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.

1. Gum.
2. 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)
   
3. 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.