Meeting people, eating sushi, and climbing mountains

We had a special session of class today, which wound up being one of the most difficult class periods I can remember, including any number of tests. Our teachers got some volunteer Japanese students to come into class and talk with us. We were to interview them about recommendations for improving at various aspects of learning the Japanese language, both in groups of four and one-on-one. I did get some good ideas out of this, but it's still quite hard to ask these sorts of questions, and frequently it's hard for me to understand the answers as well.

After going through the relevant class items, we could talk with them about whatever we wanted, as long as it wasn't in English--this part of it was much more fun, and quite a bit easier. I asked everyone for recommendations on books to read, and one of them is going to let me borrow books. In talking with her, I also found out this student spent a year studying abroad in Boulder, Colorado at the same time that I lived in Castle Rock, Colorado. Interesting.

In a little while tonight, I will be going out with a bunch of the students for sushi. While a couple of the students prepared sashimi for the potluck party a couple of weekends ago, I haven't gone out for sushi since I got here. This is actually the longest I've gone this calender year without having sushi. Clearly this must (and will) be fixed.

Meanwhile, probably due to my reduced level of activity compared to the summer, I've been having problems getting to sleep for the last week. In order to fix this, on Sunday I'm going to go climb a mountain.
The visible high point is 愛宕山 (Atago-yama, or Mount Atago), which is the highest point in this ward and the highest of the mountains immediately surrounding Kyoto. At 924m elevation (3031ft) vs my dorm's 71m (234ft), 7.08km or 4.4 miles away in a straight line, it should make for a decently tiring and scenic but short excursion. Unless I bring along slow people. Which I'll try to do because they'll whine and I'll think it's funny.

Getting serious

With my homework load fairly light over the weekend, I finally decided on something that I've been mulling over since I got here. Since I have discovered Anki, it sort of feels like any ridiculous goal for learning vocabulary is possible, so naturally I feel inclined to test this notion and try to learn all of the JLPT1 vocabulary. The Japanese Language Proficiency Test is a standardized test for certifying a foreigner's level of linguistic competence that's given once per year, with four different levels that you can attempt. The beginner's level, 4, tests knowledge of about 100 kanji and 800 words, which is supposed to be equivalent to about 150 hours of study. Level 1 tests about 2000 kanji and 10,000 words, corresponding roughly to a Japanese high school graduate's level of literacy. Somehow this is supposed to be reachable within 900 hours of study, but I have my doubts about that figure.

Anyway, I downloaded a flash card deck for it for Anki, and just had to work out the scheduling. The most obvious goal, and the one that would do me the most good, is to get this done before the placement test at the start of the next semester. This would go a long way into putting me into harder classes where the speaking and listening requirements also increase substantially; otherwise my main improvement will only be with the written language. There are two cards per word or kanji, one for recognizing the word and one for producing it, for a total of 17474 cards. To give myself a proper amount of time to review everything, I've worked this out to 160 new cards per day.

Everybody seems to think I'm insane. I'm ok with this. Now that I've told enough people my absurd plan, and nobody thinks I can do it, I have to prove everyone wrong.

Additionally, the amount of homework from my classes, while it's still light right now, is increasing. It might soon get to a level where I have to take it pretty seriously. So, I'm finally starting to get serious about studying.

Mostly quiet on the Eastern Front

I've skipped a couple days' worth of posts due to school and other occurences, but this also has the effect of allowing me to make a full post. Hoorah!

Tuesday, I woke up early to go to the bank, withdraw money, and then pay my rent and class fees before the 10:30 am rent deadline. During mild rain I set out on my creaky bike. I got halfway between the first and second lights after Ninna-ji, standing and mashing the pedals as usual since the bike is too small, when suddenly the left pedal (which had more of a grinding feel anyway) starting feeling wobbly. I sat down immediately and looked down at my foot while pedaling. Within one more pedal revolution, the left crankarm of the bike fell off. Great... either the nut that holds the arm on wasn't properly torqued and I pedalled hard enough to loosen it, or it wasn't there in the first place and I finally managed to break the rust. Anyway, I got to do some extra walking, but still wound up getting everything done before the rent deadline. Although it's been established that there's nothing that happens if you don't pay on time, I wanted to get it done on time anyway.

