Placement Test Result

I'm in level 3!  

That's a big relief, because Leeds uni expects us to be in that level at the start of the year, so that we progress enough to deal with Leeds' end of year exam here (yes, we still have to take the Leeds exam in Japan!), and then the workload next year back in the UK.  Because my Japanese has become a bit rusty over the summer, I was worried that I'd end up in level 2, and not be good enough next year!  But as it turns out, I need not worry any more!

The Japanese language course here consists of levels 1-6 and you can take one unit of standard Japanese per term, plus another module or two, or intensive Japanese, where you just take the Japanese course but have more contact hours.  For example, if you started the year with no knowledge of Japanese, you could do the intensive course and cover levels 1-2 in the autumn term, 3-4 in the spring term and then 5-6 in the summer term.  I plan to do level 3 this term, plus another module, level 4 next term with another module, and then take intensive Japanese levels 5 and 6 in the summer term.  

Now I just need to decide which other module to take!  I think I'll do one tought in English this term, then next term, when my Japanese is better, take one tought in Japanese.  

But yes, I'm relieved!  Tomorrow I officially register for my classes, and then they start on Thursday; excited!

James

ICU Japanese Language Placement Test

Today I had the placement test at ICU, the results of which decide which level of Japanese class I'll be put in for the term.  On our timetable for the week, it was due to be from 9:00 until 12:30, which I was absolutely horrified at the thought of!  But it turned out to be from 9:10 until about 11:40, with 10 minute breaks in between the sections, which I was okay with.

The first and longest part was the comprehension, where you had to decide on an appropriate response, choose a particle to fit a sentence, and all that sort of thing.  The second part was reading, writing and vocabulary, and the last part was the aural, or listening.  The entire test was multiple choice (quite how a writing test can be multiple choice, I don't know).  

As it was a placement test, many of the questions were more difficult than I would be expected to be able to do, so I wasn't too worried when I couldn't do half of them!  As it was multiple choice, it was tempting to guess some of the answers I didn't know, but that wouldn't have been a good idea as, if I had by chance got a lot of guessed ones right, I would have likely been put in a level that was too high for me and struggled.  For the first two parts, I could answer a good deal of questions, which I was happy about, but the listening bit was absolutely hellish.  Let's hope I did well enough in the other parts to compensate!  We'll find out which classes we've been put in tomorrow.

After the test it was lunch time, and Charlie and I cycled to a nearby ramen restaurant and ate there.  Then, when we were outside a konbini (convenience store), Charlie found the contents of someone's wallet, including some credit cards, their ID card, and the like.  He took it to the adjacent police box, where after 15 minutes of form filling he came out and told me that he'd been offered 6,000 yen (£48) as a reward for finding it, but had refused.  I bet he regrets that one!

In the afternoon we had some talks about course registration, and an introduction to the IT facilities, before I came back home and fell asleep by accident!  I've done that a few times since I got to Japan.  I'll just be lying on my bed, waiting for a video to load on the internet or something, and the next thing I know, I'm waking up an hour later.  I guess it's these busy days where I'm experiencing a lot; they just tire me out!

Tomorrow we have some more introductory talks, before finding out which level of Japanese class we've been put in; I'm looking forward!

James

My Visa has Arrived!

My visa has arrived!  It came yesterday morning via special delivery, and as I slept blissfully unaware, mum was chasing the postman down the street to try and stop him from walking away with my passport after nobody heard the door go.  The dog ran away too, but that’s irrelevant.

One strange thing about my visa is that it says it’s valid for 15 months, from 3^rd August 2011, until 3^rd August 2012.  I don’t know about you, but I see that as being 12 months, not 15.  Perhaps someone could fill me in on what I’m missing there?

Anyhow the important fact is that I can now enter Japan!  I have my ticket, I have my visa, so I could go now if I wanted to!  Although obviously I have plenty of stuff I still need to do here first!  Eeks I go in less than 3 weeks!  I need to finish my Takase scholarship application (which Morimoto-sensei has translated for me), buy a new suitcase, and pack everything!  Plus there lots of little things I still need to get, but that’s a bit boring to talk about.

