Reflection and Plans

Captain's Log:

We had our "orientation" for the coming Spring semester today after our morning Japanese classes. They're not offering one of the classes I need to do to get my credit transfer. Damn.

It was in room G202.

The first and the only time I've ever been in that room, were the three days followed after the placement test in mid-September last year.

We talked a lot today, about what seemed like just a few weeks ago that we, excited and lost, were having our first orientation about the 10 and half months ahead of us. Today, I sat here... 5 months down, 5 and half more to go.

Remember I wrote about the placement test back then? I felt especially stupid while doing it because the girl in front of me, was practically going through the whole thing effortlessly, which gave me a slight shock. But she turned out to be one of the two people who could take normal university courses with normal Japanese students straight away.

Time really flies. At first, things seemed like a bit of a drag, but once they're over, and you make friends the days go by faster than you can count them. And it goes without saying how much my Japanese have really improved in these few months. Despite that it still sucks...

The amount of people that filled the room, practically halved than it was just 5 short months ago. From what I've heard, there's at least double the amount of people that's coming in the next semester for just one semester, and even the university said themselves that they'd be expecting a lot of people to be in levels 3 and 4 Japanese classes during the next semester, and so they'll be splitting one of these levels into 2 classes. I'll be level 3, so this could be interesting.

First semester, we had 15 or 16 kids in our class, now we number at 7. I'm looking to welcome the new kids.

We're about to have another break. I'm gonna go see Motion City Soundtrack the day before exams. Sadly I'll miss out on my tennis circle's going away party for the 4th years, but I was going to miss that anyway. Sad day.

However, immediately after that, I'm going snowboarding with them in Nagano, which I'm pretty stoked about. And we found out there's a ferry from Kobe to Shanghai that's only, like, $30. But visas to get into China are about $100, which is unfortunate, I was looking forward to a week of cheap, opposed to the life of expensive in Japan. I guess I'll go to Hiroshima instead.

I normally hate when people do things like this, but I have to brag about my girlfriend. We've been together for 2 months now (which have flown by), and it's been awesome. She's cute, silly, open about everything, gets and laughs at (most of) my jokes, and most importantly, not crazy (such a nice change). She's pretty much a westerner with Japanese quirks, and I love it. This may not end well, but I'm going to enjoy it while I can. My only criticism is that I wish she spoke less English with me. So yea, happiness.