Being that it has been two months since the Sannin landed in Japan, I thought it would be an appropriate time to update with actual words this time. Seems that the written blogs are ten times more popular than the podcasts, so I decided to do a post first and then possibly convince the other two to pull through a podcast as we go to dinner tonight. I guess we'll see.
I don't want to give too much of a detailed account of my feelings about Japan right now, but I will tell you this: yes, I'm stilling having a lot of fun; my feelings on class here overall isn't too much different from my feelings on class at UVA; I'm glad to be making Japanese friends; I believe my Japanese has improved, especially in the sense that I'm more confident in using it, which was a major goal of mine (but, how much has it improved overall? maybe me taking the necessary placement test when I get back home will tell us); and, my goals outside of Japanese are not being met (in-depth jazz research, wife, cooking, etc.). Let's not take note of the eggs before looking under the chicken, though... I've still got two months left : )
Today's post is going to begin with more food-related pictures. I don't know how much enjoyment you guys get out of seeing the differences in foods as compared to the US, but I REALLY like it. Especially McDonald's food. While my pictures are uploading onto webshots, I'll start with a food that we don't have in America that is simple, but proved troublesome for me the other night. That, my friends, is the SHAKA SHAKA Chicken (here's a link to the Japanese McDonald's Shaka Shaka website... go there now because I'm going to guide you through the Shaka Shaka). You'll notice the 100-yen graphic on the site. Yes, you get THIS instead of a double cheeseburger for a $1 here, folks (the only burger you can get for that much is a regular ol' hamburger, by the way). Go ahead and click the button in the bottom-right hand corner of the page, which roughly translates to "how to eat the Shaka Shaka Chicken". You can see the step by step process of how to work the magic of the Shaka Shaka (don't you love saying that!?). First, you sprinkle one of three powders into the bag with the chicken (choose from "Hot Chili", "Lemon Pepper", and "Cheese"), followed by a closing of the bag. Next is the step where I, and maybe most Americans, had/will have trouble. If you're like me, you'll take the bag and Shaka Shaka THE SHIT out of that chicken (pardon my language). Unfortunately, though, if you're like me, the chicken will BURST from its prison RIGHT on your pants, and so will all that Hot Chili powder. And I'm not talking about me not holding the top (which some of you probably would have guessed from past incidents)... I'm talking about the bottom of the bag ripping open and the chicken flying straight for my crotch. Luckily, the chicken still tasted good.
Next for the McDonald's experience we have the MEGA MAC, which is part of the promotion that also brought you the MEGA TERA burger pictured earlier. The MEGA MAC is pretty much Japan's answer to the Burger King Quad-Stacker (which is in America), and possibly Wendy's Baconator. I think with these burgers the goal is to stuff as much meat as possible in one sandwich without it getting too ridiculous at the current time. Hopefully, they'll move up to a Quin-Stack in due time. But anyway, the MEGA MAC is a burger that is an anomaly because it's the biggest Makku sandwhich that I've ever seen, yet it is NOT to be seen in the States. The set may have been between 700-800 yen, but I was hungry and HAD to eat one. This sucker is huge. It's basically a Big Mac with an extra two patties stuck in, making the count FOUR patties. To eat it I pretty much had to pull a Dagwood, or maybe even a Peter Fox. Regardless, it was hard to take a bite. Overall, it was good, but was no Quad-Stacker, particularly because I didn't feel like I had turned into a pile of beef afterwards like I did with the aforementioned.
The final McDonald's item for today is the new Cheese Katsu Burger, which isn't really even a burger at all, I guess. Instead, it's a slab of pork cutlet (katsudon) with cheese inside rounded out with some teriyaki sauce on top. What I really love about the burger is the logo, which I guess is a new breed of pig that has a cheese block for a center. Wicked. Take a gander at this photo, too. While it bad be a bad shot, you can definitely see the cheese innards of the newtype pig oozing out. It was pretty good, but not worth the high price that is on it.
A couple more food-related pictures, here is a gummy coke bottle that was not worth the 115-yen I paid in terms of taste, and here is the line for a seemingly out-of-the-way Krispy Kreme in Shinjuku. It's absolutely amazing that these people crave the KK so much that the line was SO long a worker came an started handing out free doughnuts to people in the crowd.
