Exchange rates and a big breakfast

The exciting news for the day comes from a tip from a Earl. He's in all but one of my class sessions and lives three doors down the hall in my dorm, but was also here last semester. Last night he asked a bunch of us newbies if we wanted to go for breakfast on campus with him today, saying it's pretty cheap. This sounded good because it meant something different to eat. I've still been being pretty uncreative with what ingredients I'm buying.

So this morning we went to cafeteria in the Ikagakukan in the southeast corner of the campus. Every school day, from seven to nine in the morning, it's a buffet-style breakfast, all-you-can-eat style. You get one plate, one bowl of miso soup, one bowl of rice, and as much tea (hot, cold, or both) as you want for 260 yen. You can fit an awful lot of food on one plate if you've had practice.

I should note that the breakfast options are not the typical ones. There is more fresh fruit than there is at lunch, but the rest of the options have more meat in them than the lunch buffet. I've had chicken for breakfast more times than I can count, and I've been a big fan of it, but after having octopus and squid for breakfast I think my preferences may have changed. Octopus feels amazingly substantial in the morning.

Tomorrow I'm going to repeat this, except this time I'm going to bring a container along to stash save half of the monster breakfast for lunch.

Now, the annoying bit for the day: since the US economy is taking a nose-dive due to the panic bill, while this breakfast would have been $2.47 a week ago, it's now at about $2.60. Almost a 5% in change in a week, after the dollar and the yen were pretty much in lockstep for at least a year. That's not a good sign...

Placement results

Today started with a big group of us new students going to the recommended bank, 中央信用金庫 (Chuu-ou shinyou kinko) to open up accounts. This particular bank is recommended because it qualifies us for a monthly rebate on the national health insurance. We started filing in, and I got to see something I rarely see, but find amusing every time: some of the poker-faced bank employees slipped and showed emotion. I can't say I blame them, as the customer count went from 2 to 50-something within a minute. They all quickly regained their composure, and then it was the waiting and paperwork game. I had prepared my paperwork ahead of time, but had to redo all of it, as I goofed up and wrote my name in the standard western order, instead of last name first as my alien registration and school id showed. But, mostly it was just waiting, and after two hours I finally got everything. Now I just need to figure out how to transfer money from my account at home, and quickly, because rent is due on Wednesday.

After eating lunch it was time for class registration and placement test results... meaning more paperwork. There was a lottery for the Shamisen class, and I didn't make the cut, so my only traditional arts course will be calligraphy. As far as placement goes, there are six different levels of classes, Seiki and from A to E. Seiki students get to choose classes from the general catalog, alongside the normal Ritsumeikan students. I was expecting, based on my impression of the test, that I would be placed in C for the general class, and D or maybe even E for the speaking and listening class. I got placed into C for both, which is really surprising. After I asked around and found out who some of my classmates for the conversation portion will be--especially after having heard them speaking, and knowing how I sound--I was even more surprised.

I should probably be happy about my placement, since I actually did better than I thought, but I can't help feeling a bit disappointed. Perhaps it's just because I'm tired from repeatedly staying awake far too late, or perhaps it's because the letters feel like a grade and I hate C's. The program's expectation is that students move up one level after one semester, so I can expect to get to B for the spring, but depending on the workload and pace of the classes, I might try to learn enough to get to A.

Alien registration

Today a group of 10 of us went to the school and to the ward office to get our 外国人登録証 (Alien Registration Card) paperwork taken care of. Since we were going as a group, I had to play along and take public transportation. We took the bus to school, and did the paperwork there, with the SKP Buddies checking to make sure we did the paperwork correctly. Then we walked to the train station, and took the train to the ward office, then after that was done repeated the route in reverse. The train cost 200円 each way, and the bus 220円; all together, for probably less than six miles, it totalled 840円, which at the current rate is about $7.96.

I think I'll stick to my bike and my feet for daily errands, and definitely for going to school. Taking the bus every day I need to go to campus this semester, assuming I don't take any weekend trips, would cost 19580円: $185.42. I can think of a lot of things I'd rather do with that amount of money.

Anyway, I hadn't met any of the people in the group yet; most of them got here in the last couple of days. In no particular order: Alysson and Bob from London, Aoife from Dublin, Peter from Australia, Stephani from Seattle, and a girl from Soeul whose name I forgot (hey, I'm trying). We met three more of the SKP Buddies. SKP Buddies are Japanese Ritsumeikan students who help us lost new international students around. I had already met Yuki and Miho, who live in the I-House II. Today I met Asako, Tomoyo, and Yo-chan. They're all really helpful, and Yo-chan in particular was loads of fun. She asked us if any of us were in the Japanese World Perspectives program, and when we answered that we were all in SKP (Study in Kyoto Program, the intensive language track), she gave a delighted laugh and refused to speak any more English for the rest of the day, and tried to keep us talking as much as possible.

I did bring my camera, but my attempts at candid group shots pretty much all completely failed, and I didn't feel like asking for a posed group shot. Pictures with people will come sooner or later.

One thing of particular interest I learned today came from Eva: a program called Anki exists that does a lot of the things I've been looking for in a program. It's got kanji and word information and does intelligent progress-based flash card quizzes. I'll still write my own program, since this still doesn't have a pretty major aspect of what I have in mind for what I think would be the best kanji and vocabulary learning software, but for now this has the very distinct advantage of already being written and working. I'm going to be pretty much studying all night tonight, and all of tomorrow, in preparation for the written placement tests Friday morning. They don't really care how well or poorly people do on the placement tests, as they have classes ranging from almost pure beginner to completely fluent, so I don't need to stress out about it... but I want to get placed into a level that challenges me. The better I do, the harder things will be, so I'm aiming high.