Also, the reason we all went to go get tacos in the first place was to pregame for the movie screening! ^_^ Last term, the Friday speaking class--not me, that's when I was taking business Japanese--filmed a movie! It's a murder mystery...sort of? They wrote, filmed, directed, and edited it themselves, so it was rather an interesting production. Lol. But, since the editing and stuff finally got finished, last night we had a screening party up at the big house on the hill, that Ben, Connor, Bridget, and Travis are sharing (cf Thanksgiving).
It was a super party--Amy brought "和風 Rice Krispy treats"--so called because there are no Rice Krispies in Japan, so she used cornflakes instead. But they were really good! And Senda-sensei brought over some fantastic guacamole! XD
Yes, that means the teachers were there, too--Senda, Akizawa, and Kouno. (getting drunk with your teachers is always interesting.....)
Anyway, it was a much-fun party. The movie was a big hit, and we've decided that the next step is to release a subbed version, and make it the next Youtube sensation! ^_^ So, everybody watch out for that!
No pictures in this post, either--I took a few, but sadly certain IUC students who shall remain nameless have forbidden me under pain of death to let them see the light of day, either here or on facebook. So, sorry, no luck this time.
who, me?
- ☆sarita☆
- From a former North Carolinian and recovering Yalie: Currently living and working in the big city of Tokyo, while furthering an ever-growing obsession with Japanese pop-culture.
(WARNING: this is going to be another of those posts in which i am too lazy to capitalize things)
4th term has begun! it's only been a week, so why does spring break seem so long ago? i guess school has that effect on you...? still, there's no afternoons, and only 2 out of my 3 classes are going to involve actual work. well, that last is an assumption--i mean, i still have IJ--we spent T/Th this week doing the last 2 chapters of the keigo book 待遇表現, which was really no work at all, tho it's not really clear what we're going to be doing next in that class. we're having a mini-発表会 next week though, so i have to write some kind of a speech between now and then. (pick a topic... pick a topic....)
Now, onto the hard stuff:
we've moved on to Meiji literature in bungaku, as of this term. (for those of you shaky on your japanese history, that's post-1860, after the collapse of the shogunate). on balance, not that long ago i suppose, but it's long ago enough that everything's written all weird! (T_T);; sort of along the lines of the way Shakespearean-era things use different spelling and stuff like that... it's not all that bad actually, just takes some getting used to. and this was my first time reading anything in that kind of Japanese--but once i got myself broken in, it felt pretty much the same as regular japanese. right now we're working on Natsume Soseki's 夢十夜 "Ten Nights of Dream," which i was actually super happy to get to read. i've read them in english in a j-lit class i took sophomore year at yale, tho that was long enough ago that i didn't remember much other than the fact that i liked them. but, for anyone who's read anything else by Soseki, they're (to my mind at least) very unlike any of his other works.
less fortunately, next up, according to Otake-sensei, is Higuchi Ichiyo and possibly Izumi Kyoka--both of whom are authors that, again, i've read in translation for j-lit classes at Yale, and really enjoyed--but who are apparently a bitch to tackle in the original japanese. Ichiyo especially, according to Otake, has a habit of using a variety of different spellings for her characters' names, within the same story. as well as another equally charming habit of writing single sentences that take up an entire page. i exaggerate not in the least. (ack!) before we even get to start reading her, we have to spend a whole class learning various techniques for "how" to read her works! お楽しみ。。。(please note the sarcasm)
on Friday i have my first 現代小説 "Modern novel" class, so i'll report on that later. the first reading was a Murakami Haruki short story (that i *swear* i've read before....) which was interesting and not too difficult. so hopefully that class stays fun.
The nightmare is over!
Lol.
Well, not a nightmare, exactly, but 3rd term has been pretty draining. After 4 months of having the same classes every day, the switched-up schedule took some getting used to. Sometimes literature, sometimes pop culture..and IJ thrown into the mix twice a week. IJ which, more often than not, ended up getting the short end of the stick, homework-wise. Oops.
The hardest part overall was definitely the lit class. We've been going at a pretty fast clip, and along with each short story, we also read a related scholarly article, and wrote our own essay. Some of the stories were longer and harder than others; I actually think the first story we read, the Endo Shusaku one, was the easiest even though it was the longest (and, I think, the oldest). Some of the stories I liked, and a couple of them made me want to bang my head against the wall.