Talking of suitcases though, does anyone know whereabouts I can get decent quality ones around Leeds?  I need a nice, big one, but it needs to be as light as possible as I only have a 23kg baggage allowance with Etihad.  I had a look around Otley and Guiseley yesterday, but the bags all felt a bit flimsy, and I need a sturdy one!

I think that’s all to talk about for today!  From tomorrow I’m going to be doing a lot more Japanese revision!  At ICU there’s a placement test at the start of September, and your performance in that dictates which level of Japanese you go into.  Apparently Leeds students generally go into level 3, and I’d be happy with that!  There are 6 levels, and if I don’t do well enough it’s possible that I’d go into level 1 and learn Japanese from scratch again!  But obviously that’s very unlikely indeed!

James

Financial Situation & Takase Scholarship

Today I write to you about the one thing which stops people from enjoying themselves in life, albeit in a rather paradoxical way; money.  The problem is that I don’t have very much of it, which is quite a concern when I’m living in Tokyo.  My money situation for my year abroad is as follows;

The (repayable!) student loan I’ll get is £4244, which at current exchange rates just covers the various things associated with my accommodation; the deposit, monthly rent, utilities, and bedding rental.  After paying for all that with my student loan, I’ll have £26 left over.  Not good when you consider that the transfer from the airport to the guesthouse on the first day costs £25.

Besides my student loan, I have about £2000 of my own, in savings and left over wages from Rhythm & Booze, and that’s it!  I’m there for 10 months, so I somehow doubt that £50/week will be enough to survive off. Other than the basic every day survival-type things, there are of course all the other things I need to shell out for when I first get there, such as the compulsory Japanese National Heath Insurance (国民健康保険, or kokumin kenkou hoken), Certificates of Registration, a bicycle, and all that sort of thing. 

Well, the solution is obvious, you may be thinking; get a job!  But it is not so simple!  To work in Japan on a student visa you need a work permit.  As it’s in conjunction with said student visa, you have to go through the university to apply for it.  But the catch is that my university won’t let you apply for one for a few months, to let you ‘settle in’ and to stop you from becoming too overwhelmed by the amount of things you take on. All I want is a few hours a week doing some English conversation!  Apparently you can earn about £20 an hour just chatting in English!  Obviously I’d put preparation in, but it does sound like a quite a good deal.  Oh, and apparently British English is the new cool thing to learn in Japan, not the American English that everyone was brought up with…I’m not going to complain about that!  I guess I'll just have to wait and see how the whole thing plays out.

But there is still one other avenue to explore!  I got an email a week or so ago telling me that ICU had nominated me for a scholarship from the Takase Scholarship Foundation.  They only award it to 20 people each year, but those who get it receive ¥100,000 (£770) every month from October until June!  Obviously this would be an unimaginable help, so I really, really hope I get it.  I’ve written the required 500-word essay for it, which I’ve sent to one of my Japanese tutors to translate, and now all I need to do is fill in the associated forms.  I’ll find out whether I’ve got the scholarship or not in late September or early October, and I’ll definitely dedicate a post to that result on here!

That’s all for now! Oh, and sorry for the lack of pictures in this blog, I hope you made it to the end without getting bored! 

James

Japanese Student Visa Application

I have applied for my Japanese visa!  It’s scary how I can tick off all these little things on my mental checklist before Japan, and each one brings me a bit closer to going.  Leave my job. Check. Apply for visa. Check.  Next on the list is to apply for my Takase Scholarship!  But anyway, I’m just a few lines in and already digressing, so let’s get back on topic; my visa application!