Pause. Nap time!
Hopefully by now you know that "Nap Time" means, "I passed out for hours so I won't be updating again today", but in case you didn't...... it does. And for my helpful hint of the day: don't even TRY the frozen crab stuff. I should have learned my lesson when I got the creamy crab balls... and in ways I did... but I made some frozen Chinese things that are usually filled with meat today, and to my dismay I failed to notice that the meat on the package was PINK, so the meat that I was so looking forward to just... just didn't exist. =(
Okay, so a lot of this post is going to have to do with the friends that I've made (FINALLY, right?). This first picture is of some of my friends from the baseball circle (left to right, Akira, Momo-chan, Hiroki, Asami, always-forgotten-name-girl, and me). These guys very kindly took me in as one of their own early on and they're some of the people I talk with the most. Mostly I'm referring to Akira and Hiroki, but I have friendly acquaintances with the other three (the least being, you guessed it, always-forgotten-name-girl... particularly because I'm embarrassed to not know her name).
The two guys are both members of the FLA (Foreign Language... uh... depArtment) and study English. Akira himself has lived in America before and understands everything I say, even my Englishified Japanese, which is pretty awesome, and Hiroki, while not fluent in like Akira, is pretty good at English, and kind of reminds me of myself in learning language in regards to the fact that my listening is more painful than my speaking. Hopefully if he's reading this he doesn't take offense to that, haha... I'm not sure how they think my Japanese is compared to their English (I did in fact give them the link to this site). Hiroki's a busy guy with two jobs (he's both a high school tutor and he works at a cafe as a waiter), and on an unrelated note his Japanese is hard for me to understand because his voice is very low and slurry. It may sound like my English sounds to you guys... you know... manly... unintelligible （笑）*. But on that note, I WAS complimented on being easy to understand by one of my friends who you'll see later, believe it or not. Akira just got a job at Subway, which I think is pretty funny, and is a really good guide for me while I'm here in terms of points like telling me why I wasn't getting much response for the karaoke from the senpai. His Japanese is just fast. And he doesn't correct mine because he understands English. I've already booed him for that one, haha. Oh, and, I'm not sure if I mentioned this in the podcast or not, but he's the one who went out with the senpais on the goukon (group date). They consider him to be a ladies man, and his attitude does come off that way. Maybe America got to him a little bit with being confident around girls, because he definitely doesn't come off as being innately Japanese in those respects. But, he does know how not to be TOO American, as he often tells me not to say certain things in Japanese in public, haha.
Here's another picture of the girls, same order as before. Momo-chan is pretty good at English and spent some time in South Africa. She has a funny way of saying "castle". Asami doesn't know hardly any English, but is very friendly. We frequently exchange casual words and greetings at practice (it's not usual that I get to do this, by the way, since everyone's always running around). She's often the one that throws me balls to hit into a batting net (I hope that means something to someone), and thus is the victim of worrying about being hit by my wild balls. Yes, even my batting practicing is wild. Occasionally I hit the ball either a) on the top of the bat so it flies over this building to where the golf team practices, or b) at some strange part of the net so that it bounces off somewhere. Not TOO often. But sometimes. Anyway, here's a story: One of the guys on the team, Narita (who taught me how to hold a baseball after gripping like it a softball for about a month), has (had?) a crush on her and the feeling wasn't reciprocated, so the senpai, thinking this was funny, gave Hiroki some money to sit between Narita and Asami at lunch one day and give her an ice cream sandwich. This is what the senpai do at Sophia instead of all that other crap they do in high school. Poor N-san! Poor Asami-chan!
Here's a random picture of a police squad car pulling someone over. I thought it was really funny because of how the light is boosted up. Looks like something out of Looney Tunes or something... I can imagine it shooting out of the hood about twenty feet in the air, waving around while the police are chasing down some criminal.
On that note, I'm going to stop my break and study more for my kanji midterm next week. I'll be here studying all night, which means frequent additions to this post, so check again around one your time and it may be complete!
*（笑） is the Japanese emoitcon for laughing, basing itself on the "wara" of the kanji "warau", meaning to laugh. Many use it when texting on their keitai. I may use it more often here.