I had my end-of-term interview with Ari-sensei on Friday morning. As expected, she talked about how I need to work on upping my kanji skills over the next term, and introducing some more formal words into my vocabulary. Which is something I've been sort of self-conscious about too, mostly because I feel like since most of the other kids here are grad students and stuff, they're all coming from a background of lots of reading in Japanese for their coursework. So I worry sometimes that I'm kind of behind in that sense. So, that's my goal for 4th term! ;-)
Oh, and I made the mistake of telling Ari-sensei that I didn't really have any plans over break--which got me stuck with a whole mess of homework that I'm now expected to do over break. Joy! *note sarcasm*
I should've taken a page out of Molly's book. When Otake-sensei asked if she had any plans over break, Molly was like "Yes, I have a friend coming. The whole time. Lots of traveling. No time for homework. Sorry. Two weeks. Whole time. Yup."
Wish I'd done that! >_<
since I talked about how we went to the library for a project work research orientation I spose I should also mention a little bit about what I've decided to do my project on.
I felt a lot better about it after talking to Ari-sensei last week. I was thinking the project had to be actually researching something, you know, like "the economic policies of the Taisho era" or something like that. but it turns out that, according to Ari-sensei, the majority of students just come in with something along the lines of "I want to read this book in Japanese." and then find something sort of similar to present about at the end.
so! my topic's not entirely hammered out yet, but I've decided to do something about translation. if possible, I would love to be able to write about, I guess you could call it "theories of subtitle translation"...? some of the issues would be common to regular translation, but what I really want to examine for example (in the case of Japanese to English), is the balance between conveying Japanese culture and making things understandable to someone coming from an American cultural background. How best to translate certain expressions, pop culture references, things like that. do you translate them literally and let the viewer fend for themselves? add some sort of explanatory note? change the reference into one from American culture that has a similar meaning?
Questions like that are really interesting to me.
Oh, and-- wonderful news about my advisor, too! I had just assumed that the project advisor would be the same as our regular advisor (i.e. Ari-sensei for me). but then the other day Otake-sensei came up to me before class asking about when we should schedule my weekly project work meeting, and I got really confused, until I realized that my project advisor wouldn't necessarily be Ari-sensei. and then I got kind of worried that it might be Otake-sensei. which wouldn't be bad, it's not as if I dislike her--it's just that I've had very little interaction with her, and she's known to be one of the stricter sensei at IUC.
but then the other day they posted the assignments, and I have Senda-sensei! YAAAAYYY!!!!
everybody is really jealous of me! ^_^ (especially Jason, who has "Kawasaki-sensei" as an advisor--someone that none of us have ever heard of, or have any recollection of ever seeing. lol)
so, all in all, i'm getting really excited about this whole project thing!
;-D
As promised, here's the short movie we made in Business Japanese, "A Day in the Life of a New Employee". Hope everyone enjoys the embarrassment as much as we did making it. ;-P
Sarah: Outa (Japan Commerce Co, Sales Dept.) / Receptionist / Suzuki-san
Katy: New Employee
Misa: Itou (Sun Commerce, Sales Dept.)
Sean: Tanaka-san / Nomura-san / Receptionist
Staff
Director: Ari-sensei
Scene 2: Telephoning Japan Commerce Co.
Scene 3: At the receptionist for Japan Commerce
Scene 4: In the reception room
Scene 5: Exchanging business cards, Take 2 (take 1 was better...)
Scene 6: Ending the business meeting
Scene 7: Leaving the company
Scene 8: At the receptionist
Credits!
For the past couple weeks I've been hearing, "So, what are you and your friends doing this weekend? You're not going anywhere? Just staying at home? Well, you and your friends sure have been boring lately."
So, Mom, this is for you. I'm actually going to get out and do some things this weekend.
Tonight (I have to leave in about 10 minutes, actually), I'm going to a joint birthday party for Jeff, Andre, and Aragorn, who all have birthdays within the next week or so. There's a bunch of IUC-ers coming, so from what I understand, they basically rented out this place, Jack's Cafe, for a flat rate for about 2 hours. There'll be appetizers and drinks, and lots of people, so I'm looking forward to that.
Then, tomorrow night, I have plans to go with Molly, Jason, and Misa to....Thrash! I'm very much looking forward to this, as I haven't been to Thrash since...the night before I flew home for Christmas. Which is another story. Lol. Molly actually went back there with Andre on Christmas eve, but I don't think she's been back since. Wonder if the bartender will remember us? ;-P I think probably. I mean, it's not exactly a gaijin-trap, and I'd bet we're the only group that comes barging in there on a regular basis.
The rest of the weekend will probably be consumed by homework, as we've got rather a lot at the moment, especially in bungaku.
