Classes Winter Term

When it comes to school and homework, I am soooo bored! I knew that college in Japan was easy, but this is almost pathetic. If it weren’t for the language problem, I’d have almost no work. This term, I’m taking Japanese Level 4, Thai Ethnology Studies, and the History of Japan in Asia in the 14^th-17^th centuries.

Japanese class is pretty cool, but they separated us into smaller groups and now it is all the Keyaki kids minus one: Ellie! They put her in the other class, so now we can’t all talk and practice together. We're watching Totoro, too! That is part of the class: watch and understand the movie Totoro in Japanese. Sounds good to me! Besides that, the Japanese teachers this term seem to be pretty interesting, and one of them is a former Wadaiko player from our club. Since visiting an English class at another nearby college, I've gotten a chance to see how hard teachers try, almost beg for class participation. It made me really pity language teachers, which is why I have been volunteering for more stuff during class this term. And I need the participation grade. And I need to improve my speaking. Okay, so there is a host of reasons and I'm not just doing it out of the ever-flowing kindness of my heart. We can't all be prefect.

As for history, it is pretty much the same course that I took last term with the exact same teacher. That professor complimented my final paper, too. He said, "I recently read a very well done paper on fashion in the 16th century which was able to incorporate images in the reference section of the..." That was my paper! So take that, academia! If it weren't for the two annoying groups of freshmen in that class, it would be pretty good, but these kids drag the professor off on random tangents for DAYS. He knows too much, so whenever they ask an unrelated question, he knows the answer and feels it is his duty as a teacher to tell them. Very sweet, but it takes away from the actual lesson! And they ask about basic, basic stuff! Just let the man lecture, then ask questions at the end!!! We actually had to say straight out that he hadn't spoken about the syllabus for 2 days, and the freshmen got really defensive about it. They should, it is their fault. Besides being a self-proclaimed History Otaku, our professor is also a huge Harry Potter fan, which makes me so happy. He even has the class divided into dormitories and periodically gives 10 points to Griffendor and goes off on all sorts of tangents. The thing about being a history professor is that he can act as a time-traveling-tour guide, “And now let’s jump to the 13^th century, but in order to better understand where this name came from, we should visit the 7^th century.”

Besides those two easy classes, I have an Ethnology class in Japanese….I might die…probably. Luckily, the teacher takes extreme pity on me, gives me extra readings in English, letting me do my presentations and reports in English. As long as I don’t fail, it should all be fine, but every now and then, I can’t stand it. This class is definitely not a class for people who care about their grades. But I was saved the other day! We had to interview these two Thai students for 1 hour and a half, but thankfully the students wanted to do it in English. Praise heavens!! I had spent the whole day in dread for that interview and was prepared to cry myself to sleep that night, but when I found that I knew more Japanese than the Thai kids, I nearly jumped out of my chair! This makes my life so much easier, there was no way I would have survived if it had been in Japanese. Hopefully I’ll get better as we go on, but…hahah, let’s be reasonable now.

The good thing about have very few classes is that I have more time for fun and random activities. Like what? Rakugo, practices, and traveling!!

Yasukuni War Shrine

For my 300-level history course, the teacher requires that we all visit Yasukuni War Shrine and write about our experiences. Last night I spent about 5 hours walking around the shrine. Well, not the shrine itself, but the museum attached to it. I was going to skip the museum all together because it seemed like the exhibit was going to be small, but my traveling-buddy wanted to go in and it was only 500 yen, so why not, right? Wrong. Actually, right, but maybe I should have seen the floor map before going in. Then I would have realized what I was getting myself into!

Most of the Shrine was pretty basic (purification center, hondai, and torii gate), but there were other odd things at the shrine; a theater stage, white doves, and flower competitions.

Rather than explain, let's take a look: at BIRDS!

After practicing taiko that morning, walking to and around the shrine, then going through the museum-that-never-ends, I went back to my city and decided to drop by a local shop for some dinner. My sushi place was packed (and, I mean, I say it is "mine" but I've only ever been there once), so I went to another place and was seated pretty much IN the kitchen. There is no such thing as personal space here, but Japan is small, and I'm getting used to it. As I try to sit down, squeezing through an impossibly narrow separation in the chairs, I turn the wrong way and twist my knee!! Oh no! I'm sitting there, get the knee back in place, and am about to start sobbing into my napkin, when I look to my left: there, sitting hunched over what I am sure to be his weekly bowl of soup and gyoza, is a classic, little Japanese grandfather type who has decided to start talking to me. I responded at first, but then I noticed that "we" weren't having a conversation, "he" was having our conversation in his head, but just saying it all out loud. I couldn't smile big enough, he was just sooooo cute! He was just so fun to listen to because not only would he talk about me like I was his niece or something ("Oh good she knows how to use chopsticks, but a bit messy with the soup, huh? Hehe, she'll learn. Ah, got some gyoza too? Good choice, good choice.") but he also read the menu about 5 times and commented one the prices ("500 yen! What a deal! But 450 just for rice? What are they thinking? It isn't even good rice"). And the waitress acted like she saw him come in all the time. I didn't even care that my knee hurt and that I still had to bike home. That little man made my night!

And the soup was good, too.

I'm Not Too Proud of This One, But....

....I've been making you all wait for a new post for far, too long. I took this a while back and didn't like it, but maybe I'll make better ones once I have a free moment again. Honestly, I don't know how people live in a trimester system!! Courses go by far too fast!

Potential Class

Because I knew going into college that I wanted to study abroad, I took care of most of my difficult or required classes in the first two years. Finishing up the grunt work early would leave me pretty free to choose whatever courses struck my fancy when I was in Japan. Regrettably, I can't register for my classes ahead of time, so it will be a mad dash to sign up during my orientation. ICU was kind enough to send me a list of options for the fall and winter terms (they are on trimesters, so next year's spring term classes haven't been finalized yet).*

While I still need to take a Japanese language class each term, my only other restrictions would be that I have 2 history and 1 social institutions course to complete. Besides that I could take Japanese gym classes the whole time, if I wanted. Here is a list of courses that I am interested, ranked by my desire/need to take them:

Tier 1 - Readings in Japanese History, Aural: Advanced Japanese 2, History of the Mediterranean World, Interpreting in Sociology, Bilingualism & Multilingualism, and Language, Poitics, and Media

Tier 2 - Society & Culture, Cultural Studies 1, Area Studies in Ethnology, and History of Japan in Asia

Tier 3 - Individual Sports (PE), Intro to Japanese Sociology, and Culture in Contemporary Japan

Perhaps this list should be longer; I don't know what order they will let me pick my classes in, but, I want to try and work my way into Japanese (start with just English classes, move into Japanese/English taught course, and finishing in some classes taught just in Japanese). I don't want to get overwhelmed in the beginning, which is why the Aural class would be such a big help.

I'll post my actual class schedule later on. Who knows? I might get all of my first choices!

*While many schools, like ICU have changed their school year to start with Western universities, they still maintain the traditional start-and-end times for the school year. While we in the West start every school year in the fall, the Japanese believe that the school year begins in the spring time and end in winter (the minds of the students follow with the seasons; blooming in the spring, growing in the summer, maturing during fall, and resting in winter).