First Day of Lessons at ICU & Watching Shameless

So here I am, having just finished my homework after my first day of lessons at ICU!  The lessons were more fun than I had anticipated!  I had two Japanese lessons this morning, from 10:10 until 12:40 (with a ten-minute break at 11:20), as I have every day from Monday to Friday.

In the first lesson, everyone from level 3 Japanese was in the same classroom, where we each wrote a 作文 (sakubun, or creative-writing piece) on any topic we wished,  with a checklist of all the grammar we should have learned prior to level 3.  In the second lesson we split up into two groups, A and B, to do smaller group activity.  In group B, we did some self-introduction stuff, like 'I was born in X, grew up in Y,  Y is famous for Z, its climate is...', and learned some grammar on transitive and intransitive verbs.  

I'd covered all of this back at Leeds a few months ago, and I could understand everything the teachers said during the lessons, so I found it quite easy!  I might be speaking too soon, though, as it's bound to get harder!  But at the moment, it's all good revision.

I was all done at 12:40, so I went home, stopping off at my local konbini to buy some sushi for lunch.  This afternoon I watched the two latest episodes of Shameless online.  I was worried that I would miss out on a lot of new British programmes whilst in Japan, because BBC iPlayer, 4OD and the like are unavailable outside of the UK;  they don't even work through UK proxies.  But I found a way to watch all my favourite programmes through ahem, certain websites.  *Cough* Sockshare *Cough*.  A big thank you to the person who uploaded every episode of The Inbetweeners onto Youtube, as well!!

Tomorrow I have my two lessons of Japanese again, as well as English as an International Language, which is during the so-called "4th super-period", which is an hour and 45 minutes long and cuts into lunchtime.  

Tomorrow evening I'll be going with a few friends to a British pub in Kichijoji!  I was going to go on Wednesday, but everyone else ended up being too busy.  I'm looking forward to seeing Japan's take on our pubs!

James

ICU Course Registration

Today I cycled into university to register for the modules which I'll take this term.  Just before leaving the house this morning I got a call from Ayaka, an ICU student who was in Leeds last year on her year abroad, saying that she and her boyfriend Shunyo would be getting to the university to register for their courses at about the same time as me and that we should meet up.  I'm so glad we did!  The whole registration procedure seemed a bit pointlessly overcomplicated, but with their help I got there in the end!  I picked Japanese level 3, and then my other module was English as an International Language, which isn't, as some people thought, me taking the easy option of 'learning English'; that would be English as a Foreign Language.  Tsch.  It's more of a linguistic/anthropological course than just learning a language.

After registering on the campus computers for those courses, I had to print off a form to take to my advisor, who has the same role as a personal tutor, to approve of my selection and sign it, before taking the form to another room to make the whole thing official!  

By 12 o'clock we were all finished, so the three of us went off to an Italian restaurant nearby for lunch.  Shunyo had オムライス, or omrice, which is an omelette made with fried rice, whilst Ayaka had spaghetti and seafood bolognese, and I had a pizza.  It was delicious and really did taste authentically Italian!

Tomorrow I start my first day at ICU!  I have two periods of Japanese 3, from 10:10 until 12:40!

James

Skyping Home

If there's one thing I had to say made this trip much easier, it's Skype.  I feel really connected with my parents and Ayu, even at such a long distance.  I suppose I'm lucky to have this technology available; I really don't know what I would have done if I had come to Japan for a year twenty or even ten years ago!

After Skype conversations, which are generally happening at least once a day with Ayu, and quite often with Mum as well, I always feel really happy and upbeat, so I definitely recommend it to anyone who's abroad for a long time and is feeling a bit down or homesick; it really does put you right!  I was worried before coming to Japan that Skyping a lot would remind me of the things and people I'm missing, and make me really homesick, but it does the opposite.  It instead reminds me that the world really isn't a big place, and the people I care about are just a couple of clicks away.

It's also been nice to Skype with people from Leeds at other universities in Japan, so we can compare notes and stuff!  I'd like to be able to find more time to Skype other friends back in England, and once everything has settled down here I promise to make time!  So sorry to anyone who feels neglected or forgotten, I'm not neglecting you and I haven't forgotten about you!

James

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

Armageddon?

Yesterday morning I awoke thinking the world was ending.

Sirens similar to those used in London during World War Two to warn of impending German bombing raids filled the air, along with loud, fast instructions being called out in Japanese over loud speakers.  This was happening in at least two different locations near to me.  The only time I've heard these sirens being used in Japan was when I was watching footage of the March 11th earthquake and tsunami in the Tohoku region on the news.  Because of this, I was rather unnerved and worried.

After everything stopped suddenly and returned to normal, and I could see people strolling leisurely on the streets outside my window, I sat down on my bed, thoroughly confused.  I carried on with my day in a similarly perplexed mindset, and it wasn't until that evening whilst looking at this page on the BBC News website that I found out that September 1st is the national earthquake drill in Japan, where people practice the procedures in the event of an earthquake.

I suppose you could call this one of my first instances of 'culture shock'.

James

ICU Matriculation Ceremony

Today was the Matriculation, or Introduction Ceremony, for ICU.  We received an email last night saying that it might be cancelled because of an approaching typhoon heading towards Tokyo, but it turns out that it went south-west instead and hit the Kansai region (Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe, etc).  Even so, it was a rainy old time during my 15 minute bike ride to the campus (I still need to do a blog post about my new bicycle), so I was thoroughly wet through by the time I arrived.  

The ceremony itself was in the (un-air conditioned) university chapel, and ran from about 9 until 11.  We picked up our new student cards going in.  The picture on mine is terrible, but oh well.

We also received various information sheets and pamphlets, like when I started at the University of Leeds.  

The ceremony itself consisted of a variety of speeches about the university and its founding principles, a performance of ICU's anthem by the university choir , and a roll call of every new student there.  When our name was called, we had to stand up and shout "hai!".  At the end of the ceremony we were made to sign the student pledge, whereby we 'solumnly pledged' to abide by the International Declaration of Human Rights.  I thought that sort of thing was a given, but there you go.  

After the ceremony, we stood out on the lawn in front of the chapel for a commemorative photo.  The sun was in our eyes the whole time, so there will be some very interesting expressions indeed in that photo!  From there we went for a welcome lunch in the cafeteria, where we all chatted, and I met a few nice new people!  Towards the end we were told a little bit about the Japanese placement test, which will be held on Monday, in order to decide which level of Japanese class we get put into during the year.  I'll have to do lots of revision this weekend!

Predictably, whilst the sun and humidity had been out in force since I got off my bike after arriving at the university, making the whole ceremony uncomfortably hot, the rain greeted me as I went back towards my bike to go home. Sod's law.

James