Oh! Speaking of which, business japanese. We've been doing these practical, work-related conversations, that sort of continue on with the same characters, &c. And last week we Ari-sensei had us string them all together and film them. Today in class we watched the video, which was sufficiently embarrassing for all involved. Lol. But Ari-sensei has promised to post it to the IUC server, so as soon as she does, I'll figure out some way to upload it here for all to see.
So, お楽しみして下さい、ねぇ～
Re: the fact that that whole "3rd term is easier" thing turned out to be a big fat lie. The other day after morning class (cutting into my lunchtime--how dare they?!) we had an orientation for 4th term. I kind of thought that it was supposed to be the same as 3rd, but apparently not.
First: the Good News!
Up until now, we've gotten to experience the pleasure of no-afternoon-class Wednesdays. Once a week, every week. And I thought that was pretty good. But it turns out, in 4th term, we have NO afternoon class! XD
My current M-Th morning class (literature) will continue into next semester, as does the Tues/Wed IJ grammar class. That one becomes 上級日本語 High-Level Japanese. My current Fri morning class, Business Japanese, ends after this term, and gets replaced by a new class. The choices are Speaking, Listening, Writing, 日本文化論 Japanese Cultural Theory (something like that, anyway), or 現代小説 Modern Fiction.
I haven't decided what I'm going to pick yet. I mean, the obvious choice would be the Modern Fiction class, as it's about "the short stories of current, widely-read authors." But, on the other hand, the Culture class sounds pretty interesting, too (Ari-sensei's heading it up). Also, taking two lit classes at the same time is definitely nothing to sneeze at. Or I could pick the listening class, for a bit of a break. Since my listening skills are definitely the best of the bunch (and by bunch, I mean the bunch of my other skills, or lack thereof), it would make for a bit of a slack class.
I dunno, I'll talk to Ari-sensei about it, but I'll probably end up going with the other lit class. From a future-use point of view, it's definitely the best choice. I'm just a little nervous about the workload, hence putting off the inevitable.
Next: the Bad News
Well, not exactly bad news, but... The reason we have no afternoon classes is because, during 4th term, we're supposed to be spending the afternoons doing dun dun dun...Project Work! Theoretically, at least. (Flashbacks to HIF, anyone?)
I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm sure the project will be rewarding, and interesting, full of fun facts to know and tell. It's just...I have no idea what to do my project on! Nothing. Complete blank. Worse, a void. I mean, I know there are lots of things I'm interested in--Japanese culture, fiction, publishing, dramas... I'm just not sure how to get a research topic out of that. You know?
Aaannndd...we're supposed to turn in a little sheet thingy outlining our project proposal "as detailed as possible." By noon Monday, according to the paper. (A fact which I just now realized. Eek) I guess I'll have to shoot an email to Ari-sensei over the weekend, see if she can meet me before class Monday--or before lunch, assuming I can get an extension past the noon deadline. lol.
So, anyway, that's the skinny on 4th term. As far as we know, at least. ^.^
As we've seen, the good folks here at IUC sure do like to shake things up.
but i realized that i haven't updated a blog posting lately (a real one, anyway) and that needs to be done!
absolutely nothing to do with the fact that i'm drawing a complete blank on what to write my speech about... nothing at all. nope. (too much protesting?)
also am realizing that recent posts have been horribly lacking in photos, too. whoops. haven't really done anything photo-worthy lately, so...sorry. i'll try to remedy that soon, and take some pics of, well, something.
on to the past week--on the bungaku front, we finished up our first short story. now the homework is that we're all supposed to write our own critical essay about the story (which we'll be doing for all of them from now on). and the length is "up to us." i HATE it when they do that! i mean, "up to you"--what does that mean?! does that mean 1-2 pages? 3-4? gah! whatever. i do actually have things to say about this story, so that's something i suppose.
pop culture class is also still fun. we're in our movie unit now. we got to watch "Shall We Dance"--the amazing Japanese version (DVD of which i own), as well as the embarrassing Richard Gere + J-Lo American remake--and compare the two. that was friday, then today we discussed Miyazaki's "Spirited Away," one of my FAVORITE movies. so even though i'd seen it a million times before, i rewatched it over the weekend as "homework." hehe. god, i love this class.
