Not much has really been happening lately. I go to class, come home, take a nap, and then I read, write, study, or a combination of the three.

The creative juices have been flowing lately, which is very good. They’ve been brewing in my head since February, and they’re finally making their way out to my fingertips. It’s a nice feeling. I think in the next week or so, I’ll have some short stories written for my fantastic friends to enjoy.

Classes are starting to get a tad bit harder. I’ve finally gotten to the point where I’m learning vocabulary I didn’t learn in the states. The format of the class is the same as it was the first week - daily quizzes, dictation, so on and so forth. We watch dorky videos with extremely awkward actors in them. It’s quite fantastic, really. There’s always a guy named “Miller-san” in every Japanese/English textbook, and this Miller-san is extremely KY (in other words, AWKWARD!).

Today marks the start of Golden Week. Golden Week is a week of government holidays that all happen to fall one day after another. Today is… Nature day? It used to the Emperor’s birthday marked the start of Golden Week. Sunday is “Constitution Day” and May 5th is Children’s Day, also known as Boy’s Day.

All governmental business and such shut down for the week, and we get a week off from school. Thursday to next Wedesday, I think, is our little holiday. I plan on using this week to write and see several live shows. Two shows I know I can go to, the third… hm, it’s gonna be tricky.

I can’t remember if I’ve complained about this here or not, but Japan likes to use a lottery system for very popular shows. I signed up through a commonly used vendor, Lawson, but it turns out that they won’t tell you that there’s an error with your method of payment until AFTER the lottery completes and you are NOT picked. Thanks!

Luckily there’s a fantastic thing called ONLINE AUCTIONS, which is how I’m going to be getting my tickets from here on. =B

Here are a few random pictures for you.

Japanese keyboard, and some really bad Engrish! Pictures of FISH GALORE!!, and a few from a park.

Our particular group has three different teachers. Monday we have Oka-sensei, Tuesday and Friday we have Ozaki-sensei, and on Wednesdays and Thursdays we have Fukuda-sensei.

Monday started out with a tiny little lady who is probably in her late forties or early fifties. She has a perky personality. This first week was mostly full of review. Monday was spent going over simple things like “I will go to the hospital by train.” Etc. etc. We did simple exercises that were very engaging, and she actually made us THINK of our responses when she asked us questions. I’m not used to having to use my brain so much in Japanese class!

Tuesday we had Ozaki-sensei. She’s an adorable woman in her thirties, who brought pictures of celebrities including Ichiro, Brad Pitt, and to our dismay, Britney Spears. We went over the next section of chapter 5 that Oka-sensei did not cover. She asked us our birthdays, and told us what our zodiacs are called in Japanese. I very much enjoy Ozaki-sensei, as she is willing to teach us little bits of Japanese that aren’t included in the lessons. And she writes in Kanji.

Wednesday and Thursday we had Fukuda-sensei. She’s a strange woman who likes to follow the schedule without straying. She refused to write in Kanji, and overall her method is for students who may not have had Japanese as long as us. It was kind of frustrating, but in the end I think it’ll be good when we finally get to things that I may not already know.

Fukuda-sensei will be the woman who teaches us and tests us on Kanji. She also goes along with the book, like the other two teachers. We started on Chapter 5, and when the week was over, we were just getting into Chapter 7.

Our days consist of daily quizzes in different formats - whether it be in listening and dictation, things straight from the book, or tiny kanji quizzes. The sensei will ask us questions in which we need to respond about US personally. For example, “What are you doing this weekend?” Response: “This weekend I will go to Shinjuku by train.” Stuff like that.

We read from the book. We write on the board. We do assignments in class and have them checked the same day.

Everything is done IN Japanese. There has been no English whatsoever, past the teacher asking “(Something) in English is …” and we respond.

We use four books: a Lesson book, a grammar and vocabulary book, an exercise book, and a Kanji book.

