Day 166 (Osaka) : Middle of the pack

It's been forever and two days since my last post but I'm taking some time to update today's post to see if I can't get back to my more productive habits. We're winding down the end of the summer semester with six or seven tests a week and grades flying every which way. I'm missing a few tests but right now my test average is 67.7 an if that seems low, you should consider that I'm in the upper middle range of my class. The last test we got back I only managed a 57, the highest grade was 89, and the lowest was 34. So yep, I'm right in the middle somewhere between the half Japanese guy and the lazy girl that doesn't study or pay attention in class.

Next week we have a final exam and two weeks later we have a placement exam. I don't even understand what the difference is between the two. If we bomb the final exam they will hold us back to "relearn" the material we're weak on, so it's like having two chances to fail and only one chance to pass. Add on to all that poop'lah the fact that my class is spending an our or two each day preparing the drama and you get the perfect formula for mediocrity. I'd do the usual rant about studying this or practicing that, but I'm basically going to do as little as possible to pass until I get a teacher who changes my mind.

A shining example of why I'm so PO'ed with the current teacher is that she finally gave me the term interview after making me wait for her for five days and she just used it against me. I pointed out that she was only give us half the time that other teachers in the week were giving for kanji tests and that with only 7 minutes I wasn't able to finish. In addition the people from Asian countries that have been writing kanji since they were two have an unfair advantage because they write lightning fast and even if I study harder and know more of the answers they come out with the better grade. To show that she took my concerns into consideration she gave us five minutes to finish the test today.

It especially got under my skin because I was confused about the day and was expecting one of the good teachers to come in. I studied all night, woke up at five to put in a few hours before going to school, and crammed out the last thirty minutes or so in the class room. I knew every single answer but I still missed three because I can't read Japanese, comprehend, and write that quickly. Five minutes for 30 questions is great if you're testing the proficiency of an upper level class but at my level it's just singling me out as the one of a handful of students who don't have a back ground in kanji prior to coming to school.

The main reason I started posting is because I realized I can add a "health" tag to my blog to track any illnesses or problems that come along and see how much of the year I'm at 100%. Last night I was really dizzy and I woke up with blood in my ear, so I wanted to make sure that it's not a re-occuring thing since I'm ignoring it for now. It was just a little blood, how bad could it be?

Day 150(Osaka) : Quick turn around

They actually managed to get all the mock exams graded in one day. I guess that's why the whole office was full of teachers when I went back Monday afternoon to pay tuition. I pulled out a 215/400 which sounds pretty bad but you only need a 60% to pass and at just shy of 54%, that's pretty close. All I have to do is squeeze out an extra 6% in knowledge or educated guesses in December and I'll be straight. We had to play with the rabbit drawings again today and sing the kindergarten song that goes with it. I have to admit that is a pretty big slap in the face but being able to get so close to passing level 2 means something must be working out.

It's not all good news though. The test on Chapter 13 this morning was pretty much garbage. If I got over 70% I would be surprised. The worst part is the last few questions weren't short essay style like previous tests but simple one question, one sentence answer format. Even with that working in my favor I found that I forgot tons of kanji over the summer break and I was struggling to remember words to make anything like a coherent answer. I'm also running on fumes, funds wise. At least until my next GI Bill payment. Paying tuition and rent back to back kills. At least when I come back to Japan in January I can score a legit part time job and get the cash flowing again.

Day 148(Osaka) : Fock mock exams

It's funny how skipping one day in a daily habit pretty much makes it not a habit any more. It looks like I won't be making daily posts like I have been because I'm a little pre-occupied with trying to figure out what I'm doing here in Osaka. As for this beautiful Sunday, I spent the whole day inside studying almost all of the books I have in my collection trying to get an edge up on this pop exam that we're having Monday. I'm still confused as to how a big exam that is going to run four hours and end the day early could have flown by completely off my radar. What's even worse is that I had to sign a piece of paper and choose which level to take, so at some point it was right in front of me and I still didn't notice it.

It's the first time in a long time that I actually put a few hours towards learning Japanese outside of the school. I'm even getting some early prep work for the kanji test that we'll have on Tuesday since the exam is setting us back a day. I did a little tour de neighborhood this afternoon too. Had to walk about fifteen minutes down the street to find a 7/11 that would accept my American credit card. I was surprised because after a few blocks it actually became a pretty nice neighborhood with newer homes and apartment complexes that kind of put my neighborhood to shame. Not that I'm complaining. I'd rather live here close to the station than put an extra ten minutes between me and school.

Day 146(Osaka) : T.G.I. Kinyoubi

So the first week ended quickly enough. There is apparently an exam on Monday and only people who will actually take it need to show up at school. The problem is I have no idea if I signed up to take it or not because they're always dropping official school forms off in all Japanese and I can't understand 80% of it because it's way out of my level. If I go and I don't have to take it, it's a waste of a trip and about 45 minutes of riding trains back and forth. That' s no big deal from where I'm sitting right now. But if I roll in there on Monday and I have to take a Japanese proficiency test off the cuff, that's going to be difficult.

School is killing me with the kindergarten routines. Today we had to draw pictures of rabbits and turtles on construction paper with giant markers. Seriously, the only thing missing from class today is milk, cookies, and nap time. It's weird with all the tests and exams coming down the line that we can't have anything more constructive than an arts and crafts class. It really makes me wonder why I'm even bother to pay tuition at this school and then I remember that the GI Bill is covering almost everything. It's going to be a long drawn out process to get all my out of the system since I still have a little over two years left in it. I'll have to find a decent graduate school but I'm no where near close to knowing what I want to do for that. Guess I'll just have to sleep on it and see what comes to mind.

Day 145(Osaka) : Back on the wagon

I'm back to the blog a few days alter. I took a little hiatus from writing because I was on an extended summer vacation and writing about how I was doing nothing but watching tv was boring the crap out of me. Coming back to school was full of surprises like how there is a NEW strand of flu running around that has already killed 3 people in Japan. The funny thing is they have already started throwing around the word "epidemic" which despite my best efforts scares me. They even put a no holds bar exemption on people who have any signs of the flu, so that they can skip school with no marks against them. The problem is if you skip school you can't stay alone because you might literally die in your sleep from this new strain of the flu... or so they say.

Doom and gloom aside, going back to school was about what I would expect. One homework assignment was collected with a ton of leniency for people who "forgot" or the four students who simply didn't come back to school today. So the difference between me who struggled to get the work done in time and the students who blew it off = 0, nothing, notta, zip, zero, zilch. It's craptastic but what can you do about it. At the very least it should affect their attendance record which puts me for students closer to receiving one of the national scholarships which would give me a legitimate opportunity to attend a graduate school after this is done.

I went out for a few drinks after school but it was fairly lame. There is something about people who weren't in the military not being able to hold their own when it comes to drinking. It's really disappointing too, especially when I get all worked up going out for a night of drinking to have the only other guy cash in after a single beer. How is that too much? Worst part is that I recommended the giant beer for the same price and he specifically turned me down for the smaller half sized beer that he could barely finish. Slash sigh.

Day 138 (Osaka) : The inner geek

I'm really getting into this whole Galactica franchise thing. I spent a little time researching the original works and found that it has everything from comic book lines to original full length movies that go way back to the 70's. It's pretty crazy, even when you consider that they "re-invisioned" the original story, but it still is popular and has relevance. That's the problem with most of the brain numbing shows I get hooked on like Dexter. There is no deeper meaning to pull from the story, no hidden messages or things to be mulled over with your friends.

The formula that is turning prime time television to crap lately is the idea that a show cannot end without a cliff hanger so every episode has to reveal some shocking new twist. Take any of the recent series that have come out like Desperate Housewives, Dexter, Lost, Prison Break, 24, etc. They all thrive on that "find out more, next time" hook. Is there any other context that an audience would be satisfied with that kind of empty conclusion? If you read a newspaper article and it trailed off without making a point or rented a movie that just ended without a resolution, wouldn't it be natural instinct to be disappointed? It kind of boggles my mind that it has become the "in" thing for tv shows.

Oh, yeah. I'm not exactly studying at the present. I'm more in line with the pins and needles guy from PCU, if you can remember what his thesis paper was about.

Day 137 (Osaka) : Laundry encounters

I ran into one of the other tenants at this apartment when I was getting laundry done earlier. The guy was really weirding me out because he kept throwing a fit about me standing there. Even though three of the washers were a few minutes from finishing he felt like I didn't have to be there until after he left. I guess he thought that spending $2 at a coin laundry was the same thing as owning the apartment and being able to tell other people where they can and can't be while he's doing laundry. That really bugs me. If I was in a normal American home I wouldn't have to put up with that kind of crap or have to hang my clothes out so they can come in smelling like fresh sour clothes straight out of the wash.

