Testing Day

WARNING: This post is TOO LONG
WARNING: This post has TOO MANY PHOTOS.
***Read at your own time/interest risk.***

Today was the big day: Japanese Language Placement Tests! The day we had all been dreading/failing to prepare for!

I got up a little earlier this morning to give myself time to eat breakfast (delicious delicious rolls with raisins in them, and my pureed orange drink) and study some more. I skimmed over all the grammar points we had learned in 301, and I'm glad I did, otherwise I wouldn't have remembered most of them for the test I think!

We met up at 8:30 with a few other DK House students and made our commute to Sophia. Today was the most packed train of all packed trains. The trip from Ikebukurou to Shinjuku is just the longest trip between stops ever, and it happened to be the most packed. I don't know what about my stature just says "Hey, I could easily be squashed to make more room in this train," but people sure do jump on the opportunity. My comfort level with Greg was pushed to new limits today as I was basically crushed between his backpack and another commuter. We all got there in one piece though, and without too much time to spare (after having to let some too-packed trains go by).


I love all three of these photos, which is your favorite? =)




The test was divided into three sections. They told us that if we felt we were beginners, we could just do the first section. Intermediate, do sections one and two, and advanced do two and three. Well, we had studied Japanese for three years, and used a book titled "An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese" hadn't we? So we all thought sure, intermediate, most definitely. At first, our choice seemed logical, as section one was super easy and we all got through it quite easily, thinking "Well I know way more than this! Intermediate must be the stuff we started learning in 301!" WRONG. There was a huuuuge difficulty jump between sections one and two, to the point where we went from knowing basically all the kanji to almost NONE of the kanji. The grammar was hit or miss, and the reading section was absolutely hopeless. I think we all still did the essay section for intermediate level, but it was just "describe what's hard about studying a foreign language," which isn't' too far off from a lot of the prompts we've already had to write.

Two hours went by pretty fast with that test, but we were all glad to have it done. The fact that intermediate and beginner were sooo far apart actually made us kind of happy because we knew that no matter how much we might have studied over break, it wouldn't have made a bit of difference on that test! (unless we studied only new materials and basically nothing from 301). Hooray for the test being over!

Afterwards we met up with Dan and he led us to the cafeteria in building 2 (where all the important places seem to be). Before you go in, there are the classic pay some money, press a button, get a ticket vending machines outside for you to choose your meal. Everyone else opted for ramen or udon, but as I previously stated, I'm much more of a rice girl myself, so I scored some amaazziing curry for 280 yen. I was really pleased that it tasted so good and was so cheap, and I got so much of it! That will definitely be my go-to meal. There were also some a la carte items inside the cafeteria for a little something extra, but I did not indulge. (Another plus of the cafteria: water cooler!)

Per Dan's suggestion, we ate on the "terrace" of the cafeteria, aka the roof! It wasn't terribly high up, but it was a beautiful view of Shinjuku and the weather was wonderful! It was a really nice lunch and I enjoyed it a lot! I got some amusing photos as well =) (And another plus side of getting a rice-based meal is not having to balance a bowl of soup going up and down the stairs! Remember that one, kids)It was a lot brighter and prettier out than this photo shows...





Our new DK House friends, Miranda and Julie (she's from France!)

Next we went to the media center to get our computer passwords in case we ever want to use the university computer lab, which I'm sure we will at some point. We had an amusing situation where about 6 of us were standing around a copier trying to get it to work with our money and everything before a nice Japanese student finally told us it was probably broken. Stupid gaijin.

Finally we were off for the second big accomplishment of the day: commuter passes! The way the commuter pass works is as such: We pay something to the tune of $200 in exchange for unlimited use of our route from home to school for the next three months (plus a Suica card account, which we think you can put money on as credit to quickly get through any station without having to buy a ticket, and maybe for use at train station shops and such). Since it costs about 290 yen (about $2.80) to get from here to there, times two for the return home, these passes will definitely pay for themselves in the end. A very nice and patient train office worker helped all of us get our cards figured out and purchased (although I was silly and thought I didn't have enough cash on me to pay for the card, so he canceled everything we had just put in the computer at the same time Hunter was offering to lend me 20,000 yen, while I could've used, and did end up using, my Visa card to pay... I'm sorry you had to do the whole thing twice for me, nice train office man!). We were all super psyched when they worked just fine later on!Suica?

Suica!!

Jeezum, Greg...

Suica!

Greg thought this would make a great photo until he almost died trying to ride the children's playground equipment.