After classes, I got the bike fixed at a nearby shop for a pittance. The bike no longer creaks with every pedal stroke. I got the third and last of my textbooks, the one for my conversation class, which brings my total textbook expense for the semester to 6210円, or about $59.14 at the current rate. After five semesters of buying textbooks for UNM, this is astounding to me.

Wednesday I had only one class session, and the weather was fantastic, so I went to Kinkaku-ji. While I didn't have the mental energy to make a blog post afterwards, I did do a pretty decent job of captioning my gallery of it. Here's a direct link to the gallery.

Anyway, I have now been to every class at least once. Out of ten 90-minute class sessions per week, one is taught in English. My language class teachers have demonstrated that they can speak English just fine, but without actually saying it they've conveyed that we should only bail out and cheat when we absolutely can't think of how to ask something in Japanese. So far the workload is low. I did one assignment during the week, and I did about half of my weekend's homework today in about an hour. This means I should be able to get a good amount of kanji study in over the weekend. For this semester's kanji, I already know 140 out of 252 of them reasonably well; over the weekend I could get to where I know all of them reasonably well, and if I review them enough I could know them all permanently by the end of the month. Because learning this amount of kanji sounds relatively easy to me, I'm going to up the ante and study the B class's kanji as well. I think it's worth the effort for me to try to bump up to A next semester instead of going to B like normal.

In other news, today, I got a friendly simultaneous reminder that it's good to be in Japan, and that it's also still a good idea to pay attention instead of being a retard. After my classes and buying a composition notebook for the weekend's homework, I noticed my keys were not in my pocket. After a moment of panic, I decided the most likely cause of this was that I left my keys sitting in the bike lock. I got to my bike, and sure enough, it was there, locked, with the key sitting in the lock, untouched. I wouldn't ever expect to see my bike again if I did that at UNM, but then, at UNM they don't have multiple bike parking lots like this:
The second floor.
The first floor.
A constant line of people going in to the 2nd floor - the first floor is closed and full. Since my shot of the first floor has an admittedly crappy exposure, to put this into proper perspective, there's parking room for approximately 6000 bikes on the first floor alone. There's another bike lot the same size as this one at the south gate, and a 2nd-floor-only lot that's not quite as big at the north gate. There are lot attendants almost always on duty making sure that the bikes are packed in nice and tight. The traffic, the attendants, and the fact that it's Japan probably all deserve credit for my bike still being there.

Admittedly, if my bike had vanished, I wouldn't have been terribly upset. But, I would have been disgruntled that my room key and helmet were gone. It would cost me at least 50% more to replace the helmet than to buy another bike of that caliber.

More new classes and Typhoon Jangmi

Today, I had my first sessions of my Japanese conversation and Japanese calligraphy, along with the second session of my Japanese grammar class with a different teacher (I have four different teachers for the grammar class). Apparently the homework that I was trying to do for so much of yesterday wasn't due today, it was to be started today. The schedule sheet didn't specify whether it was listing due dates or "do" dates, so I assumed the path of more work. I imagine it would have been much easier after today's class, but who knows. It might not be a bad thing to prove myself serious about things; I may wind up needing some slack later on.

Anyway, so far, I'm liking my language classes a lot. I got more speaking practice in my classes today than I usually got in a months' time back home. It actually does seem possible that I could hold a decently fluid-sounding conversation in a month or two. I will have to stop acting so shy about things outside of class though. But, an exciting thing that may help even more, even with that last bit: we can get free Japanese tutors! We just have to sign up for it and say when we're free, and the International Center will try to match us up with a tutor on-campus during class periods we have off. Awesome.

In other news, Jangmi has done its damage to Taiwan. Even now, I can't find any reliable news on the storm's effects. There are such conflicts of information as "Torrential rains and strong winds have detroyed more than 86 thousands households" vs another news source saying 86 thousand homes are without power. I can't find any two English sources that say the same thing as far as what effects there are, except that they all agree there are a lot of mudslides due to the island still being saturated from Sinlaku.

Apparently Jangmi is only the fourth most powerful storm to hit Taiwan this year. I'm starting to realize the extent to which American media sources keep us in the dark at home. If anybody reading this actually heard anything at all about Jangmi besides on my blog, please drop a comment and let me know. I'm curious.

edit: proving the news sources writing Jangmi articles in English are crap, the 4th most powerful storm thing should actually just be 4th storm. July 13th Kalmaegi as a tropical storm, July 23rd Fung-Wong and September 13th Sinlaku as category 2 typhoons, and September 28th Jangmi as a category 4.

