Reicheru's Blog

Since I last wrote in my blog, many things have happened.

I got over my swine flu, but ended up missing the last week of lessons and the week of exams. I was so tired due to my upside-down sleeping patterns. Not to say I slept upside down, but rather if I went to bed it was at 5am-6am in the morning and I would get up at 3pm-4pm. Occasionally I didn’t sleep at all for periods of over 24 hours.
So I met with my teacher, Kanayama-sensei,  on the Friday at 4pm which was the last day of the exams. She tried to convince me to just resit the semester rather than take the exams, since I wasn’t doing very well in class anyway. Considering I was homesick, injured, depressed and tired for pretty much the entire semester ensured I couldn’t do better than scrape a pass.
Anyways, just after the meeting she mentioned that there was a party to celebrate the end of the semester, so I went along since my headache wasn’t too bad and I figured it would make me sleepy enough to sleep early.
It was a really fun party and I got to see my friends again. It was pretty cheap considering it was all you can drink and they gave us some nice-ish food. Best thing was socialising with the teachers (Song-sensei and Kanayama-sensei both sat at our table in the izakaya) and seeing Chanelle mix drinks while trying not to get caught by the izakaya staff, having brought her own selection in with the intention of mixing mojitos and pina coladas for the teachers. For some reason they had never tried them before.

I went home afterwards, having to wait half an hour for the bus (bought some cakes from the Little Mermaid bakery before it closed. They make really nice apple pies. Though maybe not as good as my nana Margaret or my little brother. Their apple pies are amazing.

I revised my butt off for the exams. Was in the library as much as I had been before I had the internet, though it was crowded a lot and I couldn’t get a good desk. I spent 6 hours there drumming causative and passive verbs into my head and writing out kanji after kanji. I even practiced speed reading, which came in so useful in my final exam, since I mistimed it and ended up having 10 minutes to finish the reading section.

I think, despite my mountains of revision, that I failed. Mostly due to my abismal performance in the speaking test. I’d just finished the 2 hour final exam and due to mistiming it I had been forced to miss out some grammar questions I would have otherwise been ablw to answer, and then had 10 minutes to read a 2 page spread of text and answer 2 pages of questions on it. I answered all the questions though, with the exception on the extended writing answer. It shook me up though, realising I had probably failed despite the fact I actually thought I did ok on the kanji and grammar until that point. I ended up with no break and went straight in to the speaking exam. My mind blanked, and the kanji readings in the text that I memorised that morning left me struggling. I made so many mistakes that I knew it was going to be a failure. I ended up getting upset and could hardly continue. I got to the interview part and got through that ok, except half way through I realised I was supposed to be using polite and humble forms and I wasn’t. So I failed again. Then I got to the roleplay. I had written out and practiced 2 of the 3 roleplays. I was better at the one on my experiences in Japan though, and knew I would do well if I got that one. But I was given the letter of reccommendation role play which I wasn’t as good at, and ended up forgetting how to speak any Japanese at all. So I gave up and didn’t finish it.

Kanayama-sensei said I only had around 50% before these exams and I need 60% to pass, so I doubt I will pass.
But she says I will be better off resitting JLP3, but it ruins my plans. I wanted to do JLP3 this semester, JLP4 next semester and intensive JLP5 and 6 in my final semester. If I have to resit, then JLP4 is the highest I can get, and it isn’t good enough to get fluent for my final year in Japanese at Newcastle University.
Also if I fail this semester, I may get my scholarship taken off me, and have to repay the 100,000yen I have already recieved. Though I can’t exactly help the fact I had influenza…

I have been pretty lonely whilst in Japan, but I am starting to get out more and make more friends. I went to Tokyo Disney Sea with the Soul Run people. I could only afford to go after 6pm (which is 3,100yen as opposed to 6,500yen for the whole day) but it was still amazing. I got to ride some fun rides and see a 3D Aladdin live show, and I bought some Minnie Mouse ears (they were 1,050yen though :S ) The fireworks were amazing. Everything was so Christmassy even though it is onlt November!
On December 2nd we are all going to Disney Land for the day. I hope I can afford it, since I am running low on money. I’m going to transfer more over this evening when the UK is up and running. I think it will be faster than last time, mostly because I actually know I need to go convert it from pounds to yen myself rather than waiting for it to happen itself. Maybe I will get a good exchange rate this time?

I went out with Gary and the guys from Canada House the other day. We went to a festival at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies not too far from ICU’s campus. We rode our bikes there, which was good because I needed the exercise. I hadn’t eaten all day but I didn’t like how small the food portion sizes were for the money they were charging. I gave in and bought some ゆず茶(Yuzu Tea) from the Korean food stall. Yuzu are a sweet citrus fruit that is very popular in Japan. It reminded me of how Lemsip would taste if it was actually yummy. Very sweet and tangy.
After the festival, some of us went off to Higashi-Koganei station’s side streets and got some Gyoza from this really nice restaurant. It only cost 500yen for 2 rows of gyoza (10 gyoza in totally I think. either 10 or 12) plus a bowl of rice, some pickles and some soup. There was free water on the table too. I had a really fun time and made new friends – some American, some Japanese.

I am hoping that I will spend the holidays going places with friends, but everyone seems busy going outside Tokyo. I can’t afford that yet. Maybe I can’t afford it until after Christmas, or perhaps not at all.

I am looking forward to Soul Run Video Night #2 (I was unaware #1 had even happened) and I really hope I have the money for Disney Land on the 2nd.