First week thoughts

So the first week of 二学期 2nd term is over, and on the whole it went better than I thought. Having experienced the same people in my new morning class, I think that やっぱり the main cause of my old afternoon class's supreme draggy-ness was definitely the post-lunch coma. (And perhaps also the fact that I am not remotely politically inclined, and so found the subject matter completely uninteresting)

We've been doing 接続詞, i.e. conjunctions the past week (and all next week as well) in the morning, which wasn't as boring as you might think. So, plus on that score. In the afternoon class, we're currently reading news articles to do with Japanese culture, industry, and I think we even get to read about foreigners' problems in Japan. So, while there' still the whole "I'm tired and I want to go home" aspect going on, the energy level has definitely been bumped up a notch.

I also like my new teachers a lot, too--even though I definitely miss having class with my advisor, Satou Ari-sense. New faces are Akizawa-sensei (uses his laptop hooked to the TV to write notes instead of the blackboard; also seems to have a rather serious cat-fixation); and in the afternoon Satou Tsukasa-sensei (not to be confused with my advisor and 一学期 1st term teacher Satou Ari; she seems very nice and good at keeping class discussions going), and Goto-sensei (seems nice, but I've only had her one day so far, so haven't got a good read on her teaching style yet). The one returning face is [morning] Senda-sensei, who I had last term in the afternoon--I was really glad to see her back. We bonded 1st term over the revelation that Senda-sensei actually lived in Raleigh for several years, teaching! She was totally excited to hear that I was from Raleigh too (Raleigh-ite? Raleigh-an?) and so we occasionally reminisce over street names or restaurants. ;-P

It seems like the homework level has also been upped a bit this term. Or rather, just that it's more written homework rather than "make sure you've read and understood the grammar points" type homework (i.e. work you actually have to turn in, and therefore must do all of). So it seems like more. Whatever. I'm dealing.