Class

My first Japanese lesson was last night. It went well. It was enjoyable even, something I thought impossible after years of state-funded education had convinced me that anything resembling the act of learning was both dull and pointless. The lesson itself consisted of trying to ascertain what level of Japanese I actually possessed, a more difficult task than you may imagine. I’ve been living in this country for almost 2 years now so I’ve obviously picked up a reasonable amount of vocab in that time. During the long, long summer holiday of 06 I also attempted a few weeks of self study which enlightened me as to some of the grammatical elements of Japanese. However, I didn’t really know how much I’d retained or indeed how much I’d even learnt.

I would class myself as a beginner but I surprised myself with how many words I actually knew, thinking as I did that 0 probably would have been an accurate count. I knew more than 0. This is good. I found myself getting a bit flustered when I was asked questions orally, questions I knew I knew the answer to. Still, I felt I came away with something which is always nice.

Lessons are almost over for this semester. Hikawa have already finished and yatsuno will go the same way next week. This means that, although I still have to go to school during the next few weeks, I won’t have any lessons. This is both good, and bad. Good because I get paid to do nothing. Nothing is expected of me and I am happy to fulfil those expectations. However, not having anything to do and doing nothing are quite different. Doing nothing is a sure-fire way to make every day drag on until it seems like a month. Doing nothing also the best way to get headache, staring at empty computer screens waiting for the bell to ring. It’s frustrating. Luckily this period will be broken up by Hannah and I’s trip to Kyoto from the 28^th so at least I get a proper break this time round.