One of the tv shows had a segment on this tubby guy who plans to run from Kanto to Kansai, some couple thousand kilometers. It's supposed to take him 240 hours of non-stop running but he was talking about running 20 hours a day, like the distance wasn't enough of an accomplishment. I know I'd be happy to make that kind of trek and have it televised even if I only ran sixteen hours a day. I'm curious to see the end because he's not going to be a tubby guy after running twenty hours a day for a week and a half. Still, makes me want to get back into jogging every morning and tracking down marathons but it's rough when most of the sites are only in Japanese.

Day 136 (Osaka) : No season 3?

Somehow I managed to get two copies of season 4 and no disc for season 3 of Battlestar Galactica. I did get to watch the pilot episodes that I over looked before. Now a lot of the flash backs they've been showing through out the first two seasons make a ton more sense. The only real break from the sci-fi marathon was a throw back suspense flick, Anamorph maybe. It seemed really low budget, second string actors and actresses, but some of the crime scenes were pretty high in shock appeal. The ending was pretty disappointing though. The mastermind behind all the serial killings that used all kinds of cool tricks for the first hour just guns the protagonist down. No tricks, no special set up, just pow pow.

I found a home DIY project for making affordable solar curtains. Those things usually run around eighty bucks but you can get the raw materials for about eight. So I ordered two mylar blankets from Amazon and I'm working out the mounting device at one of the crafts shops near Tennoji station. The cool thing about mylar blankets, or space blankets, is that they insulate or deflect over 90% of heat depending on which surface the heat comes into contact with. So if you're freezing on a camping trip, you an use it to conserve body heat or if you're burning up in a desert, you can use it to keep cool. The latter purpose is what I'm going to benefit from by hanging it outside my ceiling to floor patio windows. From morning until night that side of my apartment is a raging inferno from all the sun light that comes through. It'll probably take a few days before the stuff gets here but I'm optimistic.

Day 135 (Osaka) : Season 2 marathon

I've been sticking with what works best and really making the most of my summer vacation by not studying. At this pace I'll be locked into a full week of non-stop catch up work to finish all the assignments and review material before class starts up again on the 20th. On the bright side, I still firmly believe that forgetting something and re-learning it is a big part of making something a natural reflex instead of some kind of forced effort that requires constant focus.

The weather report has been talking about a typhoon lately, but the only affect where I am is a bunch of rain. Usually rain is great because it cools things down and I can enjoy opening my windows and letting in fresh air, but lately it seems like the rain just gets stuck in the air. It never actually cools down, it just gets more humid and stays just as hot so it's pretty miserable trying to sleep without constantly running a fan, the AC, or both. I end up having the same feeling every single year. "Isn't summer over yet?" It feels like it stays hot forever. I never really put much thought in it before, but it seems like I'm more of a winter person. I enjoy being able to move around over long distances comfortably without breaking a sweat and a blanket is a lot cheaper than the small electronic army that it takes to keep an apartment cool in the summer.

Travelocity sent me an automated "friendly" reminder to get things in order for my upcoming travel plans. Their recommendation includes a hotel for about three grand because no one would want to stay with their family in December, right? [sarcasm] Even if it wasn't the season for family gatherings I would still be hard pressed to find any reason worth dropping that much money on hotels to visit Virginia. It's not exactly the "Vegas of the desert". Haha, actually the vegas of the desert isn't exactly the vegas of the desert. That's what one of the NC's on my old ship used to call Bahrain as part of his sales pitch to get people to agree to taking a post there. Good times.

Day 134 (Osaka) : Home sweet home

I'd love to say I did something exciting after coming back to Osaka, but I mostly just settled into a nice vacation from my vacation. All the walking around and spending tons of money really took it's toll so I enjoyed the down time. It's funny, I originally started getting into Gattaca because of a reference they made to the collectors set in The Big Bang Theory but it's actually turning out to be very interesting. I kind of wish I was a bigger fan because the new season kind of jumps in where the old series left off so I'm still a little boggled on some of the plot devices. On the bright side it is one of the few things I've been able to watch in crystal clear high def on my TV. For some reason most of the collection at the movie rental places here are still DVD only so it's hard to come by anything especially HD.

I downloaded a new release from the Sony Store for my PS3. I'll admit that I was suckered in by the fact that it was a Square Enix release from their flagship Final Fantasy franchise. After playing it for a few minutes I realized it was a complete waste of ten bones. It has the graphics of a mid ranged cell phone application and considering the recent popularity in tower defense games as downloadable content across the platforms you would think they were going to redefine the genre. Just look at how well Tactics was received among turn-based strategy enthusiasts. I wouldn't be surprised if "Crystal Defenders" was some how released by a black market company without Square's approval. Maybe that's just wishful thinking, because of one of my all time favorite companies starts to put out garbage what hope is there?

Day 133 (Hiroshima) : The long way home

Thanks to our discounted travel package, all of our plans were a complete mess. We went through a group called "Trapics" with the fancy a with two dots on top so I'm guessing it still sounds like tropics even if it's spelled wrong. They first helped us out by giving us an early morning shinkansen to Hiroshima so we could get there a few minute after 10:00am. That sounds great if you have a normal check-in time, but we had to wait until 3:00pm to check in for some odd reason. The hotel staff let us leave our bags at the front desk but there was no negotiating an early trip to the room.

The hotel totally got my hopes up too because they had a diner on the 3rd floor with all you can eat steak from 5:00pm - 10:00pm, but when we tried to go there they told us the diner had been rented out by some company for a formal dinner. The next hook up for the trip came with our return tickets. Our check out time was 10:00am, negotionable at 25% the room fee but that's crazy expensive for a few hours. To make that even better, our shinkansen back left the station at 7:51pm. We ended up going back to the station, then to a mall, watching Harry Potter, eating dinner, walking around the station, and killing time in general for about nine hours. Getting home felt great and it was funny to really get that feeling when the people at the train station started speaking with an Osaka-ben dialect. I've only been here a few months, but it's really grown on me.

Day 132 (Hiroshima) : Shukkeien Park and Nantoka Jima

I'm finally getting around to updating my blog, not for lack of trying on my part. I've read articles on laptop reviews and battery performance but experiencing it first hand really drives the point home. The basic boot up process required to get through the initial log in screen consumes about 8~10% of my battery power. Using my lap top on the go is a lot like one of those stingy calling cards that uses half your points every time you even attempt to dial a number. I was able to operate on battery in lower power consumption mode for a little under two hours, which barely got me through the first night of vacation.

Now that I'm back in Osaka and plugged in, I can finally get my pictures up loaded and get some of the trip down. After seeing the Peace Memorial on Thursday there really wasn't a lot left to see in Hiroshima. They had a manga library somewhere and a naval museum but the only way to get around the city was to take taxi's or their trolley cars, which were like really small and inconvenient trains in the middle of the street. In hindsight, I should have taken a picture of the trolley platforms to explain how bad they actually were. You have to stand on a two or three foot wide platform int he middle of a four lane street where there is no shade and cars driving past giving you a nice mix of heat and fumes. It was very not cool.

The first place we went on Friday was Shukkeien Park. It looks pretty much like every other park that I've been to before but I realize that going in the middle of summer isn't a good idea. You don't get the scenic view of blossoms that you can see in spring, the changing of the leaves you can see in fall, or the snow covered view that they show off in the little park brochure. Nope, going in the middle of summer rewards you with crazy heat and tons of bugs. I think I got ninety percent of my bug bites this year from the hour or so I spent walking around that park. I did take some decent pictures though, so it wasn't a total loss.

This small hut is where tea ceremonies would be held. I'm not really sure if they still use it or if it's just part of the park now.



Typical lake for a Japanese style park. Lots of rocks, trees, and small bridges here and there. Part of the appeal of Japanese gardens and parks is that they attempt to recreate nature in a smaller scale. So most parks will have lakes, artificial creeks, forests, hills, and even rock cliffs on occasion.


Picture some Japanese couple took of us at the park. Kind of wish the camera bag wasn't in the frame...

