ugh, tired

I was at work until 8:30 tonight *cries* And I'm gonna have to try and get there right at 9:30am tomorrow morning, too.

Not all bad, but--the reason I had to stay so late tonight was cause I got behind on the listings, which have to be turned in Wed morning (hah--that's not gonna happen).

But the reason I was behind on listings is cause 1) it was a 3-day weekend so we had Monday off (yay!) and 2) I spent all morning today at a press conference (more yay!).  

It was a Japanese movie conference this time, for a film that comes out this December, called 252 生存者あり (Survivors Found!).  It's basically your average disaster flick, about a ginormous typhoon destroying Tokyo. And the 252 thing is apparently the "code" in rescue-squad language, meaning that you've found survivors, like in a collapsed building or something. Anyway, it looks kind of cool, and has some actors that I like in it--like Hideaki Ito, who it turns out in real life is the most ridiculous space case ever.  He was sooo not paying attention during the conference and kept having to ask the MC to repeat the question.  Seriously, he did it like 3 times.  (>_<)

Anyway, I got to take some pictures yet again, and it's eventually gonna be a Movie News--not anytime soon tho, cause the film doesn't open until 12/6, so we'll probably run the article closer to then. 

PV update--we're going old school!

This song was pretty much the theme song for my HIF class, resulting in many failed attempts to sing it at karaoke.

懐かしい～！  \^o^/

job stuff--in japanese?!

sooooooooo tired.....
So, I'm officially looking for a job. And as my 第一歩 in that direction, today I experienced the wonders of the "we're not hiring but we'll talk to you anyway," a.k.a. Informational Interview.
See, even though I'm staying in Japan, I still want to do something related to publishing--although within that I'm pretty much willing to consider anything. Which means newspaper, magazine, foreign rights, translation... you name it, I'm looking.
Today's interview was with the Japan Uni Agency. They rep Simon & Schuster's books to get translated and sold in Japan--and that's how I got in touch with them, was through my old boss at S&S. The "Japanese market is poor," so they're not hiring, but they agreed to talk to me anyway, so I dashed off from school this afternoon and made my way over to Jimbo-cho, a.k.a. the Land of Used Bookstores. It was raining, and I got horribly lost, and managed to wander around for nearly an hour, despite the fact that the building was literally about a block from the station. But, in my defense, quite poorly labeled.
I talked to two women at the agency, Kurioka-san and Nagatsuka-san. Kurioka-san is only a little bit older than me, and just started working at Japan Uni recently, so that's why she had Nagatsuka-san come over too--cause Nagatsuka-san has been with Uni for about 10 years, and so knows more about the business.
So, on to the interview itself--
Kurioka-san was incredibly nice, the sort of person that I feel like I would get along really well with as friends. Nagatsuka-san, on the other hand.... to be fair, I don't think she was trying to be mean, I think she's just one of those dry, ironic personality types--which could be entertaining in a boss, but is absolute MURDER on your nerves in an interview. I mean, I was nervous enough having to speak in Japanese, so it didn't help to have Nagatsuka-san saying things like "It might be better for you to work in America," and "Japan still has lots of gender discrimination, not like America. You might not like it. If you try and work here, you might end up hating Japan."
Some more samples of conversation:
Me: So, what do you like most about your job?
Nagatsuka-san: I don't particularly like my job.
Me: ....oh.
Kurioka-san: Really? You don't?
Nagatsuka-san: No.
Kurioka-san: But, you get to read books and that sort of thing, isn't that fun?
Nagatsuka-san: Not really.
Me: ............
(>_<)
So yes, there were some sufficiently awkward moments--although, I knew from the start that it wasn't a job interview, so it's not as if I feel like I missed out on anything. And don't get me wrong, I did get some useful information from the interview, like about how to get started looking for translation jobs, or the fact that both Cambridge and Oxford University Presses have offices in Japan. (for which last, I totally plan on contacting my old boss at the Yale Press, to see if she has any contacts for me.....) *crosses fingers*
これからも、頑張るぜぇぇぇぇぇぇぇ！！！！！

in which things take a turn for the worse

(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.

we made a movie!

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

Cast
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 1: First day on the job
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!

kyudo test!

