YEAH, there was KANJI TEST.
Since I hadn't studied for or done so hot on the previous two kanji quizzes, I knew I was in for a lot of studying. Basically I had 125 kanji compounds to memorize before the next morning. I studied those darned kanji from about 6:30 pm to 11:00pm, slept from 11:30-2:00am, studied from 2:00am-3:00am, slept from 3:00am-5:00am, studied from 5:00am-9:15am, and then all through first class and break. And that brings us tooo...