Catching up

I've been very busy the last few days, sorry for not writing! I've basically crashed into bed as soon as my homework was done each night.

Here’s a brief run-down of the last few days:

Wednesday, September 7^th:

Okaasan made me onigiri (おにぎり) for breakfast. Yummy!

I made it to school on time for class, without any mishaps! Today was my first day of Reading and Writing Japanese. The review test for this class in on Monday, and will cover lessons 1-7.

I went to the conbini at 1pm, after my writing class. The shelves of food were almost completely empty! I shall have to remember to eat lunch before writing class, not after. I managed to find a sandwich pack thing. It had three half sandwiches in it. Two were lettuce, ham, and mayo, pretty normal. The other half was egg salad with cheese, a slice of tomato, and cucumber pieces. WHY? Why would someone put a gross tomato on a wonderful egg salad sandwich?? The cheese and cucumbers were odd also, but at least they taste good! (Sorry to any tomato lovers, I’m not one, clearly.)

Then I got to wait for THREE HOURS until my next class started at 4:40pm. Thankfully I headed to the CIE lounge and met up with some friends. A large group was quickly gathered, as happens all the time there, and we commenced talking about whatever popped into our heads for hours on end.

Finally I got to class: Popular Culture as Social Practice. Nothing much happened. We went over the syllabus and the teacher talked at length about the goals and objectives of the class.

Class got out at 6:10 and the sun was already setting. It made a pretty picture out of the window. However, it was not so fun to walk home in the dark. I got home around 7:30 and dinner was getting put on the table.

Dinner was absolutely delicious!!! Otoosan was working late, so it was only the three of us. Okaasan and I had two types of udon, but Kayoko doesn’t like curry sauce, so she had one big bowl of the other kind. The udon with curry sauce (うどん　and カレーサウス) was a bit spicy for me, so I ate that first, and then attacked the other kind. It had tons of stuff in it! It had fried tofu, tori (とり, chicken), hijiki (ひじき,　a type of seaweed), and some sort of paste thing, all of it yummy, yummy, yummy! 

Thursday, September 8^th:

I had toast with the cheese spread again. It’s growing on me. I also had yogurt. Okaasan said that I should put jam on it and I thought that was an odd condiment for yogurt. I’ve had plain yogurt before and it’s not bad. After the first taste of the non-jammed yogurt, I quickly revised my phrasing. American plain yogurt is not bad. Japanese plain yogurt NEEDS jam. I added a couple of big spoonfuls of the strawberry jam, which much improved the taste.

I only had Spoken Japanese, in which we reviewed for the test on Friday, and Ethic: East and West today. In Ethics we talked about Christianity: the Sermon on the Mount, an essay called the Power of Love, which was really interesting, and some excerpts of Nietzsche. My comments: Nietzsche was a very angry man, but he made some good points. The Power of Love essay was about nonviolence and violence and my favorite line from it is this: “...the similarity between us is a willingness to die for our beliefs. The difference, however, is whether we will also kill for them.” The ‘us’ being peace activists and soldiers. The other important point made, was that maybe the world needs both kinds of people.

After that class, I hung out at school for a bit, then headed home to study, eat dinner (hamburger patties, carrots, potatoes, and rice), study some more, and finally go to sleep. 

Friday, September 9^th:

                   Well, the day isn’t over yet, but here’s what happened so far. Breakfast was the same as yesterday-toast and jam-yogurt-and lunch was the same as Wednesday-sandwiches.

                   I think I did alright on my review test. I didn’t get all of the listening comprehension, but I got most of it. And I know I did well on the translation of dialogue from English to Japanese. I also did pretty well on the verb conjugation table, although I know I got at least one verb wrong. I couldn’t remember the word for ‘to use’. I knew it started with a ‘tsu’ (つ), so I just made up the rest of the word, and conjugated it that way, so the teacher would know that I could conjugate, but I didn’t know that word.

                   Then I had writing and reading Japanese, in which we reviewed for the review test on Monday. Fun times, fun times. And right now I’m waiting for my Culture class, which starts at 4:40pm. I’m looking forward to getting some of the reading explained. I read it, but I don’t think I grasped most of it. Last night’s reading was full of references to other works and studies, and I’ve never taken any cultural studies or anthropological classes before, so most of it went over my head. The teacher seemed nice on Tuesday, though, so hopefully he will be able to interpret it for those of us without prior knowledge of the subject.

That’s all for now folks!