After getting our fill for walking around the park we hopped onto the world's longest trolley (exaggeration) to travel down to Miya Jima where they have a famous shrine only a short ferry ride from the main land. For me, the coolest attraction were all the "wild" domestic deers they have around this place. It's crazy, there are almost as many deer as their are people but they are more or less oblivious to the people walking around them because I guess they're just that used to it. the brochures all say, "Beware of the wild deers, they may eat paper and clothes so keep your souvenirs safe."



I should have taken some videos of the deers so that people wouldn't think it's some kind of deer museum with stuffed deer all over. I do have a few shots in a row of three deer chasing a guy with food that looks pretty cool but I haven't figured out how to string them together so that it looks animated.

I was going to take some cool pictures of this deer sleeping, but it started moving around after the first picture. Before you wonder, I didn't use flash. I never use flash when taking pictures of animals because I don't want to try to re-enact my own episode of "When animals attack!"


This tori gate is one of the land marks of the island. What was unique about the day we went there is how low the tide was, because normally the water is near the middle of the gate. I was disappointed because the whole shrine would have looked something like an oriental Venice if the tide was in.



For example, this shot should have had a lot more water in it and a lot less bare sand. Ah well, it was too blazing hot so I skipped out on waiting for the tide. I originally planned on climbing the mountain and hanging out for a sunset photo op, but the tourist map says the ascent takes two hours or more depending on your pace.

Day 131 (Hiroshima) : Hiroshima Peace Memorial Ceremony

Today is the anniversary of the first atomic bombing in history that fell over Hiroshima August 6th, 1945. I missed the ceremony because it is held at 8:15am the time the bomb was recorded as going off over the city. I took a few pictures that I will post later but for the most part I refrained from being the stereotypical tourist, mostly because there were already thousands out there snapping pictures of prayer offerings and people paying their respects like it was some kind of feature at Universal Studios. There was a huge turn out of people from all over the world, so it hardly felt like I was in Japan.

The Peace Memorial Museum was something that you have to see for yourself. I was surprised because all of my college level courses in Asian studies repeatedly painted Japan as being stuck in some kind of denial phase of the role they played in aggressions throughout the Asian Pacific. The description in the museum went to great detail in describing Japan's role in occupying Korea and invading China. While it didn't use the word "rape" it did clearly refer to Nanking as a massacre, which I would like to shove in some of my old professors' faces after all the things they "taught" to students state side.

At night they had the tourounagashi tradition where people write their wishes for world peace or lost loved ones on paper that is hooked around a wooden float with a candle. Thousands of the floats are put in the river and the site at night is very moving. My memory is fuzzy, but I'm thinking they did the same thing at some point in the Karate Kid. I will be attaching pictures after I get back to Osaka in a few days. I managed to forget my charge kit for my laptop and for some reason the battery started off at 90% even though it is always plugged in when I'm at home. I'll probably have juts enough to write my blog tonight and tomorrow before it dies but I can always post from my phone in a pinch.

-- Updated Pictures --
These are the floats for the tourounagashi thing, each one has a wish written on all four sides and a candle in the center. The view is much better when it's dark but it didn't seem to be getting dark soon enough for me.

I think it's hard to tell from the picture but this is like a million swans for that belief that you can have a wish come true if you fold a thousand swans. They set up stands and visitors can fold as many as they want, so after a few tens of thousands of visitors walk through you start to see these everywhere.


This is a difficult shot to explain, but it's part of the Peace Memorial. There is actually a huge distance between me, the flame in th emiddle, and the arch way off in the distance. All of which are famous parts of the memorial park.

Day 130 (Osaka) : Road trippin

I made it through another kanji list, and even got a little review through the first book done today. Most of the day I've just been watching cheesy Japanese game shows. All of the packing and preparation for the trip has been taking care of, so we'll be ready to go out early in the morning. It's going to be a little sketchy when we get to the business hotel because we're not allowed to check in before three, but if the train is anywhere near schedule we'll be there like three hours early. There shouldn't be any problem dropping our stuff off and checking in later, but I'm not completely sure that will be cool with their front desk until I get there.

Other than that, it has been more of the same. I ran through the first season of Gattaca, mostly because of the reference they made to it in The Big Bang Theory. I'm kind of stuck waiting until I can borrow a copy of the second and third seasons though. It isn't so bad since I picked up somewhere in the 2nd season to start with so I don't feel all that much suspense from the season finale cliff hanger. I'll be out for the next few days in Hiroshima so I may make a few mobile posts or just use my laptop at night when I'm back in my room. I'll be back in Osaka by the 8th so I won't spend too much time on the dark side of the moon.

Day 129 (Osaka) : Coco's and Sci Fi goodness

Today was pretty much the same with the added bonus of having an order of Coco's but I was kind of disappointed. The cutlets tasted like they had been drying out in their oven for a few days before they actually decided to serve it. Yuko is helping me work out some of the Hiroshima plans with a travel magazine she picked up for the trip. There are actually a lot more things to see there than I had though and not all of them are related to the atomic dome land mark. I think we'll take turns bring cameras because hers is lighter and mine is better for capturing the scenery.

I made it through today's kanji list but the review is crazy hard. It was much easier with the teachers spending two hours explaining the different reading and examples for each kanji we covered. I guess I'll know how well I'm doing when I hit my practice test on Thursday. Reviewing the old kanji from the first book is really rough though and I haven't even looked at the grammar or summer assignments the teachers gave out. I'll probably save those until after I finish the trip though. I need the time off to get back in the flow of things because lately I'm hitting the wall where it's considerably more difficult to learn. A good break my help to level that out and even out the learning curve a bit. When I was the EPO I used to tell kids that they had to follow the four R's to learn anything. Read, write, rest, and remember. Yeah, technically write doesn't start with an R but who cares? The main point is that it takes time to forget something before you can learn it in a natural meaningful way.

Day 128 (Osaka) : Home skooling

I managed to make it through the Monday's kanji list and make a few runs through the Declan software that I haven't used in forever. It's actually incredibly helpful to use the application because I've been practicing the kanji through rote memorization only. Meaning I can write them and occasional I can recognize them, but I don't have a clear understanding of their reading or the different meanings they have. That probably doesn't make a lot of sense if you haven't studied an Asian language but if you've ever played around with learning kanji you should know how much of a mess it is trying to memorize everything.

I picked up the first two seasons of Battlestar Galactica, the newer series that they released not the old one. I kind of liked it when Justin introduced me to it back in the day but I dropped in somewhere around the middle of Season 2 and never really got caught up on what the deuce was going on. It's pretty cool just to sit back and do a movie marathon but I feel like I could have gotten a lot more studying done if I watched less tv. Hmm, how to work around that. I guess I could go back to watching Japanese tv and dramas so I can get the listening practice. That would count a little bit in my book.

Day 127 (Osaka) : The next day

After having such a great time drinking, doing the BBQ, and watching the fireworks just relaxing at home on Sunday was really lame. I slept for most of the morning since Toyoji's dad dropped me off a little after one anyway. Other than that there really isn't much else to blog about. I went out for a few drinks with one of my classmates but I ended up back at home less than three hours after I left so it was hardly even an outing. I'm still enjoying the first couple of days of vacation before I start my study routine during the week. I figure if I pretend like I'm still in school and study during the week then I can enjoy the weekends more.

I'm need to find a good series or something to get into, something that I can watch for a few weeks to fill the gaps between studying and ... well studying. I feel like that guy who reached the end of the internet and got the message that said, "There's nothing left to see." Sure, it was a commercial but you get the idea. For now I'm going to check out some old sci-fi stuff since I've been on a sitcom binge lately.

Day 126 (Osaka) : BBQ and PL Fireworks

The PL fireworks was a perfect way to start the summer vacation. It also helped that I was going to a BBQ hosted by a super rich family. They really went all out with the food, showing us around the fireworks, and when the trains stopped running they even drove us the hour or so back to our places. It wasn't bad for me because I think Tennoji is close but after leaving me they had to drive out to Oji to take my classmates back to their dorm. There is a lot to say about Japanese hospitality but I wouldn't even be able to do it justice if I tried to explain it. It's one of those things you have to experience first hand to really have an appreciation for it.

When we first showed up Toyoji's father and sister were still out. Since he didn't get an international license in Canada his mother came to the station to pick us up. When we got back to their four million dollar home they offered us all kinds of fresh fruit, like these delicious giant grapes that I've never seen before. We had fresh tomatoes, edamame, grapes, sliced pears, and some Canadian maple cookies just as the appetizer while we were waiting for everyone to show up. I wish I had caught more names but there were tons of people. The only names that really stuck for me were Toyoji's father, Toshio, and his sister's friend's boyfriend, Jinbei.



