First Day of Class

My first class of the day started at 9am. This meant that I had to get up at 7:30 and be out the door by 8. I just so happened to leave my notebook with the room numbers written in them back at my house. Nice. So I ended up being 5 minutes late as I had to find out where on campus this class was.

The class itself was relatively painless. We started out by doing our introductions. I felt like I was in the upper 5 or so people in the class in terms of fluency. Our sensei then explained the class rules and whatnot. Finally we had a set of 3 tests to take: Kanji, Grammar, and Listening. The kanji test was really hard. I should have done a decent job on it, but I had not written any characters all summer. The other two tests were really easy.

After class I met up with Vaso and Shoko to grab lunch. We had Tonkatsu obentou. Vaso is so lucky, he somehow managed to have no classes on Monday or Wednesday. Course, his other days are going to be crammed packed with classes. After lunch we hit up a Japanese modern liturature class. It looks like a pretty cool class but I really do not think that I can fit it into my schedule.

The first day of class was pretty sweet. I am kinda wore out too; It's partially from the bad weather, cold, and class.

One more thing

When we were in Shinjuku yesterday we happened upon a Japanese talent contest. It was called Kabuki-cho Star Contest. The winner gets 300,0000 Yen or $30,000. There were 9 acts witch ranged from comedy skits to singing and dancing. I took a video of 4 of the acts and have uploaded them to youtube for viewing pleasure. Enjoy!

Inventor - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRYpSTpEJT8
Boy Band - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaojpFiNd-U
Graduating Students - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2FVWSPQ_n8
Enka Singer - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djNdvXd4G5o

Boring

Yesterday was boring. We finished up the presentations in the morning then Vaso, Keaton, and I headed to Shinjuku. I think we walked around for 3+ hours looking for a specific arcade. Vaso and Keaton eventually left me to search alone. As soon as they left I just happened to run into it. Figures. Afterwards I went to the Hub for a little bit just to hang out.

This morning was great. It had rained a little last night and had cooled down a lot. It's the kind of weather when you can wear a long sleeve shirt and not be cold or hot. I spent the morning trying to get music on my phone. I eventually figured out that it has to be in wma format for it to work. As I write this I am converting all the music that I brought with me to wma in order to use my phone as an music player. Around noonish I met Vaso at Shinjuku and we headed to the arcade that I found yesterday. We played a couple games of Guilty Gear Core and Gundam before heading to meet one of Vaso's friends. This kid is apparently working in Japan for a while doing environmental research. He went to Middlebury last summer and has had no Japanese knowledge before that. His listing skills were better than mine which really made me envious. Anyways, we hit up a bowling ally in Shinjuku for 2 rounds. I managed to break a 100 both times, which is all that really matters to me. Bowling in Japan is just like in the states... But the balls were painted like basketballs for some odd reason.

So here I am back at home. This is the first day that I have actually studied Japanese since I arrived here. I feel like I have not been learning much of the language by going outside the classroom. Classes need to start already!

Meh

Once again I woke up way too early. It was not my fault however. My host family woke me up for breakfast. Ugh. I still am feeling under the weather, but it really isn't that bad. I went to Harajuku today with some people and did some shopping. I bought 3 more issues of Yu Yu Hakusho, which brings me to number 7. I decided that I wanted to come home really early today and go to sleep right after dinner. I need to wake up early again tomorrow to finish up presentations...

On a lighter note, I now have full features on my cell phone. For just $10 more per month, I can enjoy unlimited e-mailing, internet, television, and radio through my phone.

Sick

I believe I am getting sick. It is more than likely due to the fact that I have had little sleep and lots of adjusting. Every night I have only been getting a maximum of 7 hours, usually less. It is starting to get to me. On the bright side, I now have a brand new cell phone. It is red. Yeah. Anyways, I need to be getting to sleep, but there is an important website that you all should bookmark.

http://www.risukun.com/Node.aspx?id=259618

One of my friends from college, Brendan Elliot, is letting me use space on his picture server. He went to Japan on the same program that I am currently doing in 2002. I would like to send a big thanks to Brendan.

Class Registration

Today we needed to be at Waseda at 10 a.m. for class registration. First they assigned us to a Japanese course level. There are 5 different levels of classes, 1 being beginner and 5 being the hardest. It is possible to place beyond level 5, in which case, you do not need to take a Japanese class. I managed to place into level 3, while Vaso got into level 4. I am really jealous that he got all that extra Japanese training over the summer. It just means I have to work that much harder to catch up. The good thing is, I have money to spend on things I enjoy.

After Registration we wandered around for 2 and a half hours looking for a bank to exchange travelers cheques. I could not believe how hard it was to find. We ended up going to Shinjuku to do it. Afterwards we hit up a local coffee shop for a break as well as a discussion about our project. We grabbed dinner at this place called "En". They served all sorts of different things. I had the Chirashi-zushi, which is raw fish over rice. Afterwards, everyone split except for Vaso and I. Vaso bought a USB flash drive and a new bookbag. I spent my money on a game of Beatmania Gold and Pop'n Music Adventure. I need to limit myself on how much I spend at arcades this year. It is really easy to spend $10+ a day in arcade games.

