Project 365 Update

For link, check the sidebar; I have just caught up with 2010 updates. Entries from here on will be current.

Composing Letters

Rant under the cut…
…

Home…?

“Taught” hula to 15 children around age 4 at a birthday party today. It was great. Babysit much?

I had a pretty crappy day. Bad yogurt gave me a stomachache that lasted the entire morning. Sleep deprivation is finally catching up. Took a nap before bed last night. Took a nap this afternoon. But… I was actually productive the last few hours.

Finally have my room pretty much in order. Had to move furniture again today to deal with the 2/3 prong electrical outlet problem but everything is put away now at least. Notice I didn’t say “neatly”

Tomorrow, translation and library!

End of the Semester

If anyone has yet to hear my complaints about my really nice (biased and English-challenged) pre-modern teacher, I’ll spare you the rant for the time being. The same goes for the one about my RD who thinks I’m affecting the morale of the program and is horribly insensitive when it comes to personal issues. Ai-no-Ma on the other hand, was an amazing experience and the professor really reminded me of Takemoto-Sensei back at Whitman. I have no regrets regarding that class. I’m sure I got an A in Ai-no-Ma at least.

Japanese grades were… as good as can be expected I suppose. B+ overall in Japanese. My speaking is horrible but for similar reasons explaining why I fail at English. Miraculously I got a 95 on the final test that I didn’t study very well for. I really enjoyed my Japanese classes this semester and I feel that I made progress in the reading comprehension and kanji recognition areas at least. My teachers this semester were so fun; we went out with our ‘homeroom’ teacher on Wednesday. Had lunch at a Chinese buffet and then sang karaoke for an hour. I was sneaky and got some good videos especially the first one of Kanazawa-Sensei singing enka

Life has been tough lately and I haven’t been able to do as much as possible. My goal for this break and next semester is to study and practice very hard. My electives should be a good balance of fun and work, I’m taking a photography class and a architecture based class concerning the construction of housing in Japan. In addition the Japanese teachers are rotated at the semester and I’m looking forward to working with the two I have.

As for my lack of updates, I’m just going to go ahead and admit I’ve been lazy. Some of it can be attributed to not having internet at home. I’ll try to update like crazy over the next few days leading up until Christmas (when Doshisha closes for the year) and will go find a McDonalds (so I can have strawberry shortcake mcflurries XD ) or test out the internet cafes near my house. I need to find one that I can use Skype at and I don’t know how rare those are

If I’ve talked to you in the last few days, I really apologize for being a nuisance, but I really appreciate your patience and kindness towards me. I’m doing better, promise.

so little time, so much to say.

Life has been exhausting. Went on a weekend trip to Tokyo and have a lot of pictures to post since I haven’t updated in a long time.

School has been quite the source of stress but I got at least a little ahead during my break so even though I have to work on projects last minute, I won’t have too many other things to finish up by those times. Japanese classes are getting better and I think they’re much more enjoyable than my electives. I don’t think that my spoken Japanese is all that much better but I definitely recognize more Kanji than I used to.

I also need to look into finding a good internet cafe to go to during the winter break since Doshisha closes from Christmas through the end of the year. Spending the winter holiday in Kyoto; I helped my sister decorate the fake tree last night.

Just a note: In addition to making photo updates from time to time, I’m going to try and post translations of this book I just started reading. It’s not really a short story or a novel but it’s one of those manga with no pictures in story form. I’ll try to be more regular but no promises.