Their house had a traditional Japanese style yard with trees and bushes, but no real room to have a BBQ. So we ended up setting up the BBQ area on top of their new garage addition that they just built this year. Climbing a later to get to the top was kind of ghetto, but it was pimped out like any other patio once you got on top. There was plenty of room for everyone and if we had been any closer we would have been able to see the fireworks without even leaving the roof.

The ladies from left to right are Toyohi's sister, sister's friend, and my two class mates Erica and Julie.




This is some kind of party game called "Sushi Jyan", not sure what that means. But you cover the plate with a plastic mat and pull out 7 pieces of sushi. Then it's kind of like go fish where you try to fill out one of the orders on the menu. It was pretty fun to play with everyone so I might get one for my place. Who knows, might actually want to play it since shogi doesn't seem to be popular at all.

Day 125 (Osaka) : Summer vacation begins

This school is really laid back. A few of the students planned their flight home for the middle of the school day so they disappeared during the lunch break. I figure with the schedule being handed out months in advance that the students could get a flight after 3:00pm. It's not like our school is open late or that flights in the evening would be hard to come by. Speaking of flights I still have to make plans for my own trip back to the States in December. It's hard to figure out which end is up on the other side of the world though so making any steady plans has been pretty difficult.

The summer break is looking like it will go by pretty quick already. I have a stack of homework assignments that our homeroom teacher handed out and a "recommendation" to review every chapter and kanji we've covered since April for a comprehensive test after the break. That's a pretty tall order. Covering all the material we went over during the last four months in there weeks will keep me pretty busy. Oh, there is also a rumor that Obama might be visiting Hiroshima for the memorial service but I'm kind of doubting it. It would be hella interesting to meet the most powerful man in the world in some off chance that he does show up though.

Day 124 (Osaka) : Chaos in the kaiwa class

The last couple of days before summer break have really been dragging out. They seem to last forever even though they're only fifty minutes a piece. Not surprisingly at this point the teachers aren't really preparing us for the next exam, it's just business as usual. For example, the same teacher who gave us the ghost story dictation yesterday handed out colored construction paper today for us to write rumors on. Cool, right? It's like being in kindergarten all over again except we don't get milk, cookies, or nap time.

The conversation class in the afternoon was a huge disappointment too. We made it through about half an exercise before she started rotating people again. That's a hassle in and of itself, but to make matters worse some of the students decided they were going to do their own musical chairs instead of a doing the orderly circle rotation. The funny thing is that the teacher didn't do anything except look in disbelief. She asked people to go to the correct seats but no one listened to her. I would feel sorry for her if it didn't put me at such a loss by wasting two hours that I could actually use to learn Japanese.

Friday is the last day before the vacation so I'm hoping it will go by smoothly. I still haven't gotten a clear explanation of the grading criteria for the interview portion of the exams yet. Hopefully I can work that out with old lady sensei tomorrow between classes. Anyway, it's kanji test routine again so I'm going to see how much sleep I can get tonight.

Day 123 (Osaka) : Ghost stories for breakfast?

Today seemed like a huge waste of time mixed with another episode in the DeLorean so we could take a test for Chapter 12. It isn't just my imagination that the class is going slow. The teacher for my JLPT class was reviewing the material for the level 2 exam and pointed out grammar that we will be reviewing in Chapter 19. She let the class know this by saying, "The students in 1F covered this already in Chapter 19 but the other students probably haven't seen it yet." She was a little surprised when we said we didn't review it yet because she teachers 1E, the class below mine, and they are already in Chapter 18 and taking the test for Chapter 17 this Friday.

When we clarified out position and explained that we were still finishing up Chapter 16 the reaction on her face was priceless. She didn't back peddle and try to act like it was ok either, she kind of went along with our discontent which is great. She did try to offer the consolation sympathy that going slow is good sometimes, but most of my classmates aren't really buying that. Actually, from what I've seen so far I'm under the impression they will keep the classes pretty much the same so most of us will end up in 2F regardless of the point spread on the next exam. I have to admit, the thought of that is pretty disappointing but on the bright side more than a few of them are on shorter courses than I am so we will be parting ways sooner or later.

Ah, almost forgot about the title. Somehow we ended up doing kanji until thirty minutes before lunch. Something about the chapter 12 test being her own original test since we didn't do well on the "easy" test she made for 1D for chapter 11. She said when she was making it she kept thinking we could do well and it was too easy so she kept making it harder. I wasn't really impressed with the test, it all seemed pretty easy but the time constraints made it impossible for most of us to finish. Plus she asked us to write short essays for the last group of questions using the three verbs for give and receive. The problem is that the questions didn't lend themselves well to including those verbs at all, so every sentence I wrote felt really awkward.

She did say that she was going to work late tonight to get the papers graded before summer vacation starts so she may be able to return the tests today. At least then I will get to see how I did on the questions she thought were so hard. Actually, it would be pretty good for me to find all my old tests and try to answer them again so that I can be more comfortable with their question formats. It's still pretty crazy when I go through a test sometimes because I can't read instructions or a certain conjugation form that they're asking for, then the whole test goes down hill from there. Three weeks is a lot of time to get that taken care of though so I'll just have to work it out.

Day 122 (Osaka) : 100% Half Japanese?

I had a weird encounter today. I met a guy who was supposed to be half Japanese who turned out to be all Japanese. Long story short, he was adopted very late in his life and decided for whatever reason to pretend like that negated the first half of his life making him only have Japanese. It was even more confusing since he had a very non-Japanese last name due to the adoption. He seems like an alright guy to hang out with but he's only in the country for a short time before he goes back to Canada where he lives. If things work out the way we've planned I will be watching the PL fireworks for free from his family's place instead of paying the $30 admission fee else where.

I'm really worn out from the kanji routine but I have a really good feeling about this morning's test. Actually, today was full of all kinds of good feelings. Like this morning when we got our last kanji test back I was a full five points ahead of the guy setting next to me with 32/35 to his 27/35. Then in the afternoon class I got a whopping 5/10 compared to the "you should study harder" girl's 3/10. In my defense, I didn't realize we were even going to have another kanji test so I was completely unprepared. On top of that I missed on by a pair of " marks, called ten ten in Japanese. So my reading was "shinfuu" instead of the correct "shinpuu" which would means "a new style" if you go with the Jim Breen translation. (I don't have a dictionary handy so I'm searching the internet...)

Only three more days until summer vacation kicks off. I'm actually looking forward to getting back into a normal sleep pattern for a little while. Maybe I can even start jogging and finally get into shape. Speaking of shape, my laptop is in bad shape. One of the keys is loose and pops off every couples of clicks so anytime I write a word with the letter "h" the key pops out of place again. It's really a big hassle, but I can't seem to figure out how to get it to stay in place. Maybe I'll hit up the HP store later to see if they have any tips or advice. They may even mail me a replacement key, who knows.

Day 121 (Osaka) : Slowing to a snail pace

Actually, I'm pretty sure a snail would be faster so I'll have to think of something else to compare the class to if I want to express how bad it is now. The teachers are going into review mode, which I normally love because the pace doesn't leave much room for understanding. It's like trying to read a novel that's plastered on billboards while you're cruising down the high way at 55 mph. You can pick out a few words, maybe get the gist, but you miss a lot. The reason this is such a let down is because once this week ends we will come back to a placement exam with almost no time to prepare. To add insult to injury, the lower class is still a chapter and change ahead of my own class.

I still haven't picked up a real crystal clear explanation of the grading criteria for the interview yet either. One of the students said we had to use polite Japanese and another said we have to go all out with honorifics. That's a pretty big gap and the conversation wouldn't even sound the same so I can see how one or the other would explain the earlier low marks I received. Basically, my main goal for the summer break is to spend a few days in Hiroshima and then cram a good eight or ten hours a day with Japanese review. If it sounds like a broken record in my blog lately, it's because this pep talk is mostly for my own benefit.

Day 120 (Osaka) : Homework, review, and J-drama

Today was a typical Sunday. I spent most of the time catching up for slacking off the last two days and the rest of the time slacking off some more. I'm hyped about studying for the upcoming exam and all but something about this heat just saps all the strength out of me. Speaking of strength, I got my new 2.5kg wrist weights. I'm using them to step between my 20lbs dumb bells and the 40lbs I have in the closet. I'm hoping with three or four weeks tops I will be able to move up to whatever 20lbs plus 5kg is added up. I've never been a fan of conversions.

