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.
Showing posts with label orientation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label orientation. Show all posts
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Today: More orientation
Today was the welcome ceremony for the Study in Kyoto program, which we were all dreading as it sounded like it would be painfully boring. We were pleasantly surprised when the day's schedule was passed out, and the ceremony itself only took up half an hour of it. It was survivable.
Directly after the ceremony was a crime and safety presentation, which was an hour. Again, we were all instantly dreading it, because it sounded like it would be an utterly boring bit about how to avoid getting your stuff snatched and getting told the laws for biking around and whatnot. That's actually exactly what it was, but some women from a volunteer group took the majority of the time up on the first part, modelling different ways of being dumb and smart for us. It was a presentation fit for a kindergarten class, except it was presented very enthusiastically, and I think seriously. I was having a very hard time keeping a straight face through it, but I was doing ok. Then I realized that sitting between two Irish people is a bad thing when you need to keep a straight face; John on my right lost it and keeled over laughing, hiding his face and shaking with laughter. That was all it took to push me over, and I wound up laughing enough to cry. Even through the police address on bike theft and safety I was still trying to stifle my laughter. We all agreed afterwards that it was an hour well-spent, generally described by the UK students as "brilliant."
Next on the agenda was lunch. The cafeteria once again exceeded all expectations I could possibly have for a cafeteria, let alone at a school. I had two types of fish, some potato-cake-like thing, soup, and a bowl of rice with a little bit of flavoring ingredients thrown in. It was all superb, with one of the fish items standing out as spectacularly good. I really need to learn the names of all the dishes.
After lunch, we met back up for the earthquake simulator. This is a truck belonging to the Kyoto fire department, which opens up and has a little kitchen setup and seating for four. After a bit of talk, they had us go in in groups and get a simulation of an earthquake of the same magnitude as the one that hit Kobe in the 90s and killed over six thousand people. All I can say is holy crap. The simulator itself was incredibly cool and impressive, but thinking about that kind of movement from the earth itself is mind-boggling and frightening.
Then, the orientation stuff was over, and for me and a lot of other students, it was off to the ward office to pick up the certificate proven we started the alien registration process, which we need to open bank accounts and register with the immigration bureau to work part-time. From there, I went on about a six-mile detour with Pernilla to a kendo store. She's a self-proclaimed kendo nerd, and had ordered some stuff which was ready to pick up. She's in the Japan World Perspectives course and can only speak and understand a small sliver of Japanese, so she wanted me to come along in case she needed language assistance. One of the staff members there was much better at English than I am with Japanese, so thankfully I didn't have to do too much--past saying she was there to pick up her stuff, all the dialog would have been way beyond my vocabulary level. I looked around and got an idea of how much material cost would be involved in starting with kendo; expensive, but not horrific.
Then it was homeward bound once more, and the end of the day. I've spent my time since playing with pictures. Unfortunately, Windows Vista has sinned once more, and this time instead of just annoying me with crappy performance or crippled and bloated interfaces it has made me furious. It decided to go screwball on my SD card when I deleted some of yesterday's pictures off of it, before I had pulled today's off. The files that I told it to delete remained with a file size of zero, so I pulled and reseated the card and ran scandisk on it to repair the file system. This had the effect of deleting everything on the card. I had pictures of the ceremony, the presentations, the cafeteria and its food, pictures and video of the earthquake simulator, and pictures of stuff in the Kendo store. All gone. I'm changing operating systems as soon as I can get some external storage to back up my stuff.
