Today was my first day of class. The first two hours were with Sano-sensei and the latter two were with Yokozawa-sensei. Both seem great and Yokozawa-sensei’s a really funny guy. The classmates are all really great people. Some of them are pretty quiet and some are pretty outgoing but I got to speak to them all today and they’re all quite fun. It turns out that two of the girls from the class are living on the same floor in the same residence as myself. They’re from all over: China, Singapore, Taiwan, England, America, Russia (I believe), Sweden, Spain, and even tiny islands in the middle of the Pacific. I’m doing my best to speak Japanese all the time but sometimes people end up using English. I’m the only new person in the class… everyone else has carried on from last semester, but I think I’m integrating fairly well. My class is Class J. There are 16 classes from A to P, A being the best and P being the absolute beginners. I’m very comfortable with the level of Japanese though. I can understand everything that’s being said, but there is a lot of vocabulary left to do and I’m going to have to play some catch-up with particular sections of grammar and particularly kanji.
We get to choose our electives this week and they’re quite varied. There are even ones such as calligraphy, flower arrangement, Japanese cooking, and how to correctly wear a kimono. I’ll be focusing more on what I need than what I think might be a bit of craic, so I’ll probably end up doing Keigo (polite Japanese) or a review class to help catch up or maybe some classes on vocabulary for daily life in Japan. I have 4 to choose anyway.
Well, I’m going to get some vocabulary learnt, decide my electives, fill out a sheet outlining how exactly I’d like my Japanese to improve over the next term (goals, objectives, etc) and buy lots and lots of bread.