Oh, on the more productive side of slacking I've picked up a new Japanese drama to watch. Nobuta no Produce, and it's really difficult to explain how that title works out. It's basically another GTO's school drama that centers around bullying and a girl that doesn't fit in. America has released several movies with similar themes so I already know the general flow of the story before the credits even finish. It is good to listen to Japanese even if I am primarily focused on the English subtitles. The only time I listen to Japanese with full attention is in class or when I'm watching basic cable.

Speaking of basic cable, I was watching a show where they were walking around Osaka and Tokyo interviewing foreigners. Every time a pastey white guy in ridiculous clothes would get picked out of the crowd I would just kind of hang my head and start saying, "Don't be American, don't be American." Unfortunately a good number of the freak shows were American though Canada and Germany scored a few winners too. One of the Americans who looked normal and was speaking really impressive fluent Japanese took of his shirt to show his NGE tattoo. Most of the foreigners had been in Japan for fourteen to thirty six years, so I'm not too put off by the gap between my level and theirs. I'm just hoping that I can start closing the gap sooner than later.

Day 119 (Osaka) : It's kind of a big deal

There was a huge parade/festival/fireworks show event today in Osaka called "Tenjin Matsuri". Somehow when they were talking about it at school I walked away with the impression that it wasn't going to be all that big or interesting. Watching the live coverage on four different channels now, I realize that it is kind of a big deal. Now it gets to be one of those "better luck next time" kind of things that I have to make up next year. It was raining earlier today so I thought the festival would be kind of dead and boring but it looks pretty crazy. I don't regret missing it that much though. It's still terribly humid and miserably hot outside so avoiding that isn't too bad.

I have one more week of school before summer vacation starts and I finally get to take a trip. I'm going to head out to Hiroshima for a few days to see the sites and pay my respects on the anniversary of the atomic bombing. It wasn't my original plan to go on that day, but seeing as how it worked out that way it seems like I have to go now. Other than that I have to do some serious studying and preparation for my exams. It seems kind of messed up for the school to schedule the placement exams directly after an extended vacation. Even if I study my ass off for the next few weeks after a whole month of relaxing I'm probably going to forget at least half of it.

I've been watching a few movies on and off lately, but nothing really stands out. I'm still looking for good TV shows to get into since they kill much more time than a single shot movie. I'm looking forward to the summer passing so I can get out and enjoy walking around more. This weather is really limiting my choices.

Day 118 (Osaka) : Day of the speech contest

Today was even shorter than I was expecting. I thought we would have class for the first there hours and then do the speech contest during the original lunch period. I was off the mark by a good two hours. We basically came in for only the first session of kanji review before starting our hike across town to the auditorium where the contest was held. It was incredibly boring and really difficult to understand the people who were talking even though their Japanese was "very" good. A lot of the third year students still had problems with pronunciation and some of their sounds would blur between two or three other sounds so it was hard to be sure what they meant.

This year was almost entirely third year students, which I suspect is the norm for this kind of event. There was one second year student and one first year student, Shou from my class. It was actually pretty impressive listening to his speech even though I thought the theme was kind of lame. His Japanese level was on par with or better than most of the third year students. He even pulled third place at the end. Second place went to a guy who was talking about how to meet new lovers and first went to a girl who used the Chinese Olympic opening speech as her launching point for her theme. Her Japanese was by far the most fluent and natural sounding.

I have to point out that the guy from my class has a huge advantage in that he lives with his Japanese aunt or grandmother and uses Japanese everyday on a regular basis. That and his obsession with Japanese cartoons probably gives him more exposure to the language than I get watching old American sitcoms.

Day 117 (Osaka) : Another half day...

The teachers explained how the schedule for tomorrow's speech contest is going to work out. We're basically going to do the usual kanji review for the first hour or two, then go to the auditorium in the next building over for the speeches. The speeches are tentatively scheduled to end before lunch but instead of coming back to school for the last two hours of the day we're just going to call it quits and go home. I can definitely see how the teachers would be excited about this but I happen to think it's pretty lame. Considering that the school is already closed for almost half the year for various holidays, sporting events, hiking trips and so on it only makes sense to use every hour we have for class.

I tried to get a little assist from my contact at the school but she didn't come through for me. All I was asking for was some simple explanations of what is expected for the interview portion of the placement exams. She instead referred me back to the Japanese teacher that proctored the last interview portion. That blows for two reasons. Mainly because the explanation would be rendered useless by the fact that it will be in Japanese, but also because I have no idea who proctored the exam last time. I guess I'll try and get the information from the old lady sensei tomorrow before the speech contest kicks off. The sooner the better, because as it stands I can't even begin to prepare for the next exam's interview portion.

Day 116 (Osaka) : Kanji prep routine

I think I forgot it before, but I aced my last kanji test. Which is something just shy of a miracle considering I was up past midnight and I wasn't exactly studying. This time I'm sticking to the usual routine of studying until ten and setting my alarm for five. I've become a firm believer of the advantage you get from short repetitive studying sessions vice extended cram session. I've been studying today in intervals between watching The Unborn, eating, etc. Most of my study sessions are long enough to cover two pages or just over thirty minutes. I guess it all goes back to the bucket analogy.

The bucket analogy is used to describe the way people learn or remember things when they're exposed to something new. The bucket's size expresses the individuals capacity for learning, or how much they can juggle before they start to forget what they were studying thirty minutes ago or other wise drone off. The amount of material that becomes long term memory is considered to be whatever passes through a "hole" in the bottom of the bucket. The size of the hole represents how quickly the individual can process new information or how long it may take to absorb something new.

Explanation aside, it's easy to slam your brain with new information by reading or just surfing the net. On a short tangent some people think the internet has changed the human psyche by over-exposing us to information. They call it "data overload", how cool is that? But back to the point, but studying small sessions and then taking a break it allows your brain to process the information in a meaningful way as opposed to the three hour lectures we've all had in college that end up just sounding like white noise at the end. Haha, come to think it since I'm studying Japanese my white noise is in a foreign language so it's even easier to lose focus during class.

There was an eclipse today which reminded me of some basic science. The full eclipse is only viewable from a limited point of view on the earth. In this case it was on some small island near Okinawa. So even if it wasn't cloudy today, we would have seen a partial eclipse. The reason I bring this up is because in Heroes the eclipse is total in every location they're supposed to be at. That can't be right, right? Oh, and here is a shot of the eclipse that Mami took in Fukuoka which is much closer to the ideal location than I am in Osaka.

Day 115 (Osaka) : Dog tired

Pun intended. I was up from about midnight until three in the morning listening to one of my neighbors' new dog. What is that you say? Dog's aren't allowed in my apartment complex? That's absolutely right, but apparently someone doesn't really listen to rules like that. I was so worn out in the morning that I didn't realize the holiday off set me by a day. So I went to school believing it was still Monday and leaving half my books at home. Actually, that part didn't turn out so bad. I was surprised at how nice the teacher was about it. She even let me use her book without going on some kind of psycho rant like I was expecting.

I'm kind of disappointed though because I've been putting in a lot of effort finishing up the JLPT workbook. I've been through about twenty pages so far and she assigned another thirty pages today for next week's class. For all that work she probably thinks I haven't done any of it since I left all my work at home. This week is going to be super busy just trying to figure out all the new grammar points and which kanji I should be trying to remember for the next test. Speaking of tests, it looks like 1E is up to the test for Chapter 17 next Friday. My "advanced" class just finished the third grammar point in Chapter 16 so we're not even half way through it yet. Not to mention we just took Chapter 11's test last week. We're so far behind lately that I can't even remember what material we're supposed to be covering and what has been lost to the ancient past in this class.

Tonight I'm going to try to make up on the lost sleep, though surprisingly I was able to get a lot of work accomplished when I got home. I'm guessing it's because I ran out of TV shows to watch so I actually did my assignments instead of vegging out. Not like that's a good thing, I want to find a new show that's worth watching like the next season of Dexter.

Day 114 (Osaka) : Ocean Day

Today was a national holiday in Japan, 海の日 (umi no hi) or Ocean Day. Thanks to that I had another extended weekend which is becoming pretty painful. Getting adjusted to the new budget with my reduced income didn't seem like a big deal when I was planning it out around the concept I had from living near an American base. Entertainment and eats were cheap and plentiful there, not so much here. I figure I spend roughly fifty dollars a week on eats. Possibly a little more if I do the lunch thing every day but that rarely happens. Most of the time it's just three hundred yen takoyaki on the way to the convenience store.