Hunter asked this young girl for directions, but unfortunately she was too young/composed entirely of stone to help us.

We still had some time to kill before the scheduled welcoming party, so Teresa led us down to the National Gardens (I think was what it was called?) to check out the lovely cherry blossoms there. Greg and I got a little sidetracked by two Office Depots on the way, trying to find just cheap regular mechanical pencils in bulk (since we both prefer them to wooden pencils and we're both constantly losing them), but all we are able to find in this ridiculous country are single mechanical pencils for no less than 99 yen. We finally broke down and bought one of those each and went on our way.These statues weren't very pretty, so I took a picture of their reflection in this pool instead.

We've only seen a few ladies in kimonos so far, but they were beautiful!


Check out this crazy tulip! It wasn't anywhere near the gardens, but it *is* a flower.

The gardens were super beautiful and I got a lot of nice photos and video =) I was happy because I was wearing a cute white shirt with a pink sweater (my only thing close to a long-sleeved shirt left clean), so I kind of looked dressed for the occasion! We got through there pretty quick and headed back via a back street to explore new territory and got a few more amusing photos:

Greg infiltrating the castle.

I was super amused by the completely unimpressed look on this guy's face. I think Greg put it best with the caption "You want some of this? Cause I mean... I'm done with it."

Greg also finally got me to try his beloved Real Gold drink, which I concluded tastes like gummy bears. Not necessarily a bad thing.

Then it was party time! There was food (hooray!) including delicious cream puffs (extra hooray!) and the director guy started off the party with a kanpai (toast!). The rest was only slightly awkward as we had to make an effort to meet some new people, and try and meet Japanese people specifically. My group(Greg and Hunter) only met girls (surprise), but they seemed to be the majority anyway. They were all nice and some of them spoke reeally good English and understood us perfectly. There was a fun moment when Hunter was trying to explain swing dance to some of the girls and needed a partner for a demo, and I happen to have taken some swing dance lessons in my time, so I volunteered! I was surprised how much I could do just by knowing the timing of the basic steps, and to just pay attention to the male lead. I always liked swing dancing, so that was a little moment of fun, and those girls were chou impressed!Before the party. Don't we look like a nice bunch of kids?

We look like a nice bunch of kids from this angle too!

After that it was back home to DK House. Well, almost. We were about to hop on to the first totally packed train of the evening when a BABY cut Greg and I off!! Well, a lady pushing a stroller with a baby inside. Of course we couldn't go in front of the baby, so we let them on first. Unfortunately, Greg's backpack made it pretty much impossible for the train doors to shut, so we decided to wait for the next one.

After several more long, and significantly packed trains, we finally made it home! Hunter greeted us with the good news that there were still some sakura festival vendors set up outside, so we got dinner from there and met him and Jeannette in the kitchen/common room. I got Tsukune, which is basically meatballs on a skewer, but they're made of chicken instead of beef, and in a special sauce. I think I tried to make them once on my own at home but I did a terrible job and they were no good at all and kind of made me sick. These were much better and made a nice dinner. It was interesting to see the room filled with all the new DK House residents. An channel with anime was playing the whole time on the TV which was kind of cool. We made fun of a Pokemon episode that was on and then got to talking about Sailor Moon, at which point Greg made the mistake of agreeing to rent and watch the entire 200 episodes of Sailor Moon with me over the semester. You said it, buddy. Get ready for some Moon Tiara Action.Not actually a photo of Greg. That was just a ruse so that I could take a photo of the older guy and the young kid playing some Duel Masters or something card game. The older guy was pretty into it for the kid I think and it was super cute.


Back in my room, I've been cleaning! I managed to scrape together enough 100 yen coins on my own and from Jeannette (thanks Jeannette!) to do two loads of laundry. I would only have two to begin with, but I failed to wash my new jeans before leaving the US, and they've been rubbing blue dye off on eevverrything I own, haha.. so I made sure to wash them with only dark and blue items. Whites will just have to wait until I've made some more change. Right now everything is just hanging around on various surfaces of my room since I have no intentions of paying for or using the dryers while I'm here unless necessary (especially once it warms up and I can open the windows for more drying capabilities). I also used the adorable and user-friendly communal vacuums to clean up my floor a bit so I feel more comfortable walking barefoot on it.

Tomorrow is DK House orientation which should be...interesting? I feel like we already know everything we need to know about this place, so I'm not sure what Mr. Uzuki intends to orient us with tomorrow morning, but I guess we'll find out soon enough. I'm pretty worn out from the day, and this post got extremely long, so I'll call it quits here =)