reflections--first week back

soooooo tired!
so, it wasn't even a real week (had monday off) but i'm still pretty tired. it's tough getting back into the swing of classes and things after being on break for so long (i say "so long," but it flew by)
like i said in the last post, it seems like this term is going to be a pretty heavy workload, but i am also really excited about all my classes. i have to get back into the whole college-like "not having the same classes every day" mindset, tho. lol. it's actually kind of hard, after having the same schedule every day, for so long. and since we didn't have a full week, i still haven't quite got a handle on the scheduling, and how i should pace myself. which probably explains part of why i'm so tired. anyway, here's for some particulars on the classes!

IJ
the standard grammar class like we were having every morning before. we're even using a continuation of the textbook from before, so there's not much to report there. though it's nice to be back in Ari-sensei's class again. i keep getting flashbacks to first term, which is kind of nice b/c then it reminds me how far i've come since then.

Bungaku (Literature)
a lot of work! and it's headed up by Otake-sensei (my first time having her) who has the reputation for being one of the strictest sensei at IUC, so that had me a little worried. but she seems nice, at least. we're going to be reading a variety of short stories by different japanese authors, along with some kind of criticism/scholarly article about each story/author we cover. this week was Endo Shusaku's "Kageboshi." i liked the story and Shusaku's writing style a lot, and language-wise, i had a much easier time with it than i was afraid i would. but i'm still a pretty slow reader when it comes to Japanese, and at 30+ pp, this one took a *long* time. i started it over break, then on Wed afternoon went over to tully's to read the second half or so. ......3 hours later i finally finished it. when i was done, i still had taishyu bunka reading to do for the next day, and i tried to start that, but it was just absolutely useless. after 3 hours of nonstop shusaku, my brain had turned into complete mush. i started at the page for a while, trying to decide if those little symbols swimming around were actually words or not, then packed it in and went home, where i proceeded to be utterly useless for the rest of the day. so i think the moral there is that i'm gonna have to pace myself a little better.

Taishyu Bunka (Pop Culture)
FUN!! i'm super excited about this class. right now we're doing a unit on CM (that's japanese for "commercials." i'm serious) and that's really neat. we get to watch videos like "2007 CM, Best 10" and then talk about what they were CM for, what we thought was interesting about the way each product was portrayed, things like that. the next unit is manga, and then there'll be a unit on movies--we get to watch Spirited Away, Shall We Dance, Battle Royale...i'm really excited about that. and the readings should be really interesting too. though, as in bungaku, it definitely seems like this term they're upping the level of the articles and things we're given to read. it's much more the kind of journal articles and things like what i would use for a Yale paper, but in japanese.

Business Nihongo
Ari-sensei again! only have this class once a week, on friday mornings. they split us up into 2 sections--i'm in the "not particularly interested in business/econ" group.^^ which means that the class will mostly focus on keigo (polite japanese) and the kinds of conversations you'd encounter working in a japanese company. like, this morning we went over the 自己紹介, the self-introduction that you have to do on your first day, as well as the 1-minute 自己PR spiel, which is something that gets asked a lot in job interviews in japan--basically "tell us in 1 minute why we should hire you" kind of thing. so that's really great, especially since i plan to start looking for jobs in japan for after IUC (something else i need to do...)

i guess that's it for now. i'm going to go bum around for a bit and then head to bed i think.

new video! (sorry, didn't realize the other one had gone away. like i said, sometimes they get taken off of youtube)

Alice Nine, "Ruri no Ame" (Sapphire Rain)
i'm only halfway into this group, musically-speaking. the lead singer has a really distinct voice, which...i have to decide if i really love or not. but i think this is an absolutely *gorgeous* video, which is why i'm posting it ^_^