friday afternoon, we also had a screening of "Battle Royale," cause we'll be discussing that in a few days. it's a super famous movie, and i'd always heard of it as one of those must-see films. and it was, cinematically speaking, very good, i thought. but, it was seriously the most disturbing movie i've seen in recent memory, if not ever. it's based on a book that caused a huge controversy (as did the movie). the premise of the story is that Japan has gone to the dogs, so they decide to pass the "battle royale act," which means they randomly select one class of 9th-graders, send them to a deserted island for 3 days, and make them kill each other off until there's only one left standing. (as incentive, if there's more than one person left alive at the end of the 3 days, then everybody dies)
....you can see where the controversy comes in. like i said, it was a really interesting movie from the perspective of social commentary, and sort of getting inside the kids' heads, seeing what makes people kill each other, and how they all deal with the stress and everything. but, when it was all over, we all felt pretty shell-shocked.
i find myself torn between wanting to see the movie again, with subtitles---and *never* wanting to see the movie again.
let's see, what else...oh yeah, business japanese is going pretty well too. i only have it once a week (fri mornings), which makes it kind of a nice, low-prep class. i.e. we do useful things *in* class, and there's lots of conversation practice and things that i think are helpful, but there's not a whole lot of outside-class work. which is really a good thing, because nobody really has the time to do much prep for such a relatively minor class, on top of everything else. and i think the teachers realize that. altho maybe it's a different story in the other fri morning classes (i.e. reading, speaking, writing classes respectively). but i'm happy with my situation.
ok, wow, this post got long. so i guess i'll wrap up now.
oh! but, it snowed yesterday!! ^_^ a sunday, so as far as potential vacation days goes, it was a waste of perfectly good snow as far as i'm concerned. but it was certainly pretty while it lasted.
eek, almost 10pm. ok, i spose i'll suck it up now, and go and try to write my speech. that's seriously the hardest part of all this--trying to figure out *what* to write about. after a while, you run out of topics...
ok, bye for real now. and i promise to try and include some pictures next time!
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 ^_^
so, i know it's only just been the first day of classes, but i'm beginning to suspect that whole spiel they fed us about "2nd term is the hardest, 3rd term will be much easier" was nothing more than a clever ruse to fool us into がんばって-ing and making it through those last few weeks before break.
Lies!
...I better go finish my homework now.
以上！
so, in IJ--the book for morning class--the chapters alternate between Written and Conversation sections. which is really good cause it means you get practice in both more formal, written expressions/constructions, as well as more casual spoken styles. well, i guess that's the point.
so, we've been on the Convo section of chapter 2 this week, which means lots of focus on casual sentence patterns and getting proper intonation and stuff (ya~y! cause that's my strong point! can i just say how much i love it when we're not reading things? like when we get to do videos in afternoon class, instead of newspaper articles)
and i had kind of a nice boost on friday when Senda-sensei mentioned to me that compared with when she was my afternoon teacher 1st term, she thought that my speaking and intonation and stuff had really improved since then! XD so that totally made my day. i was sort of feeling like i'd been getting better, but it's nice to be told that by someone who can be an actual objective judge of your performance. and i firmly maintain that at least part of said improvement is thanks to my J-dorama habit. also, Senda-sensei found out that I'm going back to Raleigh for christmas, and has requested an ACC handbook as an omiyage. LoL ^.^
Friday after class was super busy but lots of fun. i took off right as soon as class got out at 3, to go over and meet Sato Masako (from my kyudo club at the budokan) at yokohama eki, because she's actually the kyudo sensei at a high school around there. the last tournament, i was talking to her about how i had done kyudo back in the states when i was in high school, and she asked if i would come over one day and talk to her students about my experiences. so i got to do that on friday! she actually wanted me to talk to them in english, since they're all learning it but never get a chance to practice speaking it. so, i did my little intro talk in english, then went back and sort of summarized it in japanese, cause i'm really not sure how much they understood. then Sato-san wanted them all to come over and introduce themselves, and talk to me a little in english. they were all sooooo embarrassed, it was actually rather cute. i tried to talk to them in english a bit, but nobody really seemed comfortable with it, and they all knew that i spoke japanese, so it mostly ended up being that. but it was still fun.
oh! and an even better thing--one of the other sensei at the high school is actually a hanshi (there's no "higher" after that) and so i got to have him correct my shooting a bit--joy! i learned a few things that i didn't even realize i'd been doing wrong, and i actually got the bow to do almost a full yugaeri! it went like halfway around, which i've *never* gotten it to do before. ちょう～嬉しい！ let's just hope i can keep it up from now on. oh, and it turns out that this hanshi sensei was actually in the States for the testing seminar in SC this past summer--so he met Dan-sensei! i swear, every time i meet a kyudo person in Japan, they know Dan-sensei, or know someone who does...it just makes me realize again how lucky I was to get to study there.