Unlike the other long weekends this one feels like it went by too fast. Maybe I'm just not ready to go back to class. There definitely seems to be something missing from the learning formula with no real GPA's or any significant impact from poor performance on assignments. The only time grades have any effect at all are the during the placement/displacement exams that happen four times a week. The months in between those are like an unmotivated vacuum that sucks all the energy out of you. I mean sure, the scholarships are only awarded to students with perfect attendance so you have the motivation to attend class. But once you're actually there it doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense from that point. I'm sure hoping the US economy can get itself worked out so I can at least have the option of taking up employment State side when this is all said and done.

Day 113 (Osaka) : Hard sucks, I want easy

Lately everything I do is really hard and I'm not making a lot of progress in anything. Even when I try to relax and break out my PS3 it's just more difficult stuff that I can't seem to finish. What's with games lately being so insanely hard that you can't complete a reasonable amount without step by step guide. Even the simple stage based games are so challenging that I can't get through a few turns without losing and getting that awesome game over screen. I'm actually having this problem on three separate games which is really draining the enjoyment out of playing in the first place. The whole idea of games is to play, this stuff is too much like work lately.

The studies are at least moving a long. I haven't bothered to work through the kanji list yet but tomorrow is a holiday so that won't be too difficult to cover. I'm pretty disappointed in movies lately. With the exception of The Bucket List, I can't remember the last good movie that I've seen. That might be because I'm living in Japan and most movies are released a few months to a few years later. Sometimes I'm completely surprised by their "new releases" because I watched them before I left America in 2007. Hopefully when I get into the Japanese deep enough I can start enjoying the local cinema instead of waiting for English imports.

Day 112 (Osaka) : All out of Bang

Today was rough. It's hot as all, humid, the Japanese I'm studying is difficult, ran out of food except for a little bit of left overs, and managed to get a head ache for the first time in years. (Hang-overs don't count.) on the bright side after talking over some of the grammar points I managed to get a really firm understanding of about half of them. I also narrowed down the JLPT kanji that will be tested on Tuesday to a slim thirty eight, which is about half what I'm used to learning before a test.

I finished off the second season of The Big Bang Theory and I'm really disappointed to see it end. They're up for a third season but I probably won't be able to see it until I'm State side again. The show just seems to click with me for any number of reasons, but mostly because they seem to have the closest realistic scenario that I could hope to achieve in my own life. It would be cool to have like minded friends hanging out all the time to do interesting stuff with instead of just watching movies solo all the time.

Oh, I watched that Benjamin Button movie but it was incredibly long and disappointing. It became especially unrealistic when his body started to "ungrow" back into a baby. I could suspend disbelief to imagine a child that was born old and grew larger, but still looked old. From there it's a short leap to imagine that same person growing younger for whatever reason on the outside while still aging on the inside. What I couldn't wrap my head around was how his body would suddenly reduce it's size and structure from a full sized adult into an infant. It wasn't really necessary to seal the whole them of aging in reverse. It would have been just as meaningful if he died looking like a full grown teenager instead.

Monday is off for Umi No Hi, or beach day. I'll probably be spending it safely within range of a powerful AC unit where ever I go. I'm still not adapted to the Osaka heat with the super high humidity.

Day 111 (Osaka) : Surprise visit

Yesterday was a typical extended Friday. I was doing the math during lunch, since old lady sensei teaches twice a week we lose two hours every week while she reads the kanji a bajillion times. I think that explains why the class below us, 1E, took the Chapter 16 test on Friday while my class was taking the Chapter 11 test the day before. Yep, five chapter tests apart. One of the girls in my class already spoke with our home room teacher about it and received the following answer. "Our class isn't going slow, the other class is just going fast. There's nothing we can do. 我慢して。"

The last part was "gaman shite" and no it doesn't read the way you think it does if your pronouncing the word naturally in English. My dictionary defines the word as, "tolerate, put up with, be patient," but the way I translate it in my head is much closer to "suck it up". Following the teachers advice we're only going to loser two hours a week until the next placement test in about six school weeks. So what, twelve more hours of wasted time reading the kanji book. It occurs to me that Japanese schools do regularly include reading exercises where a class will read through a book consecutively, while translating or pointing out grammar usage in their respective passage. That kind of exercise would be pretty interesting, especially if we were reading something culturally significant.

I suppose that rant is long enough for this week. As the title suggests my class had a visitor, the cat from Mongolia that left after the short six month term. The funny thing is that he was one of the coolest people in my class. Because his wife was Japanese and he was the only Mongolian student he spoke 99% of the time in Japanese. Which explains both why I enjoyed his company and why his Japanese is still better than most of the other students despite the fact that he is no longer studying at the school. Now I just have to figure out if his Japanese is so much better than mine because of similarities between Japanese and Mongolian (no kidding, the teachers even pointed out how easy it is for Mongolian sumo wrestlers to pick it up because of how close the grammar is between the two), the frequency he speaks Japanese everyday, or having a Japanese wife. You know, necessity being the mother of all kinds of things.

Day 110 (Osaka) : Not standing out

I'm really disappointed in the conversation class that I have as an elective on Thursdays. For one, the practice is really week due to the fact that they mixed absolute beginners in with intermediate and advanced students. More important than that is the teacher. She is an absolute push over and the students talk constantly through out the class in their own language instead of Japanese. Even when she's asking people to repeat after her no one says anything at all. Most of the time I just stared at her and made eye contact so she would know I was listening but I get the impression that she thinks I'm either shy or not understanding the uber-noob material she is handing out.

A bigger disappointment than that was the morning lessons with Okumura sensei. She was explaining the meaning of 目立つ (medatsu) which basically means to stand out. At first she lead into it by saying that my class was popular among the teachers and for one reason or another we stood out as a whole. But to narrow the point down she said that three of us stood out in particular, all the teachers knew our names, and for whatever reason all of the people in question were guys. To make it more "fun" she wanted us to guess who stood out, everyone in the class said me. Of course, right? The school has a bajillion Asians but I can count the Americans on one hand literally.

Sadly, that isn't the case. For whatever reason she says I don't stand out at all. The guys who stood out were two Hong Kong guys and one of the Taiwanese guys. One guy is in love with anime and brings toys to class, so sure that stands out in a bad way. The other guy has a terrible accent... accent doesn't really describe it well. It's more like he's trying to talk with a male reproductive organ stuffed in his mouth. That image is courtesy of his fashion sense which he seemed to get from the all girl orphanage he was raised in. (Exaggeration) But seriously, something is missing in the guys up bringing if he can go shopping and walk away with a shirt that has blaze pink lettering with sparkles and never figure out that he wandered away from the men's clothing department... if he ever started there in the first place.

The last guy to stand out among all the teachers was a guy who ran fast. Yep. He ran fast during the softball thingy. I think it really highlights just how egotistical I am that just hearing that I didn't stand out has caused me so much discomfort. Well, because of that I'm studying and working out more than I have been since it seems like I obviously set my goals too low before.

Day 109 (Osaka) : Rounding up

Today was more productive than usual. I am going to try out the whole staying at school for at least one extra hour to study. This has a number of benefits not the least of which is being able to sit up straight in a desk instead of lounging around in my living room floor and being uncomfortable. Also I get to study without distractions which is hard to do with a fiber connection and a 52" TV waiting to rot my brain at home. I'm going to try to ace the next kanji test for my JLPT class on Tuesdays because I feel like the teacher is underestimating me.

I mentioned last time that I rocked the same 3/10 as the student setting next to me. Well, the teacher walked around the room scolding everyone else for their crappy grades but she just asked me if I had enough time to study. What really gets me is I missed one that I knew because I thought it was wrong and didn't write anything. I could have one up'ed that girl from the other day if I had gone with my gut. That's my main motivation for studying an extra hour after class and the test is only on how to read the kanji not how to write it so I can definitely do it if I put the time into it.

Day 108 (Osaka) : Karma rocks

Unfortunately double kanji tests do not rock. I feel like I did very average on the first exam on the morning but the test for the JLPT prep course was impossible, especially seeing as how I didn't study at all. The whole idea was to memorize every new kanji on some six pages of JLPT questions. Unlike the kanji drill book that is written in like 24 font with giant squares to separate each kanji so only three fit on a page, the JLPT study sheets read like novels with multiple choice questions thrown in the mix.

Now that seems like a pretty common sense formula for a difficult time, yet some how the classmate setting next to me didn't agree. She's from Hong Kong and has that advantage of having used kanji since she was like two, so I reminded her several times that despite my looks I am really American. (Heavy on the sarcasm...) She replied to that several times with some new way of telling me that I should study harder. When I explained to her that kanji wasn't difficult it was just too much in two short a time, she still couldn't understand and told me to study more. This went back and forth for almost ten minutes because I hate being looked down on, but even more so when I'm actually doing very well for my background so I just couldn't let it go.