Before I continue, I'm going to write a little about a baseball dinner that we had. The reason that we were dressed up in the above pictures was because, previous to going to the place where the picture was taken (a diner called Johnathan's, which seems like a pretty popular meeting place for students), we had returned to the place where I first had dinner with the baseball team to have a sort of "welcome party". At the place we had another nomihoudai/tabehoudai (remember, that's all-you-can-drink and all-you-can-eat), but this time we all had to give jikoshoukai (self introductions). The way this worked was, every time that someone answered a question or said something that related to you, you had to drink. To indicate what you were drinking for, everyone would chant a common word. Here's an example in English: "My name is Greg Weaver and right now I live in Warabi". Cue all people who live in Saitama Prefecture to stand up, kanpai ("cheers"), drink, and sit down.
There were some set questions, and then sometimes questions were asked. Common ones things mentioned were: where you lived, "seifukuban" (uniform number, and if the standees were designated by being either single-digit or double-digit), position (at the time I said "zenbu"/all since I didn't have one, but usually if someone said 1st base all of the infielders would stand up), "sukina senpai" (favorite senpai), "gakubu" (the school that you're in, and since my school was "Japanese" they chanted "gaijin!"/foreigners), favorite baseball team (one of the Japanese guys said an American team, so there was the gaijin chant again), and OF COURSE, the NUMBER ONE question that is asked by ALL circles: "sukina taipu", or, the type of girl you like. I think it's so hilarious when that question comes up. I even suggest to people to ask that question to others when trying to make friends because they just eat it up. I'm going to write a book:
"Making Japanese Friends: A Three Step Process" by Gregory Weaver
Step 1: Say hello first, because usually they don't. Be sure to state your name and them theirs in this step, too, in case you've never met a real person before.
Step 2: Ask them if they have a girlfriend/boyfriend.
Step 3: Ask them their sukina taipu.
BAM! You're in for life, baby. There may be a special footnote for guys that says: "say a sexually explicit word often", because if you do that they really think you're really funny. I like saying "mura mura" or "maguro gaaru". I suggest just using them before you know what they mean... not that I did.
Some other things that are worth noting from the dinner: The senpai asked Narita his sukina manger. In regards to fellow newcomer Dobashi (who, sadly, nobody likes because they think he's really boring and he's probably the only one who's worse than me on the team... when he's up to bat, the senpai in the outfield chant stuff like "you need to go do the bench press!". I feel really bad for him sometimes, and even invited him to the karaoke event regardless of advice against it... he told me he didn't sing karaoke, though), after EVERYTHING he said, the senpai just chanted "Dobashi!", so he had to drink after everything he said. The senpai often shouted this at random times throughout others' jikoshoukais as well. Lastly, someone reported that his sukina airport was "Narita". Muwahaha.
Now, onward and such.One weekend, Akira invited me to his place to eat "nabe". When I inquired about what nabe was, he said it translated to "steamboat" and that it was "Sumo's favorite food". Uhhhh, what? Whatever, told him it didn't make any sense and went along with it. When I got to the station that was near his house he greeted me with his friend Shou, who I had hung out with before when them and I went to a coffee shop after baseball practice one day. Shou is Hiroki and Akira's classmate who has an exceptional way of dressing. For example, he wears a cap with a lot of pins on it sometimes, and also, instead of having a chain hanging from his belt to his pocket on a wallet, he has some awesome rubber band (I think it was made of rubber bands) thing.
Akira cooked for us while we helped a bit, chatted, and watched TV. Akira lives by himself in a really, really small apartment. What you see in that picture is all of the kitchen he has, behind him is the bathroom, and I think you can see what the living/bedroom looks like in another picture. Here's the nabe, though. Pre-being cooked, of course... I don't eat meat that raw unless it's Manly March. Basically it was a huge stew of vegetables (including cabbage and mmmmm! kimchi! I had never had it before the nabe, and it was reallllly good) with some meat thrown in. We also had this stuff on the side, and, while the name escapes me, the pickle-y flavor of what I think was raw fish stuff does not. After devouring the food, Akira went to go get another of his friends while I did some dishes (yes, yes, that IS Akira's hair in the picture, but I was still doing dishes when he got back). That friend is Asato, who you can see added to the picture here (that's Hiroki passed out under the covers, in case you were concerned about what happened to him).
