Another week

It's been a week or so since the last post and I guess there hasn't been anything too major happen. After having monday off for senior citizen day classes were in full swing and my frustration of my classes goes all over the place. I'm in the highest Japanese language class somehow and everyday it goes from "I hate life" to "that wasn't so bad". I have two teachers tanaka-sensei and morikawa-sensei. morikawa-sensei is fun energetic person who while speaking difficult Japanese understands that we aren't fluent so tries to talk accordingly. Tanaka-sensei is not as animated as morikawa but for some reason thinks she needs to talk in that high pitched anime school girl voice. It's really annoying, like nails on the chalk board. Tanaka-sensei also just seems to talk completly normal japanese so I have a really hard time understanding here. Sometimes I'll go like 5 mins without understanding anything then she asks me a question and I'm completely stumped whats going on.

The grammar, the vocab and homework are all ok so I know I can get a decent grade in the class atleast but in class it is really stressful. I think I would like to move to the lower class but thats not possible. Because so many people moved from C class to D class that no one from E class can move down to D. Which isn't fair, also I'm getting a little screwed on it because at U of A I get credit for the next two Japanese language classes which use the same text book as C. So even though I am taking a really high level class I am only getting an intermediate level course credit. Oh well I guess.

Oh also I'm going to audit a real Japanese class. Like a class for Japanese students taught in Japanese. It's really scarry, thats an incredibly high language level and I probably wont be able to follow any of it in class or be able to read any of the assignments. But it is an audit so I can't fail it, the teacher can drop me if things get really bad I suppose but I really need to do this becauase its such a rare opportunity. How many people can say they really know what its like to be a Japanese college student. Also great way to make freinds who don't use English a lot.

Oh yeah freinds! I'm finally starting to create some sort of social life outside of the ryugakusei (foreign exchange studnets) I went to this online penpal place and put in a profile saying I live in Kobe, speak moderate Japanese and if freinds want to practice thier english thats cool and I got tons of emails. I made one freind who goes to Konan as well, his name is Kou and he is really cool. He came along with me and some other ryugakusei to sannomiya (I guess the shopping center of kobe) and one guy wanted to get a cell phone and he stuck around for 2 hours while we got it all squared away. Another ryugakusei called Matt is insanely good at Japaneses and he actually did most of the translating but Kou helped here and there, it was really nice of him. Kou's kind of funny because he wants to get an american girl freind but worries he's too shy. I keep telling him that the ryugakusei girls want to talk to Japanese guys and I know in general that those otaku girls LOVE japanese guys. So I'll help him get a girl maybe he'll return the favor.

Also we had a ryugakusei/konan student party. There is this thing called the big brother and sister program where konan students emailed us and we talked throughout the summer. My sister Eriko couldn't come (I've yet to meet her actually) but I spent like 5 hours talking to people in half english half japanese. It was so much fun. And there is one girl named Aya who started to text me last night so thats pretty nice too. One Japanese guy said he was really jealous that all of the ryugakusei get attention from girls just becasue they are gaijin (foreigner). I told him he looks white he should just pretend to not understand Japanese very well.

Also also on Friday I meet with someone from the kyudo club. It was really windy because a typhoon was passing through Japan so practice had been cancelled but he expalined everything to me and two other ryugakusei. He spoke only Japanese so it was a little ackward but we got through the conversation and all of our questions asked. This is an expensive hobby and he didn't know if we should buy all of the stuff if we are only going to be here 9 months. The paper he gave us put the estimate at around $800 for the bow, arrows, hakama, uniform, gloves, casses, stuff like that. We don't have to buy anything at first but I'm thinking I'm okay with buying most of the stuff and maybe trying to rent something or just paying the $800. Because while I'm in Japan I want to do something very Japanesey and kyudo is definately something cool like that, and also unlike kendo, kyudo isn't all that well known in the states so its something extra special

Finally (much longer post then I thought) I went to a No play last night. I could not understand anything that was going on or a single word that was being said. I really thought they were speaking Chinese at first. There was a whole lot of that traditional japanese background sounds, like the stuff you see in a samurai anime or something and a lot of odd jagged movements. Its not something I would ever want to watch again, and I don't think its something that most Japanese people enjoy either because the audience was like 90% elderly people. Most Japanese people aren't that short in reality but the elderly just shrink a lot. So I really felt like a giant there.

Gosh I thought I didn't have anything to talk about this week but I ended up writting tons, whew well see ya later