Just one of those days

Did you ever have one of those days where you couldn’t seem to grasp what was being taught? I have – I had two Japanese classes today and I was pretty much a zombie in both of them. I couldn’t concentrate on what was being said as my mind was off playing with those darn butterflies. It didn’t help either that the teachers were in a questioning mood and guess who they always looked to for some answers…sigh.

It was also one of those days where time seemed to pass by really slowly so I was agonisingly waiting and watching the clock hand tick by. Bloody oath, it took a long time! By the end of the two periods, I was pretty much bouncing off the walls!

The drama that makes life interesting

If you live in the international student dormitory, there will surely be one or two (or many) times where you will get involved in what we around here like to call the “kaikan drama”. And it sucks you in whether you like it or not…

What is this kaikan drama you ask me? Well it is generally an amalgamation of all the gossip that is floating around the dormitory. Just think ‘The Bold and the Beautiful’ but in Japanese. LOL! It is the hook-ups, break-ups, various other activities and everything in between. It is the lifeblood that keeps you warm in the middle of winter as you freeze your bits off and it is the stuff that keeps you entertained in an otherwise dull dormitory existence. It is the good and the bad all rolled up into the drama of life (cheesy, yes, I know!). However, let actors beware – you don’t find the drama, it finds you!

I have noticed the kaikan drama is the strongest especially when the new students come in every half year. They bring what the drama always craves…fresh meat! Muahaha! What else is there to be said? It is fairly obvious and inevitable; we live in a dormitory of around seventy students from the age of 20 upwards. Where there are students, there are the usual interesting occurrences. I have always said that living in a dormitory situation is just like being in high school all over again!

As bad as it sounds, I personally don’t think it wouldn’t be a fully complete ICS Gifu experience if you didn’t contribute or get involved in the drama. So future students please chip in your two cents, alright? Like Shakespeare said:

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players

Sorry I’ve been piking this blog!

First of all, my deepest apologies for not updating my blog in yonks! No excuses, I’ve just been lazy…Right, time to get things going again.

So, it is now the third week of university and surprise, surprise, I actually made it into C class. Just to refresh your memory, Gifu University has four levels of Japanese classes – A (beginners) to D (kick arse); so I am actually doing not too bad in the pecking order. Another welcome suprise was that I’m actually not sucking too much in my harder classes. I thought I was going to be floundering because the stakes have been raised and not to mention that I had a two-month break from Japanese when I went back to Australia. Though the first day was sort of confusing, it got a lot better a lot faster after that. Yipee, I am actually learning and retaining Japanese!

Anyway, a short description of what to expect in C classes: You get to choose 10 out of 11 types of classes. Five of them are compulsory but other than that, you can drop one. These range from a choice of reading, writing, conversation, speech, culture and listening. I chose to drop culture just because there was so much reading involved and I’m generally a 怠ける者 (lazy person). Ha ha ha. However, you can also be really adventurous and take all 11 subjects if you wanted.

Besides that, class content is a lot harder and more complicated than B class. For example, essays now include racial prejudices and its effects, your country’s national characteristic, occupation and the differences in the Japanese system and so on. This is a pretty big change from last semester’s stuff when we wrote about our hobbies, future ambitions, your country’s famous sightseeing places, etc. Unfortunately, you also get a lot more homework in C class when compared to last semester! Bugger, there goes my nap time…zzzzz.

Takayama – Day 2

Just for everybody’s information, sleeping on a futon is pretty crap unless it is really well-padded. Generally, the floor is still pretty hard and it doesn’t work for belly or side-sleepers like me because I can’t sink my body into the ground like in a bed. There is certain technique when it comes to dealing with a futon: sleep on your back and move as little as possible!

Anyway, our second day in Takayama took us to this awesome onsen (hot springs) nestled at the base of one of the mountains. The view while sitting in the water was quite majestic as it was surrounded by the mountains and the trees were already turning colour. Unfortunately, I have no pictures from within the pools…you know, nudity and all that. LOL! After that, we grabbed some lunch and headed to Hida no Sato (Hida Folk Village) which is an open air musuem in Takayama that houses preserved, traditional farmhouses and buildings. Pretty cool place and it didn’t take long to walk around (my prerequisite for sightseeing!).

Takayama Festival – Day 1

The Takayama Autumn Festival (and its Spring counterpart) is considered one of the top three of the most beautiful festivals in Japan because their 山車 (floats) are very colourful and have intricate and detailed designs. Ikue took me to Takayama for this festival and we were later joined by Peter and David to enjoy the sights since Takayama is also a regular tourist attraction. It was also pretty cool because we all got to stay at Ikue’s parent’s house for the night and it was interesting to be in a traditional wooden Japanese-style house.

The festival was alright but it wasn’t really that exciting. Most of the floats don’t get pulled in the parade, instead they were just lined up on the main street for people to see and take pictures. I have to admit that they were really pretty and brightly coloured but not really much else to it besides that. However I still enjoyed myself while watching the parade and exploring the city of Takayama with all its little quaint traditional alleyways and preserved houses.

After we watched the parade, Ikue and I had to naturally partake in some sake testing and I will admit that we both got a little bit happy. We each had a large cup of sake each and let’s just say it made the next half hour pretty interesting. Ha ha ha! We then met the boys at the train station and proceeded to have more drinks at a Japanese inn and then even more drinks at Ikue’s house later that night with some of her friends. That night was quite merry to say the least!