i left the high school at about 5:30 (actually had to cut out of their practice a little early) and hopped the Minato Mirai-sen right back to Queen's, because at 6 was Ari-sensei's (my advisor) "Happy Just-Married" party. she's married to a former IUC student...oooOOoohh. as is Aoki-sensei, incidentally--there was a card passed around for everyone to sign, and i saw that he had written "Welcome to AIMY--Association of International Marriages, Yokohama." LOL. oh the things we find to amuse ourselves...
anyway, there were lots of people there--Ari-sensei's family (her dad kept going around trying to shove drinks and food into people's hands--he wasn't satisfied unless everyone had a drink in each hand and, preferably, several plates on their laps), most of the IUC sensei/staff (Matsumoto-sensei was, as usual, popping out of corners, snapping awkward photos of people all evening), and all of Ari-sensei's current students and advisees. a good time was had by all.
oh, and Sano-sensei caught me at one point, to let me know she had gotten a コルティナさん、よろしく mail from Stever-sensei (my 3rd-year japanese teacher at Yale). it was kind of loud and i was totally not in the thinking-of-yale mindset, so at first i didn't realize who she was talking about. it was kind of embarrassing when i was finally like "oh, yes! Stever-sensei was my teacher at Yale!" and Sano-sensei's kind of got this "...and you forgot her already...?" expression. lol. oh, well.
oh, and saturday i went out to start my christmas shopping (managed to put a decent dent in it, i think. it's hard tho). then i met up with Matsuzawa-sensei to go to this place in Landmark that was having a kimono sale (even on sale they're expensive). and this was a for-real place, where they show you all the patterns individually, and drape things around you... i think Matsuzawa-sensei just wanted someone to go with. it was neat, but we didn't stay for long. Matsuzawa-sensei kept talking about how last time, they had other things too, like tabi for really cheap. so i think that's what she'd intended to go for.
oh, but they also had this very odd noodle promotion going on. by the desk, there were several jars of bowtie noodles, elbow macaroni, things like that--and for 20 yen you got a small bag to fill up with as many noodles as it would hold. it was great, and i'll definitely be eating them for supper sometime soon but...... I'm not really sure what noodles have to do with a kimono sale. oh well, i guess a bargain is a bargain.
and here i will end what has become rather a long post. also, it's sunday and i was therefore feeling rather lazy--so apologies for the relative lack of capitalization and appropriate punctuation in the above ramblings.
Today we got out of class at 11:30, because there was a field trip! Well, only those of use who signed up went, but.
We took the train into Tokyo to the National Japan Theater to go and see a 文楽 bunraku performance. Bunraku is Japanese puppet theater, but don't go imagining Pinocchio or muppets or anything. The style of the plays and the performances themselves take a lot from Kabuki and Noh theater, and so are very traditional in that way. Just, instead of people in masks, you have puppets performing the action. The puppets are fairly large, around 3 feet tall I'd guess, and incredibly intricate and expressive. I was really amazed how much range they could give, even down to being able to pick things up with the hands, or raising and lowering the eyebrows. Each puppet is manipulated by 3 people (that's right, 3!) who carry it around onstage. The main person operates the head/face and right hand; a second person is the left hand; and the third person is the feet/legs. The main puppeteer wears a traditional hakama and kimono, but the other two people are dressed all in black, with executioner-style black hoods so you can't even see their faces. The puppets don't actually do any talking. Instead, the dialogue and narration are sung, kabuki-style, by the narrator who sits off to the side of the stage, accompanied by a shamisen player.
The beginning part of the performance was really neat--it started off with a dance performed by two puppets, and then the puppeteers came out and gave an explanation of the various movements, and how the puppets are manipulated. That was really interesting, especially talking about the differences in movement between male and female puppets, &c. After a while, you really stop seeing them as puppets in such an obvious way.
After that, they did a famous scene from one of the bunraku plays, which was interesting but extremely difficult to understand. Like I said before, all the dialogue and narration is done speak-singing style by one person, so for starters it was hard for me to get a sense of who was talking when. The lines were projected above the stage, like what's typically done in opera, but the entire play is written in old Japanese--the same as when it was originally written however-long ago. Which means that even the Japanese in the audience had rented these headphone-devices that translated the play into modern Japanese for them. So of course I had no hope of understanding anything, though we were given an English synopsis of the play.
...I have to admit i nodded off a bit. But then, so did about half of the audience--I gather that this is rather common, if not expected, especially in Noh--so I don't feel quite so bad.
This week we also found out about the plan for 3rd term, which starts up in January, after the break.
