More pictures!

Here's a link to an album I'll continually be updating! Keep an eye out for new uploads :)

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2075126&id=1053060217&l=822b093ec7

It's been a while!

Hi everybody! I'm so sorry I haven't posted much lately but...I have a treat for you!

Pictures! Lots of them!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2065375&id=1053060217&l=7fa344a129

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2072652&id=1053060217&l=34c631f0d6

Enjoy! :)

School/WIC

Lately I've been pretty busy with school and Waseda International Club. I have classes Monday - Saturday with 9 hours of Japanese classes per week.

Monday: Japanese 9:00 - 12:10
Tuesday: History 1:00 - 2:30
Wednesday: Japanese 9:00 - 12:10
Thursday: History 1:00 - 2:30; Japanese 2:40 - 4:10
Friday: Religions of East Asia 1:00 - 2:30; Selected Topics in Comp. Lit. 2:40 - 5:50
Saturday: Japanese 10:40 - 12:10

I get the most work from my Japanese classes, but I do have a lot of history reading and comp. lit. reading.

WIC (waseda international club) came to pick us up from the airport and showed us around for the first few weeks we were here, and now I'm getting more involved in the club. We're participating in this event called Yatai Mura where we split into 4 teams, North America, South America, Europe, and Asia, and sell food from each of those areas. It's a friendly competition and part of a bigger festival at Waseda University. We've been painting the sign boards for our booth (I'm part of Europe team) and our theme is Gentlemen in Waseda (or rather Gentle Man in Waseda as it's written on the signboard haha). We still haven't figured out what we're going to sell at the festival though.

So that's what I've been up to lately! It's been a busy past week and a half!

久しぶり！

I'm sorry I haven't updated in a while. School started yesterday and before that we went on several day trips.

School here is interesting. The day is broken up into 1.5 hour periods and all of the classes are either one or two meetings per week (1 meeting = 2 units). I'm currently enrolled in 18 units but I'm going to drop one class. I translation studies today and it was during 5th period (4:30-6:00PM) but the teacher didn't speak english very well. Considering it's an english to japanese translation class, a firm grip on the english language is necessary. One of the sentences we had to translate on the worksheet was "Tell her I'm not home to anyone"...uh what?

I might be able to find another class to replace that one but even if I don't I'll still meet the unit requirement.

One other thing that surprised me was that Saturday class is not uncommon here. People try to avoid taking it, but it's far more common than in American universities.

Also, our add/drop period is 1.5 days long rather than a few weeks...and add/drop periods are rare in Japanese universities. As a regular student (as opposed to a study abroad student) if you want to drop a class you just stop going to it. An F grade does not show up on your transcript. It's as if you never took the course. Unfortunately, since I'm a study abroad student, the F's still count for me, so I actually have to drop the class.

Tomorrow I have class from 1st period (9:00AM) so I need to get to bed (it's 12:15AM here...).

I'll post pictures and stories about the day trips soon!

Host family's hosue

Here's a link to pictures of my host family's house.

Enjoy :)

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2065378&id=1053060217&l=c0b7513dc6

First day of orientation

Wow, today was a long day. I had my first day of orientation and we covered a lot of stuff. I also had my interview for a host family so I hope i get a good host family that likes me! I've made a few good Japanese friends and I'm surprised at how comfortable I am speaking with Japanese folks. Although conjugating the verbs often screws me up. Waseda is a beautiful campus. There are many trees and old buildings. The main campus is almost 150 years old.

We went to an Izakaya with the group tonight which is a Japanese style pub. There were about 8 dishes that came out (way too much food) and a Japanese phenomenon called 飲み放題 (nomi houdai) which translates to all you can drink.

After dinner I went over to the mall across the street from the hotel and bought a hand towel. There are usually no paper towels or hand dryers in Japanese bathrooms, so you have to carry your own hand towel with you.

I'm supremely tired right now so I'm going to cut this entry short and go to bed!

First night in japan!

I made it to Japan okay! When I arrived at the airport the group was there to pick us up. It took about an hour and a half to drive into Tokyo from the airport. It's kind of reminiscent of Sacramento Intl because the airport is quite a ways out of town, so far it's not even in Tokyo! We went to a pizza restaurant called Shakey's for dinner and there was pepperoni pizza, corn and tuna pizza, and seaweed and chicken pizza. After dinner we went out exploring (for some reason I wasn't tired at all haha) and ended up at a dungeon/haunted house themed bar (the legal age is 20 in Japan) where all the dishware was chemistry lab ware (beakers, round bottom flasks) and the tables were in jail cells. It was pretty crazy! All of the wait staff was dressed in black and white striped jump suits too!

I went to bed at 11PM and now I'm awake at 6 AM haha. Jetlag isn't fun.

皆さん！ありがとうございました！

皆さん、さようならパーティーに来てくれてありがとう！本当に楽しかった！お金もあげてありがとう！本当に助かる。来年、一生懸命頑張る！

Thank you everyone for coming to my Sayounara Party! It was really fun. Thank you for all the money as well. It will be very helpful. Next year, I'll try my hardest!

もうすぐ日本に行く！

１６日に出発する！チョー緊張してるけど絶対行きたい。このブログに日本の日常生活について書いて写真も撮ってアプロードする。じゃ、宜しくお願いします！

16 days until I leave! I'm super nervous but I really want to go already. I'll be using this blog to talk about my daily life in Japan and upload pictures that I take! Stay tuned for more!