Sunday, I took the kyudo 審査 test (shinsa), for 初段shodan, in other words 1st dan. I was really nervous, and it was a looooong day. The test was at the budokan where I usually practice, which I was happy about--sort of a home dojo advantage, if you will. At any rate, it was nice to not have to be all nervous in a new place, on top of everything else.
I had to get over to the budokan by 9am, so the plan was to wake up at about 7 to have time for some coffee and breakfast, hit up the ATM, grab a bento (cause sensei said I should bring one), and get to the budokan before 9 to beat the check-in rush.
As I said, that was the plan. What actually happened was that I woke up at 8 (the time I'd planned to *leave* the apartment originally), frantically threw on some clothes, had no time for coffee, grabbed my stuff, and ran out the door. To find that the ATM was inexplicably closed. Grabbed some food (and coffee) from the combini, and still managed to make it to the budokan right at 9am. A feat of which I am actually quite proud.
Of course, getting to the budokan at 9am was just to check in. The actual testing is done by number. And I was #386. Out of 387. Suffice it to say, I had a sizeable wait. Shodan is a fairly beginner rank, so it was basically me...and 300 high school students. They're, well, I'll stick with energetic.
I wasn't actually scheduled to begin my testing until 2pm. But that was the written part, so it gave me some time to study.
See, the kyudo exam for rank has both a shooting part (obviously) and a written test. At shodan level, the written is fairly simple, but given my severe lack of studying and the *small* fact that the test was in Japanese (of course), and sans dictionary, I was a little nervous. It turned out all right, though. The main essay question--thank goodness!--was basically, "what good effects kyudo has had on your daily life," that sort of thing. Basically the same sort of thing I've been writing for speeches and compositions for class all year. And I have to admit, it was pretty gratifying to see the sort of taken-aback look on the test proctor's face when little old gaijin me handed in a full page of Japanese. ^_^ lol
Then, the shooting part, which I was nervous about, a little bit, but mostly just COLD. I missed both my arrows, but the shots were all right. I guess it must have been good enough, cause I PASSED!!! ^_^
And here's the picture to prove it! They posted the results by stamping 合格 (pass) or 不合格 (didn't pass) above everybody's names. I'm the second from the left column--second to last, like I said. I took a picture of it with my cell phone. Cause, well, all the high-schoolers were doing it, so it seemed like the thing to do. hehe.

初夢: dreaming of... (日本語?!?!)

I think I dreamed in Japanese last night!
Well, I don't remember too much, only the bits that happened right before I woke up. But the dream was me traveling or something, like after IUC lets out. And I was in some kind of cafe, or maybe a ryokan where I was staying, or something like that--and I was talking to the people who owned it, and speaking Japanese to them, cause of course it being Japan, they were Japanese.
...so it wasn't like a random dream where I just happened to be speaking Japanese for no reason, I was speaking Japanese cause it was me, in Japan, talking to Japanese people.
Does that still count? I dunno. But at any rate, when I woke up, it was a really weird feeling--like "...hey wait a minute... that was japanese!"

so yay me!

b(^>^)d

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 ^_^

Sankeien

Wednesday we had a field trip!
I didn't really have a good idea what it was all about going in--the excuse to have a day off of class was enough for me--but it turned out to be pretty interesting (if kind of cold--which is a problem only in that cold makes me sleeeeeeepy...)
So, the Yokohama Rotary Club (I know, right) was hosted this, I guess you'd call it a cultural day, down at Sankeien Garden. Sankeien is basically this large (for Japan) cultural garden with flowers and all these old, famous buildings that some rich dude basically bought and transported here from Kyoto.
LoL.
So we all met at Negishi station at 9am (that's earlier than class usually starts! some day off...) and took taxis over to Sankeien. Some of the Rotary Club members met us there and led us over to one of the buildings (semi open-air; hence the cold) where they took turns making various 日本語らしい greetings.
The first event of the day was some gagaku, or Japanese "classical music." It was neat, lots of flutes and drums and stuff, but kind of long. The best part came after, when 3 student volunteers got to try on these craaaaazy traditional costumes that (I guess?) were worn when playing the music. Not really sure on that score, but. Anyway, here's Nick--not that you can see him, really--dressed in what was by far the coolest costume. Next on the agenda was ikebana, or flower arranging--which I'd actually done once before, at HIF (cf. the "Culture Classes" post, I think). Here's my finished product! (^-^) Then we went into another room and got to watch a sort of traditional Japanese dance. The guy explained after, that it was meant to sort of tell a story, all about these various gods and things. Once he showed what each part of the dance meant, I understood much better.
Anyway, here's a video I took of part of his dance. It got really good right after I stopped, but sadly Bazes's head kept getting in the way, so I really had to.

Next was the most fun part--for me, at least. Back when we first heard about the field trip, pretty much all they said about it was that there was going to be a part where you could try on kimonos, so of course I signed up! I figured it was going to be pretty much the same as my yukata, but it turns out this one was an actual kimono, which I'd never gotten to wear before. The process is much more involved--it took 2 people to dress me! And here's a picture of the whole group: After that, we changed back into our street clothes, bundled up, and went outside for a tour of the park. It was a nice walk, but we didn't have a whole lot of time to see things, and by that time, I think people were pretty ready to go home, so the tour part did feel a bit of a chore. But the garden was pretty: I just wish I'd been able to appreciate it more.
Oh, and as always, there are *tons* more pics from all parts of the day up at my kodakgallery.

It's Friday? Seriously??

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.

One semester down...

