New classmates

We had class with new classmates this past week. The two new Chinese exchange students were in our class. They seem to be really nice people. In class we introduced ourselves and taught the rest of the class how to introduce yourself in our native tongue. Introducing yourself in Chinese is pretty hard! The language is hard enough with all the tones and such, but introducing yourself is so long it's hard to remember. It took a while for me to be able to introduce myself in Chinese but I forgot how to say it almost immediately afterwards. It was a fun experience though.

New Semester

The new semester finally started this week! Although it started at the end of the week and thus I only went to one class. The semester has started nonetheless! I spent a good deal of the break studying kanji and my teacher seemed really happy about that, because she wants to start on a new kanji textbook this semester. Lucky for me I studied so much during the break that I learned all the kanji in the current book already so I think I'll be ready for the new book. This semester we have classes every day. That wouldn't be a problem, but we all worked every Friday cuz we did not have class that day. However now we have class on Friday and have to run to the tram stop as soon as class is over to make it to work just in time. And I mean seriously run, so that's kind of a bummer. I asked the school if they could change the time of our Friday class and they refused, so there isn't really anything we can do about it I guess. Time to cut back on meals again!

April Fools' Day

I've been pretty sick for the past few weeks and forgot about the blog, so I will input multiple entries to make up for the weeks I had missed. On April Fools' Day I had work and so I decided to talk to my class about April Fools' Day. The holiday is not really celebrated at all in Japan according to my students. Japanese people take everything in a serious manner and don't really like to pull pranks on people. I mentioned senior pranks since we were talking about pranks and they were surprised at the fact that something like that even existed. They told me they definitely don't do senior pranks. I guess that's just another culture difference. Japanese have a different sense of humor so if you're a prankster beware! Your pranks may not be seen as enjoyable here.

Home Stay

The other exchange students and I were lucky enough to be able to do a really short home stay, thanks to one of our teachers asking her friend if she'd be willing to take us in for a few days to get a taste of Japanese life. I had hoped to learn a lot, but sadly I got some really bad food posioning the first day I got there and so I spent pretty much my entire stay throwing up or sleeping. This home stay did remind me of a couple of important things that I probably should mention though.

In class, we learn that byouin (病院）means hospital and that kaze (風邪) means a cold. These definitions aren't necessarily wrong, but they do need some clarifying. Byouin means everything from clinic to a regular doctor ER. Therefore, when someone ask if you need to go to the byouin for your acne, they're probably asking if you wanna go to a dermatologist. Also, kaze seems to be sickness in general. I was constantly throwing up, constantly going to the bathroom and had a fever. However, everyone kept calling it a cold. So yeah. Don't let these things confuse you!

Graduation

Today was our school's graduation. The graduations here are WAY different than from back at home. Everyone was dressed in suits and all serious. No one said a single word. The graduating students went up 1 by 1 emotionless like robots and the background music was a pianist playing really depressing songs like Moonlight Sonata. I swear I felt like I was at a funeral. Afterwards though everyone went to another room and there was a sort of party with food and everyone talked and took pictures and stuff so that was pretty cool. But yeah, culture shock.

Best Job

I have to say, the English teaching job that the school hooked us up with is a really, really good job. It doesn't pay much per say ($20/hour, but only work around 2 hours a week) but the students that we have a great! I think I'm actually closer with our students as opposed to the Hakodate University students. They take us out quite often. We've gone to dinner, karaoke, for coffee and even had a New Years party! They are the nicest people that I have met since I came here to Japan. This job gives me everything I need. I hope that next year's students get along with the English students as well as we do now!

Performance

Sorry for the late blog! I've been busy with work and trying to catch up in my Japanese studies and such. I told my professor before the break started that I would be able to learn all the kanji in the book that she gave us before school started up again and that's proving to be a bit more challenging than I thought. Anyway, another one of the exchange students and I were fortunate enough to perform onstage with a band for the music club's annual Bye Bye Live concert. It was really fun! We made a lot of friends. I've always loved how music can bring people together so smoothly. We had one of our friends record it but she accidentally ended the recording half way through. It was still fun nonetheless though! Sadly, most of the friends we made are seniors and thus will be graduating in a a few weeks. Time to make new friends again!