Directly after the ceremony was a crime and safety presentation, which was an hour. Again, we were all instantly dreading it, because it sounded like it would be an utterly boring bit about how to avoid getting your stuff snatched and getting told the laws for biking around and whatnot. That's actually exactly what it was, but some women from a volunteer group took the majority of the time up on the first part, modelling different ways of being dumb and smart for us. It was a presentation fit for a kindergarten class, except it was presented very enthusiastically, and I think seriously. I was having a very hard time keeping a straight face through it, but I was doing ok. Then I realized that sitting between two Irish people is a bad thing when you need to keep a straight face; John on my right lost it and keeled over laughing, hiding his face and shaking with laughter. That was all it took to push me over, and I wound up laughing enough to cry. Even through the police address on bike theft and safety I was still trying to stifle my laughter. We all agreed afterwards that it was an hour well-spent, generally described by the UK students as "brilliant."
Next on the agenda was lunch. The cafeteria once again exceeded all expectations I could possibly have for a cafeteria, let alone at a school. I had two types of fish, some potato-cake-like thing, soup, and a bowl of rice with a little bit of flavoring ingredients thrown in. It was all superb, with one of the fish items standing out as spectacularly good. I really need to learn the names of all the dishes.
After lunch, we met back up for the earthquake simulator. This is a truck belonging to the Kyoto fire department, which opens up and has a little kitchen setup and seating for four. After a bit of talk, they had us go in in groups and get a simulation of an earthquake of the same magnitude as the one that hit Kobe in the 90s and killed over six thousand people. All I can say is holy crap. The simulator itself was incredibly cool and impressive, but thinking about that kind of movement from the earth itself is mind-boggling and frightening.
Then, the orientation stuff was over, and for me and a lot of other students, it was off to the ward office to pick up the certificate proven we started the alien registration process, which we need to open bank accounts and register with the immigration bureau to work part-time. From there, I went on about a six-mile detour with Pernilla to a kendo store. She's a self-proclaimed kendo nerd, and had ordered some stuff which was ready to pick up. She's in the Japan World Perspectives course and can only speak and understand a small sliver of Japanese, so she wanted me to come along in case she needed language assistance. One of the staff members there was much better at English than I am with Japanese, so thankfully I didn't have to do too much--past saying she was there to pick up her stuff, all the dialog would have been way beyond my vocabulary level. I looked around and got an idea of how much material cost would be involved in starting with kendo; expensive, but not horrific.
Then it was homeward bound once more, and the end of the day. I've spent my time since playing with pictures. Unfortunately, Windows Vista has sinned once more, and this time instead of just annoying me with crappy performance or crippled and bloated interfaces it has made me furious. It decided to go screwball on my SD card when I deleted some of yesterday's pictures off of it, before I had pulled today's off. The files that I told it to delete remained with a file size of zero, so I pulled and reseated the card and ran scandisk on it to repair the file system. This had the effect of deleting everything on the card. I had pictures of the ceremony, the presentations, the cafeteria and its food, pictures and video of the earthquake simulator, and pictures of stuff in the Kendo store. All gone. I'm changing operating systems as soon as I can get some external storage to back up my stuff.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Interview, Food, Boredom, and Bikes
So this morning kicked off with the placement interviews to determine what level of conversation classes we'd be going into. Apparently, when my name was up and I was walking from the waiting room to the classroom where mine would be held, I looked terrified. To say that I am currently shy about speaking in Japanese is an understatement, and I expected the worst. My fears were by no means assuaged when I saw that I had two interviewers instead of the one that everyone else reported, nor by the fact that they were reading my (Japanese) essay from the application to the program. Being generous to my speaking skills and humble about my reading and writing skill, I'm about 10 times better at the written aspect, and I spent quite a lot of time working on that essay, with a lot of dictionary use. So my immediate thought was that they were going to hold me to that level, and that I was completely doomed.
But, the interview was surprisingly gentle. They asked me to introduce myself. When I ran out of ideas for what to say, they prompted me with questions--why I wanted to come to Japan, whether I like Japanese food, how Kyoto and Albuquerque compare, what my hobbies are, etc. They asked follow-up questions that flowed directly from my responses, which usually lead me into language dead-ends where I didn't have any idea how to answer. But they were always very friendly about it. In the end, it wound up being not nearly as bad as I had expected, despite the fact that I did just as poorly as I had expected. I once again feel like they got enough information in the right way that I'll be placed exactly where I need to be.