So I've made it through 1st semester, and it's finally 秋休み Fall Break!
We covered all of ASJ (Advanced Situational Japanese) and all but the last two chapters of 待遇表現 "Formal Expressions for Japanese Interaction" so I think you could say it's been a pretty busy semester (and that was just in the 午前 morning class!).
The 午後 afternoon class this semester was mostly news articles on various political/social topics, which were combined with various listening and writing exercises in and out of class. I don't know whether it was just the fact that everyone was tired and in a post-lunch coma, but it always seemed much more of a struggle than the 午前 class. I wasn't terribly interested in the subject matter, and I didn't find the class really to have as good an atmosphere as my 午前 class. In addition to the post-lunch thing, there just never seemed to be a good flow to the conversation. Sort of self-important sounding personality types (in class at least) plus some *really* sloooow talkers, and the class just dragged.
Thurs afternoon and Friday morning we had the 午後 and 午前 class exams, respectively. The Thurs exam was a bit rough--extreme tiredness + lack of studying--but the Friday one seemed to go OK.
Once the break ends, we start new classes, with (theoretically at least) new classmates and teachers too. I'm pretty excited about my new sensei--some that I know from 1st semester, some that I've just heard good things about. As for the classmates, my new afternoon class is mostly names I don't recognize (in katakana at least) or just haven't had class with, so we'll see how that goes. But the morning class for 2nd semester is, with one new addition, exactly the same as my 1st semester afternoon class--which makes me a little apprehensive, but I'll keep an open mind and we'll see how things go.

This week

Nothing particularly noteworthy happened this week, but I thought I'd do a blog post anyway (this will happen from time to time).

Class
So last week was our first test (on an entire textbook!) and, having finished that, we've moved on to the second text that IUC uses, called 待遇表現, or in English "Formal Expressions for Japanese Interaction." It covers all sorts of polite forms, as well as real-life situations that we're likely to encounter--everything from how to call Information, to how to tactfully refuse a request from a superior without pissing them off or offending them. All in all, it's basically a two-week crash course in the Japanese group sensibility.

Kyudo
Practice has been kind of 少ない these past couple weeks, with the result that I only got to go once last week, and twice this week. But to make up for it, the second time (Saturday) was the club's 月例会 monthly practice tournament, which is always lots of fun (and they give out prizes! not that I've gotten any yet...). I got to go to the one last month, too, and put forth a pretty decent showing. Yesterday, however, was another story, and I went 0-for-10. Oh well. I do partially blame it on the fact that since Wednesday, I've been using a different bow. Since I don't have my own, I've been using the club's bows, and up til now I was using an 11-kilo bow--as of Wed however, Matsuzawa-sensei decided (for a variety of reasons) to switch me to a 12.5-kilo one, which is definitely taking some getting used to. I was *super* sore on Wed after practice :-/ But whatever, I guess it's a learning experience, でしょう。

Etc.
Not a whole lot going on that front this weekend, it was pretty quiet. There was a plan to go see some art exhibition in Roppongi on Sat (which I wouldn't have been able to go to anyway, cause of kyudo), but apparently that got scrapped at the last minute, due to lack of participation. On Friday, after class, I did go out to dinner with some people (Jason, Connor, Andy, and the two Amys). Incidentally, we went to TGI Friday's (yes, they have those in Japan--as well as Denny's and 7-11...neither of which are nearly as sketchy as their US counterparts--but then, Japan's like that).
Anyway, after a good old-fashioned American dinner (and one enormous margarita), we all made the trek over to Connor's house for a movie party, which really ended up being quite a party. I swear, like half of IUC was there. Normally we wouldn't be able to pull off something like that, but Connor happens to be living in an actual house, that he's renting from some professor and sharing with 3 other IUC-ers. It's REALLY nice, and I am quite jealous. So we packed close to 25 people into the living room (cause, since it's a house, they *have* a living room), and settled in to watch "Paprika," one of Satoshi Kon's (Tokyo Godfathers, &c) more recent movies. It's about this girl, Paprika, who can travel into people's dreams, sort of for psychoanalytic purposes--an amazing movie, and a real head-tripper. I also had the music stuck in my head for the rest of the night (in the good way--it's the same person who did the music for Paranoia Agent, if that rings any bells).


And lastly...only one more week until 秋休み～ Fall Break～!!!!!!!!

Intro to IUC

"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!

A new year

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！

HIF Wrap-Up

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.

Stress!

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!

Host Family (&c)

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!

Placement test/funny story

So Alvarez-san from my third year class at Yale is also here at HIF, but he got placed in a higher class than me (sadness!). I`m in Advanced (second highest class) and he`s in High Advanced. When I told my host family about this, my host mom`s reaction was funny, and very Japanese:
"Well, you know, in Japan we say that the second highest class is the best. Because, you know, in the second class you can still がんばって　and move up, but in the highest class there`s nowhere to go but down!"
^_^