Asato is yet another one of the other guys' friends from the FLA. With them added in the equation, that makes four pretty dern good English speakers that I hang out with a lot. Asato's best characteristics is that he's hilarious and very eager to learn English. Just as an example, he texted me today: "'tell us how is the person like' <-- Are there any mistakes?" That may not seem very good, but when you take into account that he's been reading texts about Prohibition and the Dust Bowl with vocabulary words like "ruinous" (hey Dad, ask Mom to say that one), those mix-ups aren't too bad. Speaking of ruinous, I don't think I've ever used that word. It said that the farmers had "used ruinous farming techniques and overgrazing cattle", if I recall correctly. Ruinous? Really? You're going to say the farming techniques are... ruinous? COME ON. (- Job)
Due to the facts that I have to study more, I don't have much time to study tomorrow, and that it's 10:43pm, I'm going to call this post completed and will hopefully work on another one tomorrow between flashcard sets. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE don't look at the next pictures on the account of they're better with narrative (I'm looking at you, parents!).
... man, I didn't think I'd EVER here the word "Brewsky" in Japan, but someone in the hallway was just saying it. Shoot me.
Until next time...!
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Friday, May 23, 2008
Blogcast Episode 01 - "Senpai/Kouhai"
*Double Post on Thursday! Check out the Podcast in the post below as well!
So instead of an actual post I decided to do an audio blog (is "blogcast" coined? I'm sure it's coined...) instead. This way, I didn't have to type a bunch of stuff, and I didn't have to post anything without pictures. Hopefully this weekend I'll get my tons of pictures from the past few weeks up for you to look at... a lot has gone on that I haven't blogged about!
Anyway, this is unlike the usual Sannin Podcasts because it's just my feelings on a subject. This evening I decided to record a little bit on the Senpai/Kouhai relationship in Japan, and although I know there to be a lot of evil deeds within such relationships here, I mostly talk about my experience with it and why I think the foundations are terrible when it comes to people like myself.
This blogcast is dedicated to my brother Bobby who turned 28 today! Happy birthday!!!
"Senpai/Kouhai"
Until next time...!
So instead of an actual post I decided to do an audio blog (is "blogcast" coined? I'm sure it's coined...) instead. This way, I didn't have to type a bunch of stuff, and I didn't have to post anything without pictures. Hopefully this weekend I'll get my tons of pictures from the past few weeks up for you to look at... a lot has gone on that I haven't blogged about!
Anyway, this is unlike the usual Sannin Podcasts because it's just my feelings on a subject. This evening I decided to record a little bit on the Senpai/Kouhai relationship in Japan, and although I know there to be a lot of evil deeds within such relationships here, I mostly talk about my experience with it and why I think the foundations are terrible when it comes to people like myself.
This blogcast is dedicated to my brother Bobby who turned 28 today! Happy birthday!!!
"Senpai/Kouhai"
Until next time...!
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Sannin Podcast Episode ??? - "150"
Hey everyone! Jen and I recorded a new podcast today... one that is unlike our old podcasts because it actually deals with things that we haven't talked about in our previous blog entries. This episode deals mainly with my attitude towards Nishikawaguchi, the city that we get off the train at and have to walk through to get to our actual city Warabi. Also, I would like to dedicate this podcast to Mike Ordonez. I'm not sure if you listen to the podcasts or not, but you ARE the only OYFA member that I know that for sure reads my blog (heck, I can't even be sure that my big sib reads it)! Here's to you, Mike!!!
"150"
Enjoy!
*In case you can't tell, there IS a link... click the "150".
"150"
Enjoy!
*In case you can't tell, there IS a link... click the "150".
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Two Months!? Yeabuhwhat???
*Note: In case you haven't checked since yesterday, there IS a new post below this one.