After that, I decided that my 3-egg breakfast had been entirely insufficient, and went to the cafeteria to obtain some much-needed protein. A quick tour of the options, as with so many other things at this school, put UNM to shame. The cafeterias are all run by the Rits Coop, which is a coop in the truest sense of the word. Members' desires run the show here, and profit doesn't seem to be a factor. I decided on the buffet after noticing the sign that said "1 gram = 1.05¥" and heaped a plate high. That price works out to $4.53 per pound, and it included plenty of meat, with everything cooked and absolutely delicious, in a country where meat is usually several dollars more per pound.
This leads to an interesting side note about how good Google's calculator has gotten. A search string of "1.05 yen per gram in dollars per pound" gives you the answer directly. I'm impressed.
Anyway, there was also free tea, both hot and cold. On first impression, the Rits cafeteria gets an unreserved two thumbs up.
After food, it was paperwork and info sessions, both of which were mind-meltingly dull and stretched for five and a half hours. After that, some of the other students at the I-House asked me to show them a couple of biking shortcuts I found while getting lost, and I got to play guide. I got to enjoy the perverse pleasure of a guide enjoying people complaining about a little bit of a hill (heh), and the less-perverse joy of being told someone else thought it was fun and amusing too.
The last note for the day is that I upgraded my Skype subscription, and now have a US phone number that people can call to reach me. If and when I get a cell phone, I can also forward calls straight to it. So my connection to home just got much stronger. My girlfriend called tonight, and while we've been talking almost every day, her being able to call me again is making me all warm and fuzzy. If anyone reading this wants my phone number, leave a comment and I'll get it to you (providing I know you and whatnot).
But, the interview was surprisingly gentle. They asked me to introduce myself. When I ran out of ideas for what to say, they prompted me with questions--why I wanted to come to Japan, whether I like Japanese food, how Kyoto and Albuquerque compare, what my hobbies are, etc. They asked follow-up questions that flowed directly from my responses, which usually lead me into language dead-ends where I didn't have any idea how to answer. But they were always very friendly about it. In the end, it wound up being not nearly as bad as I had expected, despite the fact that I did just as poorly as I had expected. I once again feel like they got enough information in the right way that I'll be placed exactly where I need to be.
After that, I decided that my 3-egg breakfast had been entirely insufficient, and went to the cafeteria to obtain some much-needed protein. A quick tour of the options, as with so many other things at this school, put UNM to shame. The cafeterias are all run by the Rits Coop, which is a coop in the truest sense of the word. Members' desires run the show here, and profit doesn't seem to be a factor. I decided on the buffet after noticing the sign that said "1 gram = 1.05¥" and heaped a plate high. That price works out to $4.53 per pound, and it included plenty of meat, with everything cooked and absolutely delicious, in a country where meat is usually several dollars more per pound.
This leads to an interesting side note about how good Google's calculator has gotten. A search string of "1.05 yen per gram in dollars per pound" gives you the answer directly. I'm impressed.
Anyway, there was also free tea, both hot and cold. On first impression, the Rits cafeteria gets an unreserved two thumbs up.
After food, it was paperwork and info sessions, both of which were mind-meltingly dull and stretched for five and a half hours. After that, some of the other students at the I-House asked me to show them a couple of biking shortcuts I found while getting lost, and I got to play guide. I got to enjoy the perverse pleasure of a guide enjoying people complaining about a little bit of a hill (heh), and the less-perverse joy of being told someone else thought it was fun and amusing too.
The last note for the day is that I upgraded my Skype subscription, and now have a US phone number that people can call to reach me. If and when I get a cell phone, I can also forward calls straight to it. So my connection to home just got much stronger. My girlfriend called tonight, and while we've been talking almost every day, her being able to call me again is making me all warm and fuzzy. If anyone reading this wants my phone number, leave a comment and I'll get it to you (providing I know you and whatnot).