Up til now, we've been having simple morning class (grammar-focused) and afternoon class (newspaper articles, videos, current events discussion), the same every day. But apparently during 3rd and 4th term at IUC, you get to choose from a variety of elective-type classes, so the curriculum becomes more tailored to students' particular interests. So this week we got the information about the different options, and picked our top choices. There are three groups of courses plus another set of optional after-school courses that you can opt in to.
Group A (pick 1):
政治・経済 Business/Economics
美術史 Art History
文学 Literature
文化人類学 Anthropology
法律 Law
歴史学 History/Historiography
Group B (pick 1):
Reading
Listening
Speaking
Business Japanese
Group III (pick 1): [no, I don't know why it's III and not C, it just is]
現代史 Modern History
大衆文化 Popular Culture
ビジネス・社会 Business/Society
Optional Classes:
書道 Calligraphy (Shodo)
古筆 Old-style Writing
文語文法専門 Classical Japanese
ビジネス Business
So, the ones I picked were Literature (A), Business Japanese (B), and Popular Culture (III). In the optional classes, I'm continuing on with shodo, which I've been taking this semester at IUC, too (I've mentioned that, right?). I also checked the box for the optional business course, because it might be interesting; I was a little worried about whether it would be over my head, but Ari-sensei said I can just go to the first lecture and see what I think, so I figure I might as well give it a shot. I didn't really have any trouble deciding the other stuff--since I'm not in any way grad school bound, anything I do in relation to Japan after IUC would definitely be work-related, so Business Japanese was a no-brainer. And since 1) I'm interested in publishing, and 2) my reading skills could use some work--the Literature course is definitely the best thing for me out of A-group (altho the Anthropology also sounded neat).
The way the schedule will work, we'll have A-group M/Th mornings; B-group F morning; and III-group in the afternoon (except Wed when we have afternoons off, like now). Tu/W mornings, we'll be continuing on with IJ, which is the grammar textbook we're using in our current morning class, so I guess that will be pretty much the same type of deal as now.
It sounds like a lot of work on paper, but as I've mentioned before, it's supposedly easier than 2nd term, so... We'll see. I'm looking forward to the change of pace.
Wow, this was a long week. I mean, nothing in particular happened, I was just *super* tired. Too much messing around and staying up later than I should (lol). And amazingly, that tends to catch up with you. (I know, you're shocked)
We finished up the 接続詞 conjunctions section in AM class this week. It was seriously detailed and stuff--lots of going into all these expressions that mean *almost* *exactly* the same thing, but there's one case where you can't use it. Stuff like that--the difference between それで、そこで、それから、それなら、&c. Not the most interesting, but it's definitely something that I'm grateful we went through in detail, because while I mostly knew what those expressions meant, they can be kind of confusing and I wasn't totally 詳しい on them.
Next up is "Integrated Japanese Advanced Course" (ISJ for short)--sort of the sequel textbook to ASJ that we used in the first semester. It also looks fairly scary, in terms of that it goes into serious detail about everything. But then, that's why I'm here, right. It's also going to be a little heavier in the hw department I think--like with the 接続詞 hw, there's a bunch of "complete the sentence" problems in the textbook that we have to write out separately and turn in every day, in addition to the regular readings and stuff. Hmm...
PM class is also starting a new section as of next week--seems like we're going to be doing that for the rest of the term, i.e. each week's readings will have a different theme. Which I kind of like. This past week was 文化の発信 (umm... "Transmission of Culture," I guess you could call it) and next week will be 地球温暖化 "Global Warming" (ugh--at least it's a short week).
On the fun side, tomorrow is going to be super! Jason, Misa, Molly, and I are meeting up with some of the HamaDai kids that we met over break at the festival, and we're all gonna go bowling and then to dinner or something after. :-D Should be lots of fun, so I'm definitely looking forward to that.
Also, next week we will be super-cool cause 1) we're doing a special field trip thingy Wed and therefore have no class at all; and 2) Friday is a national holiday!! (I never know what it's for, I just appreciate the break--makes a nice change from Yale....)
Oh yeah, and this week in calligraphy (Tues) we got to start making seals (stamps) with our name-kanji, so we can sign our work. It's crazy complicated--it's a stone, so you have to actually carve the kanji onto it... But more on that later.
P.S. (and I promise this is it) note the new video above! See, I'm really doing the weekly thing! It's another (fairly) new single, and I just think the video is cute, tho kind of sad.
"Finally," right?
I know, it's been a while since my last post, but things have been kind of hectic what with classes starting and everything. But now I'm ready to get going with it again, and I thought I'd start with a general overview of the placement and how things have been going so far.