I was on the train this morning and I think it was Jen who mentioned the fact that we have been here for almost two months. One week and four days from now I will have in fact been here for that amount of times, which means that I have less than nine weeks left in Japan. Now, maybe in grade school that would seem like a long time since our report cards came out in quarters of that size, but it really got me to thinking on the way to school today: what that I set out to accomplish here have I actually accomplished, what can I still do, and just, man... it took me two months to get settled and I'm still trying to make better friends with the Japanese that I know now.
As for the latter part, which affects me the most at the moment, I've just gotten to the point where I feel that I can ask some of my Japanese friends out to karaoke or something and not feel so awkward. Unfortunately, I haven't gotten to any point where hanging out with one Japanese person who didn't speak English would feel comfortable for the whole time that we would be out, but that's not so bad since I only really want to hang out in groups. I can't afford the time to just hang out with one guy from the baseball team for hours because I really would like to get to know a handful of them better rather than just one (this is in a manner of speaking: I wouldn't just call one, but if one called me to hang out one on one, that'd be cool), and this goes for the people in the jazz club, too. I'll post about this later, but I met some really cool people in the jazz club this weekend, and it would be a shame if I only got to hang out with them at the jazz functions. I waited a while to even engage in conversation with most in that circle because I was waiting for the gasshuku (training camp) to start to know the kids. That was truly an opportune time to do so, but at the same time that happened just this past weekend, and the clock's still ticking.
I think I'm going to write a list of goals I have to accomplish before I leave and put them somewhere in my room so that I can see them every day. I really, really have to start planning out my weeks and have to start getting my work done early so that I can do things weeknights and whatnot. Wish me luck...!
Oh, and, I also haven't found a wife yet. Haha. So you ladies reading this back home can take a sigh of relief ; )
Later!
I was on the train this morning and I think it was Jen who mentioned the fact that we have been here for almost two months. One week and four days from now I will have in fact been here for that amount of times, which means that I have less than nine weeks left in Japan. Now, maybe in grade school that would seem like a long time since our report cards came out in quarters of that size, but it really got me to thinking on the way to school today: what that I set out to accomplish here have I actually accomplished, what can I still do, and just, man... it took me two months to get settled and I'm still trying to make better friends with the Japanese that I know now.
As for the latter part, which affects me the most at the moment, I've just gotten to the point where I feel that I can ask some of my Japanese friends out to karaoke or something and not feel so awkward. Unfortunately, I haven't gotten to any point where hanging out with one Japanese person who didn't speak English would feel comfortable for the whole time that we would be out, but that's not so bad since I only really want to hang out in groups. I can't afford the time to just hang out with one guy from the baseball team for hours because I really would like to get to know a handful of them better rather than just one (this is in a manner of speaking: I wouldn't just call one, but if one called me to hang out one on one, that'd be cool), and this goes for the people in the jazz club, too. I'll post about this later, but I met some really cool people in the jazz club this weekend, and it would be a shame if I only got to hang out with them at the jazz functions. I waited a while to even engage in conversation with most in that circle because I was waiting for the gasshuku (training camp) to start to know the kids. That was truly an opportune time to do so, but at the same time that happened just this past weekend, and the clock's still ticking.
I think I'm going to write a list of goals I have to accomplish before I leave and put them somewhere in my room so that I can see them every day. I really, really have to start planning out my weeks and have to start getting my work done early so that I can do things weeknights and whatnot. Wish me luck...!
Oh, and, I also haven't found a wife yet. Haha. So you ladies reading this back home can take a sigh of relief ; )
Later!
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
And now, back to class...
So the point was, the schedule gets confusing sometimes. That's not really such a big deal. We do have different teachers almost every day, though, which is odd. Here's a rundown of the teachers:
- Hino-sensei: She's first because I can't stand her. How many days in a row are we going to learn how to ask our teacher if they can do a favor for us??? Dan says: the whole semester. Unfortunately, the girl that sits next to me doesn't get what she's saying most of the time, so when I black out and wake up when I have to talk to her she's just as clueless as me.
- Kobayashi-sensei: The second strongest emotions go to Kobayashi-sensei, who is just freakin' rad. He's a guy in his early 30s, I think, and is really hilarious every day. Our class likes him so much that we took him out to karaoke the other week (pictures and videos are on others' cameras because mine ran out of juice), and to give you an idea of how awesome he is, his first song was "Wild Wild Life" by The Talking Heads. Yeah!!! I used to call him Yoshinoya-sensei because it was the closest thing that I could associate his name with when I didn't really know it... which I'd say is a compliment.