Luckily, karma was on my side. I rocked out a 3/10 on the test! Haha, not so great right? Yeah, well little Miss You-should-study-more also got a 3/10. I was laughing pretty hard until she got that really strange look on her face. I couldn't figure out if it was anger, disappointed, tears coming up, who knows. She deserved a lower score for being so pompous about studying when she obviously needs more time in the books herself. Moments like that kind of make all the lame stuff at school seem kind of funny. You know, like the "you will laugh when you look back on it" kind of funny.

Day 107 (Osaka) : K1 = no studies

They have a guy in K1 with the nickname "Japanese killer", is that normal? Anyway, I was studying kanji pretty hard core after school until I found out K1 was coming on at 9. Now I'm going to be stuck watching a bunch of fights and some of them are probably fixed. For example, Hiroya's first fight was absolute garbage. I've been watching the kid fight since he was sixteen but this time he was against an American who was obviously throwing the match. They only went three rounds and in the last round the American cat wasn't even throwing a single punch. It's not like he thought he had the lead after losing it in the second round. I mean, any fighter who goes into a round knowing he is behind in points is going to try to make it up if he wants to win but this guy didn't' even try.

There was a really good knock out after that though so it's worth watching for that excitement. I kind of saw it coming though because it was a Japanese guy who was ripped like a beast against a skinny Thai guy. Yeah, the Thai guy knocked the big guy out. Surprised? I remember watching a movie once where that happened and the Thai fighter said that people fight for money just to eat in Thai so they are "hungrier" than other fighters. Now every time I see a Thai boxer step into a ring I expect them to win no matter what the size difference is because unlike the American guy who took a fall, you can't buy out someone who fights for food.

Ah, the "Japanese Killer" has a cool name. Dorago in katakana but I have no idea how it would really be spelled. The final match is on so I'm going to close this out and get ready for the early kanji studies tomorrow.

Day 106 (Osaka) : Knowing has nothing on Osaka heat

Another slow Sunday, listening to news radio and just relaxing. I did manage to close out two homework assignments but nothing too constructive. I'm starting to watch The Big Bang Theory season 1 and it's kind of interesting. Not nearly as good as it was described by my old co-worker but I'm giving it a chance to grow on me. But at this point I'm just looking for some exposure to English to keep my head level. Always working in Japanese and talking in Japanese is kind of stressful.

I ran out for groceries this morning and the heat is insane. You can actually feel the heat move the air around you when you're standing still. Still having a rough time buying any new food. I mostly get the same stir fry mix, some kind of meet, and veggies to stir fry. I'd like to say I'm tired of it and I'm ready to try something new but it's just so damn convenient. I cook up like double servings and then I fill two tubber thingies for left over. Making single serving just keeps the sink full of dishes and that's a huge pain.

Day 105(Osaka) : Movies + studies = bored

Yep, these extended weekends are very predictable. There's only so much I can do on a student budget. It mostly revolves around me lounging in front of my TV doing as little as possible so I don't break a sweat in this ungodly heat. I'm starting to wonder if doing an all nighter and sleeping during the day would make any difference. Though it's already too late in the weekend to be giving that a shot.

I watched one of the first movies I've ever seen in a long time. Some legend of that one chick from Street Fighter. The whole story was ridiculous, the acting was terrible, and even the camera angels were jacked up. There was one shot where they were trying to zoom into a pier from a distance but they didn't properly mount the thing so while it was zooming it was also jiggling in the wind. It looks like some really drunk person was just holding the camera in his hand to take the shot.

I think my favorite part was where M. Bison did a c-section with his bare hands so he wouldn't feel guilty anymore. Apparently some part of merc'ing his wife was supposed to make him stronger? But he didn't have any special powers compared to the main chicks magic ball of doom thingy. What's worse is that she totally wrecks the guy in a gruesome death right in front of his innocent daughter and then pretends to be a good guy. I mean bad guy snaps good girls father's neck in front of her, so it's only natural she would turn around and snap his neck in front of his own daughter. That's just karma... But seriously. What the heck was the message they were trying to give with this movie? It seriously makes me wonder if they ever even played the game before.

Day 104 (Osaka) : Couch potato minus the couch

I really dislike these extended weekends. I've made a little headway in my JLPT book but most of the day I just spend flipping the AC on and turning it off again to save money... maybe. The hardest part about the summer heat is the moisture. I would open the windows to let a cool breeze come in but even when it's not stifling hot the air is so thick it's like wading around in a pool when the windows are open. On top of that all my major sources of entertainment generate crazy amounts of heat. For example, this laptop runs crazy hot even with the cooling kit underneath. If I don't take a break every hour or so it gets hot to the touch around the keys.

I watched a really lame horror movie that was supposed to be based off a true story, but it was pretty far out there. The Haunting in Connecticut or something like that. I mean most movies that say "based on the true story" or very lose interpretations of true. When they say "based on" they really just mean they got the idea when they heard about the true story. They don't have to be related at all. Perfect example is that movie Kevin Bacon was in... the prison movie... Murder In The First. Read the true story behind that case and you will think the movie writers were smoking crack when the filmed it.

Anyway, this horror movie was based on a family that moved into a house that used to be a funeral home/psychic research/commune with the dead show that had one hundred bodies stuffed into the walls. Lots of things in the film were way out in left field like the priest who just happened to major in the black arts and necromancy so that he could understand and explain exactly what was going on in the house. They should have just named the priest "Father Plot Device" and made it more obvious. They don't make movies like they used to anymore. I miss the Lethal Weapons and Die Hard flicks that I grew up with.

Day 103 (Osaka) : Epic movies

I just finished watching The Watchers and while the movie was fairly good, it had the same problem as the first Hulk movie. It was just too long. The movie is almost three hours of jumbled story lines, flash backs, and character development which explains why so many people recommended reading the graphic novels in advance. I felt lost before the opening credits even finished because they were flashing through still shots of the characters and I had no idea what was going on. I think they easily could have trimmed an hour off without losing much of the story. A lot of the scenes seemed to be just random tangents like some kind of random shout out to the original works.



I finished the first two pages of my homework from the JLPT book. It bugs me that the teacher went through and strip out the answer keys and the CDs. I mean, I can see taking the keys so she can assign pages for homework but why take the CD from the cover? How am I supposed to pretend like I'm practicing the listening portion with no audio tracks? All the book has is blank images so without the audio instruction, question, and multiple choice it's all pretty moot. I made it through two pages because that was the goal I set for the day. I'm thinking tomorrow I will have to try to accomplish a little more or I will just be wasting my days off.

Day 102 (Osaka) : Four day weekend

Today is the official start of a very long weekend made possible by the school's choice to buy only enough tickets to their onsen trip to cover the teachers and a handful of students. Because of that the rest of us who were unfortunate enough to miss out on the trip will just have to settle for having Thursday and Friday off. Haha, sounds like a fair trade to me. I do love a good trip to the onsen and relaxing in a hot bath but come on, it's the middle of summer. If I want to know what it feels like in a steamy hot bath I just have to step outside or turn my AC off for five minutes.

That being said I'm going to try to follow through on the teacher's little pep speech from Tuesday. She said that anyone who studies hard for one year can pass JLPT level 2. I have the sneaking suspicion that she is being a little overly optimistic but I won't know if I don't try. So today I'm going to work through the JLPT drill book that I use in two of my elective classes. But as she pointed out it helps to study the wrong answers too since most of the challenge comes from not knowing the difference between A-D when you're trying to guess.

I rolled out to Torikizoku with the other American cat from school again. We figured it was a good way to get the weekend started since it's cheap and neither one of us felt like cooking. It's a crazy popular place though, so if you aren't there when the doors open you end up waiting for ever. We were on the list from 8:19pm until a little after nine. It surprised the crap out of me considering that it was a Wednesday and most of the suits in their were probably going back to their normal nine to eight jobs the next day. I guess when you work really hard you have to use whatever time you get to relax.

Day 101 (Osaka) : JLPT prep takes guts!

The second session of the lower level JLPT prep course was crazy hard today. The first course was a full on test covering the basics of reading, writing, and listening comprehension. This two hour session after lunch was a rapid cram session reviewing each of the questions, the answers, which ones were bogus answers, which ones had legitimate vocabulary, what the difference in meanings were, other words with similar meanings, and points of interest for future tests. If that doesn't sound difficult then I didn't do a good job explaining it the situation. The teacher was running through the material in Japanese only, writing tons of new kanji, and trying to squeeze all the material into two 50 minute lessons.