Honestly, I LOVE these books. They’re engaging, they MAKE you think, and it’s a good way to learn. If I were to teach Japanese, these are the books I would use.

It’s only been the first week, and there have been only a few new vocabulary words that I have learned - things like “scissors” and “egg” - which I should have known long before this point, in my opinion. I’m not really going to use this first week to gauge how easy or hard the classes are going to be. Once I get about three weeks in, then I think I’ll be able to tell.

But as far as I’m concerned, this has been the best course of action I’ve taken in order to learn the language I fell in love with 10 years ago.

Sorry I haven’t written lately. I’ve been just lounging around mostly and have been too distracted to write.

Let’s see here…

Thursday we received our results for our placement test. Of course, ALL THE AMERICANS were placed into the lowest class - D class. We got our textbooks and was dismissed. Fun.

Friday, Chris, Asuka, another girl named Yuuka, and I went to see the Tokyo Tower. Here it is! Plus views from the observation deck.

In the bottom level of the observation deck, you could “look down!”

Stairs for GO UP! The second picture was taken at Roppangi Hills.

We walked around Roppangi for a little bit. The idea was to let time pass so we could see how awesome Tokyo is at night. Unfortunately, I had to go to a dorm party - which ended up being yummy and fun. Before I left for the party, we once again did PURIKURA!!

I made some new friends at the dorm welcome party, most of whom are also gaijin (foreigners). Several girls around me were Chinese, and another girl I made friends with is from Korea.

I won something at a bingo game (so did everyone in the dorm) that I have yet to redeem. I think it’s a sort of Febreeze-like thing. *shrug*

Saturday, I journeyed to Ikebukuro to see OLIVIA! She was having a mini-live at a place there, to promote some new game I think. She played 3 songs - one of which I knew, the other two are off her new single coming out TOMORROW (4/15). She has a fantastic singing voice, and she’s small and absolutely GORGEOUS in person.

Here’s a song she played that I really enjoy:

Sunday, I went to Kichijoji and bought a couple of bags. I spent the rest of the day lounging around.

Monday was the first day of class. We have three sensei (teachers). Monday was Oka-sensei. She’s this cute, tiny little lady that’s maybe in her late 40s. She refused to write any kanji on the board, which made us sad. But she was fun nonetheless.

Today we had Ozaki-sensei. She wrote on the board in kanji, and she taught us a few new works - some of the zodiac symbols, and other miscellaneous words. So far she’s my favorite.

Mostly what we’ve been doing in class is very much review, though I find myself highly intimidated because of my lack of speaking and listening skills. Seriously, it’s embarrassing to go through two years of Japanese and NOT have these VERY IMPORTANT skills. WTF.

And Dad, as for the boyfriend question, the answer is no. Kevin and I are going to stick with each other for a while.

P.S. I’ve been putting pictures HERE when I get some interesting ones. Maybe eventually one day I’ll put them up on FLICKR too.

For your viewing pleasure:

Also, pictures:

Sakura tree at my school.

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Early Friday morning, me, Chris, Cindy, and two other American girls went to the bank bright and early to set up our bank accounts. During the our first orientation, we were given a slip of paper fill out to open the bank account. Well, we did it wrong, and all of us had to write it again. Then, out of the four of us, two of us (myself included) managed to do it right, while the other two had to do the entire form all over, AGAIN. After several tries, we finally managed to submit our paperwork, but by time that was done, we had to rush out of there to make it to our placement test.

All the Bekka students were placed into a room. Before the instructors handed out the test, they said (in Japanese of course) if you don’t know ANY Japanese, just write your name on the paper and turn it in. Haha.

We were given the test, which was EXACTLY the same as the placement test we were forced to take back in November. I discovered I didn’t know anything more this time than I did last time. How sad.

After the written portion, we had to go upstairs to do an interview. The interview wasn’t so bad – we were shown some pictures and asked what they were. “What is this?” Asked in Japanese. “Describe it” (I’m guessing?). “Where is this?” “What is the date?” so on and so forth.