Yay for wireless internet!

September 21

Yay! New issue of Famitsu today! That kept me occupied on the train ride to and from our dorm. Today I went to the cafeteria to eat breakfast. It was suprisingly good once I figured out how to order. I told the lady behind the counter what I wanted and she showed me to the vending machine. You buy a ticket first and then give it to her to get your food. I guess it is just an easier way to manage the money. After breakfast myself, Shoko, Adam, and Vaso went to Shinjuku to check out a junk shop. They had lots of cool stuff there. I ended up buying a wallet and a strap that goes around your forehead. Shoko bought a Tiara. Adam bought some plastic ears and a interesting looking hat. We need to do a video for class and we wanted some props. Afterwards we all checked out the arcades. Vaso won a mario and luigi keychain, go figure. We also played this really cool gundam game. Now I'm not a big fan of gundam, but I liked the game. It's team based and you can play with 4 people seated beside you. Once you have a team you play against another team over the net. It was amazing. Vaso and I won the first battle even though we had no idea what was going on. We lost the second one though. Afterwards we had the formal Waseda reception to welcome all the SILS students. It took too much time if you ask me. We met up with Rienzo San once the reception was over. He just graduated from CWRU and is taking a year to study Japanese at Waseda. He was in my Japanese 101 class when I was a freshman. We went out to eat at a tiny shop near the train station. It was really cool seeing another friendly face in Japan. Back in our dorm, we had a meeting to find out who our host families were. It looks like I am living with the Usui family in Shimotakaido near Keio university. It is about a 50 minute train ride. The host father apparently likes teaching Japanese! This should be a great opportunity to improve my skills. The Waseda students put on a little skit explaining what not to do in a host family situation. It was really funny. Shohei dressed up like a girl and had Byu over for a "romantic" evening. Tonight I will be packing my bags back up. They are getting shipped to my host family tomorrow morning, but I won't meet them until Sunday.

September 22

I woke up this morning to take my bags down to the lobby in order to ship them. 7am never seemed so early before. On top of that, the school cafeteria is closed all day on Saturday and Sunday. We had to go find food on our own. Today was the first day of our project. Every person in this program was assigned a group and a place to explore. My group of Shoko and Adam headed to Hamamatsucho around 8:30. It took us over an hour and a half to get there from our dorms. Luckily we managed to snag some seats on the train. Once we got off the train, we all got into character and started filming. Needless to say, I got many strange looks today. I think Adam looked more akward with his ski mask on, but he didn't need to wear that constantly. I however just had a simple headband that said "Japan" in kanji on it. I noticed a lot of people talking about me. Anyways, we started filming our movie. This lead us towards Tokyo Tower via some parks. We just made up a script as we went along, and I personally think it will turn out pretty good. Basically the villan (Adam) kidnaps the princess (Shoko) and the hero (me) gets to save the princess. It's pretty "Super Mario" if you ask me. We filmed until around 2:30 and proceded to make our way to Waseda. There was this club meeting called the Rainbow Club that Adam wanted to go to. It sounds corny, but it is a kaiwa club for Japanese and English students wanting to learn the other language. They put on a good show with many power point presentations. The party afterwards featured Waseda students and international students at about a 1:1 ratio. I met a bunch of cool people. I also found out that there is a circle (club) that plays lots of video games, mainly smash brothers. I have to get in on that.

September 23

I cannot believe that it is 5pm already. We all had to wake up at 9 am in order to check out of our dormitory. Afterwards we went to Waseda for our orientation where we ate Dominos Pizza. The pizza in Japan is much different than in America. The weirdest thing was the eggplant pizza. I don't know if I could eat that. After the pizza there was more orientation while our host families started arriving. My host father Shouzou came to pick me up. Once all of the host families arrived, they had a short orientation and then were sent home with their respective students. On the way to my new home, I picked up my commuter pass. This allows me to go from Waseda to my host family's house as many times as I want. The school will of course, reimburse us the cost. The commute to my new house was only about 20 minutes, but then there was another 20 minute walk to get from the station to my house. I met my host mother Masayo when I got home. They both seem really nice. We had some nikuman while giving our introductions. They handed me a little packet with the house rules on it. I was impressed by this. Afterwards I was sent up to my room to unpack my stuff.

September 24

We finished our project today! Yay! The filming part is all done. Adam is going to throw it together while Shoko and I work on the other part of the presentation. I went to Shinjuku this morning to buy a power adapter for my laptop. All the plugs here only have 2 holes instead of 3. I ended up buying a surge protector so I can plug all my electronics in at once. For lunch we met up with Keaton and had some Gyuudon. Afterwards we hit up the local pub for drinks. I managed to make it home for supper right on time at 8pm. My sister Miko got me connected to the internet so now I will be able to do updates every day!