So to apply for a Japanese Student Visa, you will need the following;

·      A Visa Application Form (available online or at the embassy)

·      Certificate of Eligibility (authorised after passing the required modules at your home university, then issued directly by the Japanese government)

·      Letter of Acceptance from the Japanese university to which you applied

·      Photocopies of the Certificate of Eligibility and Letter of Acceptance

·      Passport

·      One Passport Photo

·      £43 (cash only)

Besides those I also took a pre-paid, self-addressed special delivery envelope so that they could post it back to me.  You can either go back to the embassy in person to pick it up, or do what I did if you live too far away from London to do that.  You get to the embassy, and after an airport-style security check (including showing them your passport) at the front door, you go through into a waiting area, and take a ticket with a number on it.  You wait for your number to come up on the screen, and then go to the specified counter where someone checks that everything’s in order and takes payment.  Very easy!  I applied on Tuesday, and it should all be processed by Friday, and sent out the same day, so I should receive it on Saturday morning! 

So I took the 9:45 train from Leeds to London Kings Cross, which arrived just before 12 o’clock.  In the station I then bought a day ticket for the zones 1 & 2 of the underground, before going a few stops on the Piccadilly line to Green Park.  From Green Park station it’s just a two-minute walk down to the Japanese Embassy.  From the front of the building hangs a big Japanese flag, which was quite useful considering I don’t know my way around London!  I could see the flag from the station!  I forgot to take a photo outside the embassy, so here’s one of Natasha Clancey there a few days ago ;) Oh, and yes, she really did wear a Hooters top to a serious government institution.

I happened to bump into Leeds students Amanda Brown and Paul Farquharson whilst I was in the embassy; I was wondering whether anyone I knew would happen to be there at the same time as me!

After all that I met up with Joe Holloway, who I’ve only seen a couple of times since we both left school (we both went to Bradford Grammar).  Despite some confusion as to which station we were meeting in, we eventually met up outside Charing Cross, near Trafalgar Square.  We walked up to Covent Garden for a spot of lunch, as Joe knew of a chain of restaurants called Fire & Stone.  Apparently it’s a southern chain, which specialises in pizzas with unusual toppings from around the world.  Have a look at the menu on their website here.  I had the ‘Lombok’ – seriously tasty!  And only £4.95 at lunchtime!  I'd never have thought hoi sin sauce would go with a pizza- but it did!  I guess it’s because there was no tomato sauce on the pizza base or something.  Joe had the ‘Marrakech’, which he clearly enjoyed;

After lunch we got the tube up to Camden.  The canal was, um, green.

Camden’s not as good as I remember if I’m honest :( I suppose it would still be good at night and not during the summer holidays, but it was just absolutely packed full of loud American tourists, bratty kids and tacky tat!  It had a few pretty bits still, however! It was about 28 degrees and humid by this time, and we were preeeetty toasty, so we decided to go and sit by the canal.

We then went to Cyberdog, which was interesting…I headed downstairs and was freaked out (those of you who know the place will sympathise, anyone else should look at their website).  Let’s just say, I got a chance to practice my Japanese reading with some of the products for sale downstairs.

After wondering round Camden for a bit, Joe had to go for an interview at Embankment, and I had to get back to Kings Cross, so after going to Covent Garden again for a while, we both walked our separate ways; Joe on to Embankment, and I walked back to Charing Cross to have another look at a statue of Oscar Wilde which had tickled me that morning.

After gradually getting hotter and hotter walking around London all day, it was nice to get back on the air conditioned train back to Leeds, which arrived (slightly late) back at 9:35. 

So there’s the story of my trip to London to get a visa!  Hopefully it was of some help if you are going to Japan and haven’t yet got your visa…it was a simple procedure, apart from having to get to the other end of the country that is!

In other news, I’ve done some more on the side bar of my blog; I’ve added links to the blogs of other people from the University of Leeds who will be in Japan at the same time as me, as well as the links of some good websites relating to my blog and Japan!  Oh, and have a look at the map I’ve got!  It’s been exiting (sad, I know) seeing how many people from all over the world have been visiting my blog!  Any flashing stars on the map are users viewing my blog at the moment.  Also, it’s now even easier to follow my blog (heh)!  I’d really appreciate it if you’d follow me, which you can do by clicking the ‘Join this site’ tab on the right side bar.  You can do it not only with a Blogger account, but with a standard Google one, as well as a few others.

That’s all for now, please stay tuned! 

James