Three weeks since I last posted... whoops. A lot's happened since then.
Let's start with the current. I'm sitting in the living room. Okaa-san's preparing dinner. Otou-san's watching TV and reading, Mio's watching TV and looking at music sheets. Oh, and humming the Sailor Moon theme song. Yousuke's in his room.
Anyways. Amy and I started dating about two and a half weeks ago, so I've been spending most of my free time with her.
Last week was the Japan Study retreat to Karuizawa; Waseda was on break for Wednesday and Thursday. Waseda owns a resort property out in Karuizawa, about a two or three hour bus ride from Tokyo. Stayed overnight. Wasted time until dinner, then we had a meeting about our cultural practicums. Then we had a party, which was fun. Then some of us went out to the field to watch the pre-meteor storm (the real thing started at something like 2 PM). Fun, and a lot less light than the city. Not quite enough for a full view, but much better. Cold, but hey.
Dinner's going out on the table. Looks like fried calamari? Yum.
Let's see. Prep work for teaching a class session at Mita High School, a public high school in Minato ward. I was partnered with Hana, a Waseda student who's studied abroad. Taught the class on Monday. Fun, though definitely nerve-wracking. I was surprised to find about a quarter of the students blatantly not paying attention. As in, sleeping in class levels of not paying attention. Should've put them on the spot, taught them how American classes work. Would've been entertaining. Ah well. Self-intro, then a short quiz about Boston and the US. After that, Q&A. Then group work; we put them into groups of 4 or 5, and they had to think about a given subject on the States (food, cities, etc.) and give a short presentation. The presentation about American cities being noisy, dirty, and dangerous was...
... dinner. Yup, it was fried calarmari. Tasty!
... anyways, that presentation was... interesting. We wound up running out of time, since they only gave us about 50 minutes. Two hours definitely would've been better. After returning to Waseda, some of us went to Shin-Okubo station and met up with some of the folks who went to the elementary school (I had class then). Shin-Okubo's a Korean-heavy area; we went to a yakiniku-ish Korean place for dinner. Fun, delicious, tons of meat. Also tried a couple of Korean alcoholic drinks, though I still have no idea what they were. Pretty good, just no clue what I was drinking.
I have a bunch of ideas for mini-articles (not so much journal entries) that I'll have to write up at some point. Though that would require me to be less busy.
Oh, and I got a haircut today. I've yet to take a shower, so I'm not entirely certain how it turned out. Seems okay, though, and 1000 yen beats the heck out of 4000. Not that I'd necessarily get a better cut at the pricier places. There's a chain of haircut shops with locations in train stations that charges 1000 yen, but they (literally) do a 10-minute cut. Amy found a place near Waseda that does it for 1000 without the 10-minute factor. I was amused when they took a vacuum to my head after the cut. They cut my hair without wetting it first, which I found rather surprising. They also touched up with a straight razor, which was nice, but I'm not sure how I feel about their not using shaving cream.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
orz
So, I'm sitting here in the SILS reading room. I came to campus after not being able to access the Waseda homepage, since I had class for period 3, 4, and 5. I pick up a bento, walk into building 11, and am greeted by a sign saying all classes are cancelled for today. Hurr.
Ah well. I wanted to go to Tokyu Hands anyways, so it's not a complete loss. And it gives me time to write my little essay for orientation. Which is due tomorrow. Bleh.
I think I slept through most of the typhoon itself. The weather's actually quite nice right now, if a bit windy.
Ah well. I wanted to go to Tokyu Hands anyways, so it's not a complete loss. And it gives me time to write my little essay for orientation. Which is due tomorrow. Bleh.
I think I slept through most of the typhoon itself. The weather's actually quite nice right now, if a bit windy.
Whoops
So much for updating every day.
Anyways, I'm using one of the computers in the SILS reading room (i.e., study area / computer lab). I don't actually have class today, but hey. It's now been a week and a half since classes started. I wound up dropping the constitutional law course. Before classes started, I thought I might want to drop the Japanese elective class (Taigu - Communication). Looks like it's going to be a good course, though. Discussion of what words have what sort of connotation, that sort of thing; stuff that isn't discussed in a typical class. I'm looking forward to the rest of it.
Classes here have relatively low requirements compared to Case. Comparative Cultural Studies has five short compositions (as in, maybe about a page) and a final essay exam that we already have the prompt for. For Contemporary Japanese Policy-Making, half my grade is a single paper; the other half is attendence.
Stuff that's happened in the past week and a half... Classes. Friday night was spent deciding whether or not to drop the constitutional law class. Got a minor cold around noon on Friday, which lasted until Monday. Joys.
