samui yo

I'd like to start this blog off with retelling a children book I read in my Japanese class the other day.

It's called, "why jellyfish have no bones"

once apon a time in an underwater kingdom lived a king and a queen. One day the queen got very sick. They tried all sorts of medicine but in the end the doctor said the medicine they needed wasn't in the ocean, it was a monkey's heart.

The king didn't know what to do so he asked the turtle for help. The turtle came up with an idea and went to an island where he found a monkey. "Mr. monkey, would you like to come to the castle? Its a lot of fun and there is lots of delicious food". The monkey quickly hopped onto the turtles back and went down to the ocean.

When they got to the castle the turtle went to go tell the king. While the monkey waited he met a jellyfish. The jellyfish said "its really nice of you mr.monkey to give your heart for the queen". The monkey was surprised and ran back home.

When the turtle saw what happened he told the king that it was the jellyfish that told the monkey the truth. So the king ordered his servants to just beat the living tar out of the jellyfish with baseball bats over and over. And that is why jellyfish don't have bones.

Isn't that just a wonderful story for little kids to read?

So I signed up for this thing called the j-test. Its like the Japanaese Language Proficiency Test, which is kind of the standard requirement for Japanese related jobs. The difference between the two tests is that the J-test can go way beyond the difficulty of the JLPT. But for me all that matters is that I pass with atleast the lowest level. Its out of 1000 points and if you score 900 or above they say thats interpreter level (not just translator), 700 points is level 1 of the JLPT and 500 is level 2 of the JLPT. So I'm shooting for 500 points. I took a practice test and I scored 420. This is good in one sense because you can say that its only 80 points shy of what I want but how exactly I go about getting those 80 points is the problem. This test is over the Japanese language so there isn't really any restrictions on what grammar or vocab I'll run in to so I can't really study for this test itself I can only try and improve my Japanese as a whole. Its also interesting to think about how it all works out because each of the 8 sections start out at around my skill level and move up to fluent level. So its like if I were to get only the points that are my difficulty then my its like the points are cut in half. In other words I have to get all of the questions that are at my difficulty correct or make up for it by guessing on harder difficulty ones. I've started to study a lot extra stuff in my free time now because of the test.

So I've written about this before but what exactly I do after I come home is really up in the air. There are so many variables I just can't get anywhere planning anything out. College is a big variable, when exactly can I graduate? I have a feeling that I'm not going to be able to graduate after a summer semester so that means another whole semester of college and another 10 months from now until I have a degree. I need a mere 7 credits so do I just take that? Maybe I should take extra classes so that I am a full time student and thus get grant money.

Another big variable is trying to find a wife. I really need to marry a good mormon girl and that means I really need to be very active in every singles ward activity I possibly can. But how does living in sahuarita, going to school, and working (thats a whole nother thing too) allow time to do stuff like that? If I could graduate in the summer then I could probably find some sort of decent 9-5 monday-friday job and move to Tucson, but if I have school thats hard to squeeze that all in.

I wish I could say "oh what ever happens happens" but I'm already 25 I really want to get my adult life started.

I am really enjoying church here. There are two sets of married couple missionaries and they are responsible for the free english lessons and organizing youth activies and family home evening and what not. They are trying their best to learn Japanese but they are just beginners right now so it can be really tough for them. Yesterday at first it was just me and a Japanese guy ( I forgot his name) and throughout the lesson brother Tanner would try and say something in really broken Japanese and half English and then I would translate it back to the Japanese guy (in my not so good Japanese). It was cool to finally be in that situation where I'm talking to someone who someone else can't and the other person keeps asking "what he say?". After words more people came and we played badminton and ping pong. Just lots of fun.

Tomorrow we are going to a Japanese high school on a field trip, I'm very excited