I stumbled through it, getting some right without ease, and struggling with others. I felt embarrassed, having taken 2 years of Japanese and not even being able to say the word “short” (as opposed to long).

After we were done, we took a little break before heading back to the bank. Evidently my name was too long for my check book, so I had to provide a nickname. Haha. Once that was done, we went over to Softbank to look at cellphones.

I picked out two phones I liked, and of course they both were the most expensive phones – one costing just over $900. NO JOKE. Feeling extremely turned off by how expensive the phones were, we told them we had to think about it, then promptly went over to Docomo.

None of their phones got even close to being $900. Hell, I picked out one of their most expensive phones, and it wasn’t nearly as much as the one I wanted at Softbank.

It took about 3 hours to get everything together, because Cindy had to translate things for us. But everything was done, we have two year contracts that we’re going to break at the end of the year (maybe). Our phones are 3G, which means they should work anywhere in the world. I just really hope that when it comes time to go back to America, I can get my phone unlocked and use another cell phone company.

My phone [Link for Stats in Japanese]:

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In the morning, the Bekka class (Intensive Japanese Class) had an orientation going over different rules for the school. A wonderful girl named Cindy was there to translate for us. She wrote a lot of stuff down (in broken English). I decided that one of the things I am going to do is to create an English translation for the rules once I get good enough at the language. I’ll post some of the more important rules to know later on.

We spent about 3 hours going over the rules, had an hour break for lunch, then came back to talk about some miscellaneous programs that the city offers to the university students. That lasted about an hour, then we were dismissed.

Following the orientation, we had an hour break before we had to meet up by the train station to go to city hall. Nakamura-san took us to city hall by bus, in which I took these couple of pictures (click for larger size):

The last picture on the right is city hall.

Our “tour” of city hall included sitting in two waiting areas - one for national health insurance, the other for the alien registration. Once we were done, we hopped back on the bus and went back to the station.

Chris, Chloe and I were looking to eat some udon. We asked Nakamura-san where a good one was at, and he took us there. The best part about it was, he actually sat down and ate with us. I had this delicious pork (I think?), egg, and rice meal:

Holy dear lord, it was DELICIOUS.

He gave us a pretty huge tip about something really awesome in the area (to be revealed at a later date).

I’m hella tired, so I’ll catch up on Friday, Saturday and Sunday tomorrow.

Not much happened today. At 12:15, there was a special ceremony for all the Bekka (Intensive Japanese course) students. We got to meet the people who are teaching the different level of classes. After that, we went to the gym where everyone in the school got to listen to the president talk. We were also introduced to several people. Because I know barely any Japanese, I don’t know who those people are. Haha. Afterward, we got our student IDs for the school (amg my picture is so bad). NOTE TO FUTURE STUDENTS: The pictures you send to the school for Certificate of Eligibility is also the picture that is used for your student ID!! Make sure it’s a good picture!!

Today was also a “wear your fancy suit day,” thus another wardrobe repeat for me. Luckily no pictures were taken. Well, relatively speaking. I guess during the ceremony, we had to stand up and sing the “fight song” (??) of the school, and the camera was pointed right on us, the gaijin (foreigners). Go figure…

After we were done, Chris and I went over to Donki Hote, where I found a bottle of Kahlua for $14.80. Yayayayay! So tonight I got to enjoy some yummy spirits.

It rained today, which totally sucked. But there was a brief flash of lightning and thunder, which made me very very happy. I love thunderstorms, and the northwest does not receive ANY.

After we went miscellaneous shopping, Chris and I went to a cool little restaurant called Yoshinoya, where I enjoyed this delicious meal:

I think it was… chicken? I have no idea. It was tasty though. Haha.

I took video of my walk to Donki Hote. Once I get some more video, I’ll be sure to post it on here for all to see.

That’s all for now. Tomorrow we get to visit city hall and hopefully get our cellphones.