Saturday I went with Amy, Sara, and Tue to Akihabara. Tue bought Cowske, Amy bought a DS Lite and denshi jisho (electronic dictionary), Sara looked at netbooks. After shopping, the four of us went to a maid cafe. It was... an experience. Involving a creepy old guy with a camera sitting next to us as we were getting ready to leave. We paid 800 yen each for melon soda floats; you're required to buy at least one drink at a maid cafe, and regular sodas were 600 yen. Strangely, they had alcohol on the menu. Also watched some tourists make total jackasses of themselves when they didn't notice the "no photography" sign. You want your picture taken with the maids, you get to pay 500 yen like everyone else.
Sunday was the barbecue with Niji no Kai. Fun times! Met a whole bunch of people, ate food. Jumped right in the shower when I got back, since my clothes and I smelled like a campfire.
Monday, I went shopping for a denshi jisho in Akihabara. Found a couple of models I was interested in, asked my Japanese teacher about them on Tuesday. On Tuesday, I went back after class and bought the one I wanted at the Casio outlet store. Cost me about 22,000 yen for a refurb of last year's model; a great deal.
Casio XD-SP9500. It's a business model rather than a high-school student's model, which makes it a bit more expensive. On the other hand, it's a heck of a lot more useful for English-Japanese and Japanese-English. It even has a million (!) word technical dictionary with every single engineering term I can think of, that can handle both E-J and J-E. And I can write kanji with the stylus and look up their meanings, which is amazing. Stroke order means nothing! Nothing! I can fudge it all I want, the dictionary still knows what kanji I mean. My first actual use of the gadget was today, when I was reading a text message from my host mother and didn't know some of the kanji.
Random discoveries. Yousuke has cram school fairly frequently. Apparently Mio used to have cram school every day for about five hours per. Kids apparently start going when they're three (yes, three!) years old. I'm quite glad I didn't have to do anything like that. Also, okaa-san apparently has a class on ikebana today.
Oh, and there's a strong typhoon coming tomorrow; my first ever. They haven't cancelled classes yet. This ought to be fun.
Anyways, I'm using one of the computers in the SILS reading room (i.e., study area / computer lab). I don't actually have class today, but hey. It's now been a week and a half since classes started. I wound up dropping the constitutional law course. Before classes started, I thought I might want to drop the Japanese elective class (Taigu - Communication). Looks like it's going to be a good course, though. Discussion of what words have what sort of connotation, that sort of thing; stuff that isn't discussed in a typical class. I'm looking forward to the rest of it.
Classes here have relatively low requirements compared to Case. Comparative Cultural Studies has five short compositions (as in, maybe about a page) and a final essay exam that we already have the prompt for. For Contemporary Japanese Policy-Making, half my grade is a single paper; the other half is attendence.
Stuff that's happened in the past week and a half... Classes. Friday night was spent deciding whether or not to drop the constitutional law class. Got a minor cold around noon on Friday, which lasted until Monday. Joys.
Saturday I went with Amy, Sara, and Tue to Akihabara. Tue bought Cowske, Amy bought a DS Lite and denshi jisho (electronic dictionary), Sara looked at netbooks. After shopping, the four of us went to a maid cafe. It was... an experience. Involving a creepy old guy with a camera sitting next to us as we were getting ready to leave. We paid 800 yen each for melon soda floats; you're required to buy at least one drink at a maid cafe, and regular sodas were 600 yen. Strangely, they had alcohol on the menu. Also watched some tourists make total jackasses of themselves when they didn't notice the "no photography" sign. You want your picture taken with the maids, you get to pay 500 yen like everyone else.
Sunday was the barbecue with Niji no Kai. Fun times! Met a whole bunch of people, ate food. Jumped right in the shower when I got back, since my clothes and I smelled like a campfire.
Monday, I went shopping for a denshi jisho in Akihabara. Found a couple of models I was interested in, asked my Japanese teacher about them on Tuesday. On Tuesday, I went back after class and bought the one I wanted at the Casio outlet store. Cost me about 22,000 yen for a refurb of last year's model; a great deal.
Casio XD-SP9500. It's a business model rather than a high-school student's model, which makes it a bit more expensive. On the other hand, it's a heck of a lot more useful for English-Japanese and Japanese-English. It even has a million (!) word technical dictionary with every single engineering term I can think of, that can handle both E-J and J-E. And I can write kanji with the stylus and look up their meanings, which is amazing. Stroke order means nothing! Nothing! I can fudge it all I want, the dictionary still knows what kanji I mean. My first actual use of the gadget was today, when I was reading a text message from my host mother and didn't know some of the kanji.
Random discoveries. Yousuke has cram school fairly frequently. Apparently Mio used to have cram school every day for about five hours per. Kids apparently start going when they're three (yes, three!) years old. I'm quite glad I didn't have to do anything like that. Also, okaa-san apparently has a class on ikebana today.
Oh, and there's a strong typhoon coming tomorrow; my first ever. They haven't cancelled classes yet. This ought to be fun.
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