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Orientation begins
The first thing that I feel like I should mention is that Sinlaku did pretty much nothing here. The tracking maps show that it passed as close as the forecast had said it would, and it actually strengthened back to a category 1 typhoon from a tropical storm while it was about even with the Kansai area. We got a negligible amount of rain, cloud cover that wasn't thick enough to make it look gloomy, and a breeze that was just strong enough to feel good. I was kind of looking forward to things getting hectic, but it just didn't happen.
Anyway, yesterday's activities kicked off with the placement tests, listening first and written second. I have no idea how I did on the listening portion; for a good deal of that, I felt I was on the edge of understanding, and I think I got the meaning right, but there was a good chance I misunderstood a lot. The written section was much more clear-cut and less stressful. It was in several successive sections that got harder and harder, presumably each one representative of what you should know at the end of a semester of language study here. So, the test was easy, easy, easy, easy, easy, and then suddenly I didn't know a single thing. Past the first question that I had to guess on, I think I knew one question without guessing. So, as far as placement tests go, I think it was quite well-designed.
While we won't know our placement until Thursday, I'm happy with how I did. There wasn't anything on the test that I felt I should know but forgot--after generally neglecting to study or review over the summer, I was worried about that. Ironically, if I hadn't done my massive study session Thursday, I would have done exactly the same on those tests. Oh well though. I should get placed right where I need to be.
After the test we got a free lunch at the cafeteria. The food was spectacular. I had pork, fried rice, a bunch of things I don't know names for or what they were made of, and some orange slices and pineapple. I met a lot of people and promptly forgot most of their names. There are somewhere around 80 or 100 students in this program, so it'll take me a while.
After food, we went back to boring things--handing out information and whatnot. I've got a bunch of paperwork that I need to do, and right now I don't even remember what most of it is for. Following that and a campus tour, we all headed back to our dorms, and then post-test festivities kicked in. The people here are really fun. There was lots of laughter, and everyone is getting along quite well. This should be a good year.
I put up a few pictures from yesterday in my Picasa gallery, in the Orientation album. I'll continue adding photos to that one as the orientations continue. I've now got a permanent link to the gallery up, just below my profile on this page.
Anyway, yesterday's activities kicked off with the placement tests, listening first and written second. I have no idea how I did on the listening portion; for a good deal of that, I felt I was on the edge of understanding, and I think I got the meaning right, but there was a good chance I misunderstood a lot. The written section was much more clear-cut and less stressful. It was in several successive sections that got harder and harder, presumably each one representative of what you should know at the end of a semester of language study here. So, the test was easy, easy, easy, easy, easy, and then suddenly I didn't know a single thing. Past the first question that I had to guess on, I think I knew one question without guessing. So, as far as placement tests go, I think it was quite well-designed.
While we won't know our placement until Thursday, I'm happy with how I did. There wasn't anything on the test that I felt I should know but forgot--after generally neglecting to study or review over the summer, I was worried about that. Ironically, if I hadn't done my massive study session Thursday, I would have done exactly the same on those tests. Oh well though. I should get placed right where I need to be.
After the test we got a free lunch at the cafeteria. The food was spectacular. I had pork, fried rice, a bunch of things I don't know names for or what they were made of, and some orange slices and pineapple. I met a lot of people and promptly forgot most of their names. There are somewhere around 80 or 100 students in this program, so it'll take me a while.
After food, we went back to boring things--handing out information and whatnot. I've got a bunch of paperwork that I need to do, and right now I don't even remember what most of it is for. Following that and a campus tour, we all headed back to our dorms, and then post-test festivities kicked in. The people here are really fun. There was lots of laughter, and everyone is getting along quite well. This should be a good year.
I put up a few pictures from yesterday in my Picasa gallery, in the Orientation album. I'll continue adding photos to that one as the orientations continue. I've now got a permanent link to the gallery up, just below my profile on this page.
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