The teacher came across really strict the first session and most of today too, but I also got the impression that she has a playful side with the students from her class. She's just kind of heartless when it comes to people who don't have their dictionary or forgot something like their papers. It kind of worked out for the best since I'll be missing out on classes Thursday and Friday I can focus on the JLPT book without getting bogged down with other bogus assignments like making more drama scripts.

Speaking of holy crap Batman, this was on TV tonight. A guy cut his knee and got infected with a rare tree virus and BAM! Half man, half tree... without all the crime fighting.

Day 100 (Osaka) : Centinnial Day (Not really...)

Today marks 100 days in Osaka and considerably less in school, 65 to be exact. At first it seemed impossible to track the days actually spent in school but since we cover an exact number of kanji everyday we have class it boils down to some simple math. This also has the added benefit of shaving off the two hour exam "days" and the following Friday where we come to school for fifteen minutes of "homeroom" before going home. I don't consider either of those to count towards actually time spent studying at the school.

Unfortunately tomorrow is another kanji test so I'm rolling into that routine of early to bed and early to rise so I can try to score well. I was able to make time for my work out routine but not much else today. I've been spending most of the time scribbling kanji over and over to commit it to memory. The difficult part at this stage of my studies is that I'm starting to see more and more compound kanji that have the same reading as words that I have previously learned. This gets really confusing when the kanji that makes the most sense isn't the correct kanji for the new compound.

I was kind of bummed out by the news that I won't be able to take the JLPT level 2 course with the cool teacher that I liked from last week. Instead the school will be shutting down for the over night onsen trip that I was jipped out of a few weeks back. I'm still not sure how a school sponsored event sells out before all the students have a chance to attend. So to add insult to injury as it were, I'm not only missing the trip but I'm missing out on two days of study time.

It's already late, so this is going to be short. Tough break.

Day 99 (Osaka) : Slash bored

This Sunday went by way too quickly. I'm not ready to go through another week of sitting through classes trying to slam more Japanese into my head before the next exam. I thought I was going to catch up on some much needed sleep but I've kept myself pretty busy this weekend with studies and going out for drinks the other night. The new grammar points are just as confusing as the old ones and I keep expecting that to change. Like I'll have some over night transformation like the guy in "A Man Named Horse" or something, that suddenly the language will just dawn on me.

Unfortunately I'm not learning anything through osmosis yet and unless I put some major prep time into translating my book into English, I'm typically left in the dark during class. Like right now, we're using some grammar that is very similar to the basic explanation grammar we studied before. The difference is, and this is the kicker, "nuance". The dictionary site explains nuance as, a subtle difference or distinction in expression, meaning, response, etc. Now try wrapping your head around a slight difference in meaning when it's being explained in a foreign language that you don't really understand in the first place.

Day 98 (Osaka) : Torikizoku rocks

Torikizoku is probably the cheapest izakaya I've been to in Japan in the last seven or so years. It's not cheap in the bad way though, all the food and drinks that I've tried are really good. The appeal this place has is that everything on the menu is 280 yen or 294 yen with tax, but I always just average it to $3 per order. Tonight was the third time going there and I'm still surprised by how much we can go through without running up a crazy bill.

For example when I went out with the office lady from my school on Thursday the bill was a little over $50 for a few side dishes and maybe two or three drinks a piece. Tonight I had three of their ginormous beers, another huge plus they have, and at least six orders of food. My side of the bill came out to about $12 which is as close to half the last bill as I can get without breaking out a calculator or doing division long hand.

The coolest part was that I got to hang out with some of the new students plus some of my classmates who haven't made it out before. That's good in my opinion because if feels like I was getting sucked into one of the cliques they have going on at the school. I always got invited by the same people with the same people before, so it was starting to feel awkward. It's probably not important since the teachers said that the next placement exam is going to split everyone up. Ideally we would all move on to 2F which says that we are still above average students and that we reached second year in a natural progression since we enrolled.

Some of the students are kind of advanced though so it won't be surprising if the edge into third year status after the next exam. Plus some of the other students are young/lazy and don't study or do well lately so it won't be a big shock if they drop down a few letters or even get stuck in the 1G class that holds all the students who couldn't cut it in the 2nd year category.

Day 97 (Osaka) : Long days, short weeks

This is really starting to remind me of being in the Navy. Any given day drags out forever but the weeks seem to pass in no time. The topics in class are really confusing lately. Haha, it's kind of an inside joke but two of the girls in my class have the same name. Since the were paired together in class the teacher called their group "Chin Chin" which is kind of Japanese slang for your wanker. It shows how long I've been in Japan compared to my class mates that I was the only one that got a laugh out of that.

Next week we get the text book for the JLPT prep course which is going to such. Because my guess is that they will have us complete most of the text as homework so that they can spend the limited class time reviewing and correcting our answers. That's going to increase my work load by quite a lot considering that lately I don't do anything at all after school except work out and watch Heroes. Speaking of which I have to do something constructive to make up for the extra fried chicken that I had for lunch. I have been keeping the protein supplement as a regular part of my diet though so I think that balances out the greasy chicken and beer.

I might start studying at school more often so I can enjoy the full blasting AC instead of coming back to my apartment where I have to cut back to save money. I'll see how that feel floats over the weekend, might lose interest by the time Monday rolls around.

Day 96 (Osaka) : Thirsty Thursdays with the faculty

Today I finally got one of the office ladies to come out for a few drinks. It wasn't about trying to hook up or go on a date or anything, it's just that my image of Japanese school has always been drinking with the teachers and faculty like I've seen on TV. So this night out has been a long time in the making. The office lady in question is actually one of the few faculty members who speak English so it was a good chance to kick back on relax. The only bad part of the night was going to the new izakaya that opened up.

The sign outside said that things on the menu would be 240 yen, but our bill ran over 5,000 yen. We did get discount coupons for $10 off our next visit but I don't think I'll be going back anytime soon. It was kind of crowded and the waiters completely forgot about us for like an hour. Meanwhile they were bringing the table right next to us all the food in the kitchen. Speaking of food, I think I ate too much greasy fried food so I'm going to cut this short to prep clothes and get to my exercise for the night. Tomorrow is Friday, and then a nice relaxing weekend.

Day 95 (Osaka) : Stand up comedy FTW!

I'm already regretting my habit of waking up early before kanji tests. I didn't sleep well last night and tonight I'll be keeping that routine up by setting my alarm for 5:00am. I'm still inching in the normal five hours or so of uninterrupted sleep between the constant tossing and turning that I do so it can't be too bad. I'm just going to need a ton of coffee in the morning or one of those super energy drinks.

Class today was pretty awesome. The second JLPT course that I'm taking covers material from level 3 - level 2. The idea is that we'll work through our level 3 material over three weeks and focus mainly on level two after that. The introduction test that we took for this one was much more helpful in assessing my current position. I scored roughly 27/50 which is 6% shy of the requirement for passing the JLPT exam in December. I say roughly because the new teacher didn't break pace to go through a listening portion which probably would have lowered my score considerably.

The material and the teacher today were a hundred times better than yesterday. Yesterday the teacher talked fast, said nothing interesting, and just read off the correct answers because after taking the entire mock exam there was no time left. Today the teacher talked at a much more reasonable pace. She was also very funny they way she acted out things she was explaining and emphasized different words to get her point across. It felt like watching a comedy routine so I didn't have to feel sleepy listening to her lecture. Most importantly she reviewed almost all of the material in her placement exam. She wrote the question up on the bored, explained which JLPT level to expect to see each grammar point and which Chapter in our text to review them. The difference between the two were day and night, so I'll be looking forward to Wednesdays.

Tomorrow I have the kanji test in the morning and conversation practice in the afternoon. I have mixed emotions about what to expect from the conversation class. Speaking is my weak point right now, so it has the potential to be the most practical and beneficial class that I'll be taking this term. However, conversation practice invites all kind of lame dramas and skits that we've been wasting our time with until now. Some how the teachers don't seem to make the connection that memorize a few lines and trying to spill them in front of the class isn't the same as carrying a natural conversation.

I had intended to work out everyday but I'm going with the more realistic approach of taking a day of on the night before kanji tests. If anything, I'll knock out a few sets of push ups between pages that way I won't have to feel too guilty about it.