- Noguchi-sensei: My friend German friend Jonas calls him "No-good-chi Sensei" because he speaks Japanese in class until he gets to a simple word and says it in English. Sometimes, he says other words in English, too, but usually it's like, "newgrammarnewgrammar FOOD oldgrammaroldgrammar". But he's pretty hilarious, so I don't mind his oddly-timed English. Last week he showed us this Japanese sci-fi short in class, and supposedly he talked about cremating kids in Natalie's class as an example of picking up fresh bones with chopsticks. He probably said chopsticks in English.
- Silver-haired-sensei: Yeah, I still don't know her name. She's really nice and effective, though. That's about it. I rode the elevator with her yesterday and we talked about how she was in an orchestra, which is cool.
- Remi-sensei: That's her first name, and the only reason I know it is because of X-Men. Her last name is something-yama, but the first day she explained to us that her name was really weird. She's the kanji teacher, which means her class is inherently boring because it consists mostly of us saying words and watching her write words that are in a book we have. It's hard to explain, but if that sounds boring to you, I've done my job. Today was a lot different because we got a new book, but we'll see. She speaks really fast, and since her class is really boring, it's REALLY hard to pay attention. Especially when most of it isn't really important sounding.
That's the rundown of them. As for my performance, I'm on par with a lot of people, I think... and that may the first time since Japanese 102, haha... and as for learning, well... it's a little difficult. I don't know what I covered before, but it's really hard to make a lot of the new stuff concrete. We speed through the grammar with relatively easy sentences and have our quizzes and tests on vocabulary, but we're never really prompted by the teachers to use this new stuff in class. In fact, I think I've barely used new grammar in non-grammar classes because it's not something that's naturally coming to me. The thing is, it takes usage for the ideas of these new grammar structures to actually be realized in everyday speech. It's not that I don't know the grammar or that I don't need to use it, but because I have minimal practice with it, it's like I don't even have the option of doing so... that's how it works for me, at least. Same goes for the vocab--I feel like most of it is learn-and-dump, much like it was last semester in Japanese 310 where I learned a billion kanji compounds and dumped them after quizzes and tests because they weren't relevant and we weren't learning them in an effective system. But that's another story, I guess. The most I've learned vocabulary-wise is from hanging out with Japanese people, and usually the vocabulary is vernacular.
Speaking of speaking, I think the course is actually designed so that we don't focus a lot on speaking because they expect us to be doing that outside of class with actual Japanese people. There are two problems with this: 1) again, we aren't prompted to use the new grammar and vocabulary, and 2) we learn how to speak in everyday Japan rather than classroom Japan. The latter fact is actually not really a problem in general, but just a problem for the class. I REALLY love speaking everyday Japanese and learning everyday Japanese. There's so much more gratification in that than speaking BS in class. I don't know how it is for others, but in my case, I can't usually understand the kids my age well because of their really fast, really vernacular-tempered tongues, not just because of vocabulary alone, because I think that they're using a lot stuff I know in just different ways. I've gotten use to a bunch of these, and have learned a lot of popular words among kids my age, which got me thinking about how awesome a class on everyday Japanese would be... learning modern slang and grammatical deformities of the times. We learn a few, but they're few and far between, and when you're in class using the words you don't have a tendency to use the slang because you're in a classroom.
Oh hey, I just got my pictures from Jen, so I'm going to take a break, get them uploaded, and finish up my homework. I'm trying to go to bed early tonight, so maybe I won't return this evening, but I hope to talk about a topic that Julie keeps reminding me of: the friends that I've made!
On that note, I'll leave you with a video of a song that is wildly popular all around Japan. It's by a 25-or-so-year-old group called the Southern Allstars (no hyphen). I know you won't understand the song... I mean, I don't totally... but you'll get some idea by the title... and you'll understand me when I say that I thought it bizarre when I saw parents dancing with their kids in the video that I watched at Jazz camp this weekend.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQwm7HIBLTg
Until next time...!