Week 1
IUC takes placement really seriously, something that I definitely appreciate, especially for a longer program like this. The entire first week, in fact, was taken up by different placement tests. On Monday, we met for a brief (or not) orientation about the program in general, and then in the afternoon we each had individual Oral Proficiency Interviews, which were video-taped, and involved a short keigo role-play.
Tuesday morning (and by morning I mean 9:30am-1:30pm) was the written portion of the test. There were kanji, listening, reading, and grammar sections. The kanji portion, which came first, was one of the hardest tests I have ever taken--there were literally sections where I left 90% of the page blank. This was not good for inspiring confidence. Fortunately for me, the rest of the test went much easier, and I was relieved to hear that the kanji had been bad for pretty much everybody.
Due Wednesday was a 400-800 word take-home essay. The topic was to take a stereotype
of Japan or Japanese people, describe it, and talk about whether we thought it was correct.
Thursday was a free day.
And Friday was the individual evaluation sessions. In addition to the classroom teachers, IUC assigns each student an advisor who will meet with them weekly for the whole year, starting with the eval session. My advisor is Sato Ari sensei, who is also one of my classroom teachers. In the eval session, Sato-sensei gave me a sort of graph that outlined how I had done in each section of the placement tests, and compared it with the group average. Kanji was not so good (as I'd expected); reading, hearing, and writing were also a little below average (though not much); and I was happy to see that the interview and grammar sections were both at or a little above average. (~Go me!~) Sato-sensei also played the video of my oral interview (pretty awkward and embarrassing to watch, but...) and went over some of the main problems.
Week 2
So, starting from week 2 (this week) we were placed into morning classes, but they were お試しクラス, which is to say trial classes until the final placement was decided. People were switched around a bit for the first couple days, but by Wednesday afternoon the classes had been decided and we all bought textbooks.
Week 2 also featured the start of SKIP (Special Kanji Intensive Program). I'm not sure what makes it "special," but I can certainly see where the "intensive" comes from. It's basically the same as the daily Yale kanji quizzes except you do them on your own time, and the goal is that by the end of the 10 months we'll have learned all of the 常用漢字, i.e. the 2500 basic kanji you need to read any newspaper, and which all Japanese people have learned by the time they graduate high school. We, of course, are learning them all in 10 months, instead of 10 years. And, since the first 30 or so lists are "easy" kanji that we should have "already learned," the sensei recommended that we do 2 or 3 quizzes each day.
That's basically the deal for now. Afternoon classes start next week as well, so the work should start piling up pretty soon.
Oh, and here's a picture, kindly taken from the IUC website, of the Pacifico Yokohama building. I promise to take some of my own soon, and I'll do a few posts about Yokohama, my apartment, and the surrounding area. Cause, it's really cool!
So, tomorrow, classes start up at IUC. Placement tests and everything...so maybe I'm a little nervous. But for anyone who's actually reading this blog, I'll fill you in on how it goes later.
Also, I've got a couple more catch-up posts to do (like my trip to Osaka!) which I will get to later, I promise.
じゃあ、またね！
I know it's a bit late, but this will be my version of the HIF Final Report--since, having blogged, I don't *technically* have to do one.
Academics
While initially I was disappointed at being placed into the 上級 class at HIF (mostly because a fellow Yale third-year placed into the next higher class), I wasn't unhappy with the structure and content of the class itself. There were daily kanji/vocab quizzes, which I didn't find too difficult as they are a feature of Yale's 2nd and 3rd year classes. We spent a lot of time working on speaking and listening skills, with extra emphasis (especially in the listening) on casual and/or slang speech patterns that are often used in normal conversation, but that aren't usually studied. The rest of the bulk of the class was spent in reading, either from the textbook or various newspaper articles, which we would then use in class discussions, debates, and essays.
This brings me to the 作文, essays. We wrote four or five over the course of the semester, 600-800 characters each, on topics such as the Japanese education system, then environment, and my all-time favorite (please note the sarcasm) 豊かさの意味 "The Meaning of Wealth." The thing that I found most annoying was that all essays had to be hand-written (no typing!). The idea was that, on the computer, it's easier to insert kanji that you don't necessarily know otherwise, and the teacher wanted us to try and use our current vocabulary in the essays. I found this extremely ridiculous at the time, having always been allowed to type Japanese essays in the past. However, in retrospect I have to concede that Saitou-sensei had a point. Not necessarily about us looking up kanji we don't know--but I did find that the kanji I remember the best from HIF are the ones that I wrote over and over again in my essays. Writing the essays really helped to reinforce the writing and meaning of kanji that I might otherwise have relegated to my short-term memory only.
