Hit the Ground Running

PII certainly doesn't do things by halves, not by a long shot. Classes have officially started and if I thought that Yale's pace was quick, it's nothing compared to the pace PII is going at. Well. No going back now I suppose.

Yesterday I was put in the class for level 2 students. The day was purposefully a review of transitive and intransitive verbs (for the most part). Not something English really has, so it's tricky to remember two verbs that (to us) mean the same thing. But me being the academic masochist that I am, I asked if I could move up into the 2.5 level (which was where the Yale teachers said we "should" be). They allowed me to try it out today, and it seems like today went alright so I guess that's what I'll be doing from now on. I think I'm going to work myself to death, that obviously seems to be my academic ambition.

Anyways. We cover a chapter a day in the Nakama 2 textbook. There's another textbook, Tobira, that we'll start in week 3. And we have a kanji quiz every day, so I have about 20 new kanji and the subsequent words they form to study for tomorrow, along with homework and covering tomorrow's grammar on my own. Going to be a busy busy time. These eight weeks are going to go by at lightning speed--it seems hard to imagine that it's already been two weeks since I left my home in Chicago.

Sorry no pictures today. But tomorrow we're going to be making wagashi (traditional Japanese sweets) and on Saturday there's a festival so there'll soon be lots to tell. Wish me luck...

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Enoshima: The Heavenly Maiden and the Dragon

This past Monday was a national holiday -- Mountain Day -- so, of course, Troy and I headed to the beach instead. Well, to an island near a beach since (as some of you may know) I'm not exactly the beach-going type. Plus I'd just climbed Mount Fuji, which was more than enough mountain for me. Enoshima is a small island off the coast of Kanagawa Prefecture, fairly near Kamakura. It's connected to the mainland via a bridge, so you can just stroll on over from the train station. The entire island is dedicated to Benzaitan, the goddess of everything that flows -- time, water, speech, music, and knowledge. According to the "Enoshima Engi," (a history of the shrines and temples on Enoshima) there's also a legend associated with the creation of the island involving Benzaitan and a dragon. In brief, the area around Enoshima was once wracked by violent storms and earthquakes. Eventually the tumult ended and a heavenly maiden (Benzaitan) descended from the clouds....

Fukuoka: A Saga of Shrines

As many long-term residents of Japan do, I have a goal to visit all 47 prefectures of Japan. Just last week, together with my parents, who flew over from Chicago for a long weekend, I checked off No. 25: Fukuoka Prefecture. I'd never been to Fukuoka, which is on Japan's southerly island of Kyushu, before, but everyone I know who had visited had told me it was a great trip. It's capital, also called Fukuoka, has the distinction of being both Japan's youngest city and also the city with the fastest growing population, making it one of the only metropolitan areas outside of Tokyo with an increasing number of residents. A very dynamic place to visit; a vibrant city with an old, old history. WARNING: LOOOONG POST AHEAD. Friday morning my parents and I hop over on a flight from Haneda Airport to Fukuoka Airport, which is a fantastic 10 minutes away form the city center. Ten. Minutes. What I would do to have one of Tokyo's airports be that close! The weather was sunn...

文化祭！(Bunkasai--Cultural Festival Days 1 and 2) and Man I'm Tired!

So this weekend was Musashino Joshi's annual Cultural Festival, an event that all high schools (I would assume) have, where the school is open to the public and classes and clubs put on events, or set up quiz games or food booths. Essentially it's like a carnival. Traditional culture...not so much (though there are aspects of it). Mostly it's just good fun. My class was doing a chocolate banana food booth, so on Friday (the school-wide prep day, even though techincally it was another Japanese holiday) we got cardboard and began making our booth, which was Hawaiian themed. And you'd think it wouldn't take very long, but it took the entire day and then about half an hour on Saturday. (Also, what' you're seeing is Summer Uniform Form 1.5, where there's the sweater over the shirt.) But in the end the booth turned out pretty sweet, if I may say so myself: The top says Chocobana, and the sides of the poles are made to look like palm trees with a monkay on it...

Rice and Ramen

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