- Hino-sensei: She's first because I can't stand her. How many days in a row are we going to learn how to ask our teacher if they can do a favor for us??? Dan says: the whole semester. Unfortunately, the girl that sits next to me doesn't get what she's saying most of the time, so when I black out and wake up when I have to talk to her she's just as clueless as me.
- Kobayashi-sensei: The second strongest emotions go to Kobayashi-sensei, who is just freakin' rad. He's a guy in his early 30s, I think, and is really hilarious every day. Our class likes him so much that we took him out to karaoke the other week (pictures and videos are on others' cameras because mine ran out of juice), and to give you an idea of how awesome he is, his first song was "Wild Wild Life" by The Talking Heads. Yeah!!! I used to call him Yoshinoya-sensei because it was the closest thing that I could associate his name with when I didn't really know it... which I'd say is a compliment.
- Noguchi-sensei: My friend German friend Jonas calls him "No-good-chi Sensei" because he speaks Japanese in class until he gets to a simple word and says it in English. Sometimes, he says other words in English, too, but usually it's like, "newgrammarnewgrammar FOOD oldgrammaroldgrammar". But he's pretty hilarious, so I don't mind his oddly-timed English. Last week he showed us this Japanese sci-fi short in class, and supposedly he talked about cremating kids in Natalie's class as an example of picking up fresh bones with chopsticks. He probably said chopsticks in English.
- Silver-haired-sensei: Yeah, I still don't know her name. She's really nice and effective, though. That's about it. I rode the elevator with her yesterday and we talked about how she was in an orchestra, which is cool.
- Remi-sensei: That's her first name, and the only reason I know it is because of X-Men. Her last name is something-yama, but the first day she explained to us that her name was really weird. She's the kanji teacher, which means her class is inherently boring because it consists mostly of us saying words and watching her write words that are in a book we have. It's hard to explain, but if that sounds boring to you, I've done my job. Today was a lot different because we got a new book, but we'll see. She speaks really fast, and since her class is really boring, it's REALLY hard to pay attention. Especially when most of it isn't really important sounding.
That's the rundown of them. As for my performance, I'm on par with a lot of people, I think... and that may the first time since Japanese 102, haha... and as for learning, well... it's a little difficult. I don't know what I covered before, but it's really hard to make a lot of the new stuff concrete. We speed through the grammar with relatively easy sentences and have our quizzes and tests on vocabulary, but we're never really prompted by the teachers to use this new stuff in class. In fact, I think I've barely used new grammar in non-grammar classes because it's not something that's naturally coming to me. The thing is, it takes usage for the ideas of these new grammar structures to actually be realized in everyday speech. It's not that I don't know the grammar or that I don't need to use it, but because I have minimal practice with it, it's like I don't even have the option of doing so... that's how it works for me, at least. Same goes for the vocab--I feel like most of it is learn-and-dump, much like it was last semester in Japanese 310 where I learned a billion kanji compounds and dumped them after quizzes and tests because they weren't relevant and we weren't learning them in an effective system. But that's another story, I guess. The most I've learned vocabulary-wise is from hanging out with Japanese people, and usually the vocabulary is vernacular.
Speaking of speaking, I think the course is actually designed so that we don't focus a lot on speaking because they expect us to be doing that outside of class with actual Japanese people. There are two problems with this: 1) again, we aren't prompted to use the new grammar and vocabulary, and 2) we learn how to speak in everyday Japan rather than classroom Japan. The latter fact is actually not really a problem in general, but just a problem for the class. I REALLY love speaking everyday Japanese and learning everyday Japanese. There's so much more gratification in that than speaking BS in class. I don't know how it is for others, but in my case, I can't usually understand the kids my age well because of their really fast, really vernacular-tempered tongues, not just because of vocabulary alone, because I think that they're using a lot stuff I know in just different ways. I've gotten use to a bunch of these, and have learned a lot of popular words among kids my age, which got me thinking about how awesome a class on everyday Japanese would be... learning modern slang and grammatical deformities of the times. We learn a few, but they're few and far between, and when you're in class using the words you don't have a tendency to use the slang because you're in a classroom.