Project Work
And, of course, we come to the infamous HIF "Project Work." I was a little concerned about this going in, having heard from past HIF-ers that it became the bane of everyone's existence (so much so that HIF contemplated scrapping it altogether), and the actual project work was both not as bad and worse than I had feared.
Without getting into the politics of certain group members' willingness to work (or not), I had good group members and a topic that I was interested in (looking at inter-cultural (mis)communication between host families and their host students). In that respect, the project work was enjoyable, and I had fairly high hopes for it in the beginning. However, theory and practice proved to be two very different animals.
As the semester wore on, I think everyone discovered that we had less time to devote to project work than we had expected, and as other things took over our time, we all fell behind the schedules that had once seemed so easy to accomplish. The result was that the projects began to seem like nothing more than busy work, to be gotten over with as quickly as possible; and those few who wanted to use the project in connection with thesis research--and thus actually trying to do a good job of it--quickly became overworked and overstressed trying to fit it all in. By presentation time, most people had stopped caring.
Host Family
Living with the host family was definitely one of the best parts of HIF (tons of delicious Japanese food aside). Especially compared with living alone now, when I spend so much time thinking/speaking/reading in English, or simply not speaking Japanese--living with a host family provides an invaluable experience, for several reasons. Especially for someone like me, who had never been to Japan before, having a host family around to explain things and talk to, and generally make me feel at home, went a long way toward easing any homesickness I might otherwise have felt. I had a bit of a different family from most other HIF-ers, as both my host parents worked (in most families the mom stayed at home), so I didn't get the intensive conversations that some other students had with their host mothers. But my family was extremely friendly, and I was able to spend lots of time with my siblings, Sae and Satoshi, so it was an extremely enjoyable summer.
So this past week has been both amazingly fun (matsuri) and incredibly busy (speech contest, tests, project presentation), and this week promises to be more of the same, with perhaps less fun and more work.
In other words, I barely have time to eat and sleep, let alone post onto a blog, but I promise I will remedy this as soon as possible, and treat you all to a detailed update on my last two weeks in Hakodate!
At HIF, they have various culture classes and community activities that you can take part in, which I think is one of the strengths of the program. I signed up for almost all of them, so here are a few pictures from the ones I've done so far.
First is pottery making, which was lots of fun but really hard. This picture isn't of me, but you get the gist I think. The class was held at a nearby pottery studio, and the teacher was really helpful (sometimes to the point of practically doing it for you, but that was kind of necessary at times). We all came away with some kind of bowl, though. I'm thinking of giving mine as a thank-you gift to my host family.
The next event was visiting Asahi Elementary School one afternoon. The kids put out a great welcome for us! We all played janken (Japanese rock-paper-scissors) and tug-of-war together, and then the kids taught us the traditional Hakodate "Squid Dance." After that, we broke up into small groups and each went with a class to play games and stuff. Here's a picture of my group with our 5th grade class.
Next, and so cool! was the kimono culture and etiquette class. In addition to getting to see some really beautiful kimonos, including an example of a wedding kimono, we all got to try on yukata, which are light, cotton kimonos usually worn in hot weather. Sort of like a robe, but putting them on correctly is a lot more complicated than you might think!
I`ll post pictures later, but for now here`s a little bit about my host family, the Oowadas (大和田).
The dad, Minoru, is a doctor(my host mom calls him "sensei" sometimes). He`s not around very much (par for the course in Japan) but he`s really nice and easy to get along with (also a bit of a joker I think). The mom, Chizuru, is a nurse, which is a little bit out of the ordinary. I think most of my friends` moms don`t work outside the house anymore. I was pretty intimidated when I first met her--she seemed very elegant and put-together (if that makes sense). I felt like I was very grubby and clumsy next to her. But that just goes to show you that first impressions aren`t the end-all, because things have relaxed a lot since I first moved in, and now we`re very friendly and relaxed. There are also 2 kids in the family: Sae (16, daughter) and Satoshi (10, son). They seem to have your typical sibling relationship, with Satoshi being the screwball little brother while Sae yells "うるさい！" I see them pretty often in the evenings, since we all eat dinner together, and then sit at the table doing our homework. Sae and I also recently bonded over our MP3 players (she was impressed by the music videos on my IPod, especially Christina Aguilera`s "Candyman" video) and a mutual fondness for Orange Range.
In school news, we had the first brainstorming session for the HIF group project today. I`ve heard that the project was pretty much the bane of everyone`s existence last year, so here`s hoping this one will be slightly more fun and useful!