By Wikipedia's stats, which sadly enough seem far more consistent and reliable than the general media's, the 2008 Pacific typhoon season has claimed at least 1612 human lives and "1.366 billion USD." The Atlantic season has done in 944 and "~52 billion USD." I guess that's the real reason the US media is ignoring the Pacific; they just don't know how to blow things out of proportion and defraud insurance companies over here yet.

Potluck party and first day of class

Last night after the whole orientation and registration stuff, we residents of the I-House II had a potluck dinner party. I was looking forward to it as soon as I heard about it; we have students from something like 14 different countries here, and it seems like all but a few of us US students know how to cook pretty well. It took quite a while for everyone to get ready, as there are quite a few more of us than there are stove surfaces, and some people's dishes needed two or more burners at a time. We wound up started an hour and a half later than the proposed time, so by the time we could start digging in, I was starving. Generally speaking the food was amazing. I didn't get seconds on anything or even try everything... there were just too many choices, and I got full before I could try it all. The green chile stew I made turned out to be quite a hit.

A lot of us wound up staying up pretty late playing cards and chatting, which of course was completely stupid since today was the first day of class. I managed to drag myself out of bed in time, but not in time for such niceties as breakfast. Opening my curtains revealed it was pooring rain. I grabbed my rain jacket and headed off for class in style. I wasn't the only one to ride in the rain, but I was the only one (that I saw) doing it at normal speed instead of slowly with an umbrella. I got to the right building, changed, and then made it into class about one minute late because I was looking for the classroom on the wrong floor. Room 730 is on the 3rd floor, apparently indicated by the three. I have no idea what the seven signifies.

I attended the Japanese Economy and North-South relations classes. I'll keep the Japanese Economy class, but the other didn't spark my interest. After North-South relations, it was lunch time. I had already eaten, but Ritsumeikan uses a block schedule, and there simply are no classes from 12:10 to 13:00. After so many times running through UNM's student union trying to grab a meal in the 15 minutes I had between classes, or having to change what classes I was going to take for a semester because their times overlapped by 15 minutes, I have to say that this school got it right. Also during this time, the campus PA system got switched over to the college radio station. Relaxation time with music provided is cool.

After that, it was the class I came here for: Japanese language. As I entered the room I thought I was in the wrong place. The classroom was three rows of chairs deep and about 20 or so chairs wide, but at first I saw only empty desks, as my five classmates were sitting in the center of the room. A class of six! That's wonderful for a language class.

During class, not a single word of English was spoken. The only English words in or on our textbook are part of the publisher's mark.

We had to take another placement test just to make sure they got the first placement right. Between the test and the entirely Japanese dialog, I walked out feeling wiped out and pretty intimidated. I had been wondering before whether or not this program would be intensive enough for my liking. With a name like "Intensive Language Track" it seemed like it should be, but the general description of Japanese college difficulty tends toward "really easy," so I wasn't sure. Based on the program information during the application process, I certainly wasn't expecting that the classes would have a non-English basis, so I wondered how intensive it could actually be. Now I can worry about keeping my head above the water instead.

One thing our teacher said (and put on the syllabus) was that since there are no definitions in the book, just vocab lists, we should always have a dictionary with us. I was the only one in there who did not have an electronic dictionary. After seeing enough models of them, particularly the new ones the other I-House students have been getting, I decided I needed to get one. The feature that sold me, which I hadn't seen previously, is a writing pad and stylus so you can just write a kanji or word and get the meaning and pronunciation. If I'm going to have to look things up even to understand the class itself, I certainly need something faster than a standard paper kanji dictionary.

So tonight I went onto Amazon and started shopping for one. I had a baseline: most of the students were paying between $300 and $400. I ordered a Sharp Papyrus PW-AT770, which has all the features that I wanted or even thought were minorly nifty, with expedited shipping so it'll get here Sunday, for $167.43. The shipping was $3.23. The best part is that I was able to just use my Visa, which I can pay off directly from my bank account online, instead of dealing with cash or any complicated stuff. I'm excited... it should help with my homework that's due Monday. :)

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.

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.