Oh hey, I just got my pictures from Jen, so I'm going to take a break, get them uploaded, and finish up my homework. I'm trying to go to bed early tonight, so maybe I won't return this evening, but I hope to talk about a topic that Julie keeps reminding me of: the friends that I've made!
On that note, I'll leave you with a video of a song that is wildly popular all around Japan. It's by a 25-or-so-year-old group called the Southern Allstars (no hyphen). I know you won't understand the song... I mean, I don't totally... but you'll get some idea by the title... and you'll understand me when I say that I thought it bizarre when I saw parents dancing with their kids in the video that I watched at Jazz camp this weekend.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQwm7HIBLTg
Until next time...!
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Teen Bus Squad!!!
This has nothing to do with Japan, but it's too awesome not to post:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xctbq9Pd_Q8
I'm featured in it, so keep an eye out.
And um, about that last post... I'll write some more in an hour or two when I start falling asleep while studying kanji. Later!
Edit: Ha! I didn't start falling asleep! Guess it'll have to wait some more.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xctbq9Pd_Q8
I'm featured in it, so keep an eye out.
And um, about that last post... I'll write some more in an hour or two when I start falling asleep while studying kanji. Later!
Edit: Ha! I didn't start falling asleep! Guess it'll have to wait some more.
Friday, May 2, 2008
Now about class...
I promised last time that my next post would be about class since I haven't talked about it yet, so let me give you the rundown of how it works and how my week works, and then I'll comment on how I actually feel about class.
Firstly, I am enrolled in two classes: JAPN 270B (Intensive Japanese 2) and ANTH 3-something, maybe 4-something (Japanese Symbolic Practice). Japanese meets everyday for three hours, which covers the first two periods of the day, and ends at lunch, while the Anthropology course starts at 3:15 and goes for an hour and a half Mondays and Thursdays. Now you may be thinking, "wow, three hours is a long time!" Well, by golly, you're right! But, they decided to make it seem like we were shortening it by having two different professors every day to make our sensei numbers total to five. Each sensei has his or her own topic, too, so it's not like one whole day of one subject. Reading, Speaking and Writing, Kanji, and Grammar are the topics that they cover, and here's how it looks on schedule:
Monday: Grammar/Speaking and Reading
Tuesday: Reading/Kanji
Wednesday: Grammar/Kanji
Thursday: Grammar/Speaking
Friday: Reading/Speaking
Not so bad, huh? Huh? HUH??!?! Well, HOLD YOUR TONGUE, KNAVE! This schedule gets terrible, and this is why: we have at least two homework sheets due a day and at least one quiz a day, usually two. The problem with this is keeping track of what is when. What days are which sections (not counting kanji... that luckily falls atzjslfjasf...
SLEEP. Man, sorry, that was nap attack to the extreme. If I don't have baseball tomorrow I'lll blaaaarg
Firstly, I am enrolled in two classes: JAPN 270B (Intensive Japanese 2) and ANTH 3-something, maybe 4-something (Japanese Symbolic Practice). Japanese meets everyday for three hours, which covers the first two periods of the day, and ends at lunch, while the Anthropology course starts at 3:15 and goes for an hour and a half Mondays and Thursdays. Now you may be thinking, "wow, three hours is a long time!" Well, by golly, you're right! But, they decided to make it seem like we were shortening it by having two different professors every day to make our sensei numbers total to five. Each sensei has his or her own topic, too, so it's not like one whole day of one subject. Reading, Speaking and Writing, Kanji, and Grammar are the topics that they cover, and here's how it looks on schedule:
Monday: Grammar/Speaking and Reading
Tuesday: Reading/Kanji
Wednesday: Grammar/Kanji
Thursday: Grammar/Speaking
Friday: Reading/Speaking
Not so bad, huh? Huh? HUH??!?! Well, HOLD YOUR TONGUE, KNAVE! This schedule gets terrible, and this is why: we have at least two homework sheets due a day and at least one quiz a day, usually two. The problem with this is keeping track of what is when. What days are which sections (not counting kanji... that luckily falls atzjslfjasf...
SLEEP. Man, sorry, that was nap attack to the extreme. If I don't have baseball tomorrow I'lll blaaaarg
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