Monday 10.24
Exam number 1. My first exam is today over oral Japanese. i was up all night going over the sentences that we had to know and recite in Japanese. I’ve never been so nervous in my life as when I sat down in my chair. My sensei reordered each of the four students separately and then we all did a written section where we had to listen to a question in Japanese and then write the answer in Japanese or listen to a dialogue and write what we heard.
After the exam I was ready to just go home and collapse somewhere but I had my N5 class directly after it. We have started covering adjectives. Once the teacher asked me to make a sentence with the word รฃรฃโลรฃโรฃยช (kireina) which means pretty or clean. I said, รฃโยญรฃฦ รฃโขรฃโโรฃยฎรฃยธรฃโโรฃยฏรฃรฃโลรฃโรฃหรฃโฦรฃโรฃโล รฃยพรฃโบรฃโโรฃยงรฃโรฃลธรฃโฌโ(Kim’s room was not clean). Kim was sitting right next to me and she was not happy to hear my declaration.
Another night of studying. รฃโโฌรฃลกรฃโนรฃโรฃโรฃยงรฃโขรฃโฌโ[difficult.]
Wednesday 10.26
Exam 2. This day started out wrong. I woke up late and ran to class so that I could take the midterm test. This one was for my main class that runs Tuesday through Thursday from 9:10 to 12:20 each day. When I saw the test I was a bit relieved it didn’t look too hard and when we finished we could leave as long as we were back before the second block. (our class is divided into two hour long sessions with a ten minute break in between.) I finished early so I decided to bike back home and pick up a few things I had forgotten. Mistake number two. This horrible wind came out of nowhere and not only was I frozen but it made biking ridiculously hard. My eyes started watering and I kept trying to wipe them without running out into traffic. It was horrible. By the time I got there I was shivering and looked like I had been crying all morning. But I did make it back to school in time and I think I did well on the test.
I felt bad that I hadn’t been going to Aikido practice, because of the work load. So I decided to quit for the semester. I’ll try again next term when I may have more time. So now it’s time to find a new exercise outlet. hmmmm.
Friday 10.28
It is time. for the Kanji test. I’ve been studying all week for this test and I am determined to make Fujita-sensei proud. i sat down to the test and by the time I finished, I could barely stop myself from wanting to dance. I knew almost every question! LIKE A BOSS appeared over my head in a shower of glittery sprinkles. To celebrate me and Kim finally dragged Nana to Kizuna (the cool bar/restaurant that we found that one night that we were lost and walking for about five hours). When we got there we found out that Mo-chan’s ( the owner; his real name is Mori-san but we all call him Mo-chan) wife had had their baby earlier that day. He had a baby girl and they named her Hikari which means light. he walked around showing pictures to everyone in the bar. It was so cute. I also spent some time talking to Miki-chan and Tsuttsu-san in Japanese. it was nice to see them all again. It was really funny because when we went to leave Mo-chan asked if we had ridden our bikes like usual. But we said we hadn’t (because Nana doesn’t know how) ridden that we had walked. He was just like “ok” and he walked back inside. It was so funny. I’m not entirely sure he understood what we said but he just nodded and left.
Saturday 10.29
Today was the school festival!! The students have been working hard on the decorations and preparations for this all month. I must say all of their hard work paid off and everything looks great. The entire campus was decorate with signs and posters and the walkways were littered with stands selling or displaying something. It was packed with people; college students, families from the community, and prospective high school students checking out NUFS. Kim, Nana, and I were drafted to advertise for the face paint booth to help the local orphanage. So mostly we ended up walking around with signs on us telling people to go there and eating food. I tried two types of Karage (boneless fried chicken), yakisoba (Soba noodles fried with cabbage and an egg in soy sauce). I can’t wait for the next one in March! Hopefully I’ll be able to help out more before the big day.
