Third Semester

We're now two weeks into the third semester of classes, and its been a haul.

Here's a breakdown of my week:

Politics & Economics - M&Th, 10:00 -12:00
This is fun because I know diddly squat about economics and now I'm learning about them in my non-native language.  But we're using articles taken from a college level textbook, which is in itself pretty exciting.  The reading for this class tends to be the toughest assignments I have, if for no other reason I can't keep track of all the different departments in the many layers of bureaucracy.

Modern Japanese History - MTuThF, 1:30 -3:00
The first day we talked about Meiji, and I was all "Yaaaaay this was my senior essay topic I can say lots and people will think I'm smart yaaaaay" and then by day 2 we had moved past Meiji.  And then I was sad.  The class covers from 1900 to the present, but the bulk of the material is Postwar stuff.

Integrated Japanese - TuW, 10:00-12:00
Nothing too exciting, just a straight-up grammar class.  Homework is usually just writing example sentences for a grammar pattern, so its comparatively pretty manageable.

Business Japanese - F 10:00-12:00
The first hour involves roleplays of set phrase and interactions with keigo (the elevated, I-am-sorry-for-committing-an-inconvenience-upon-you-by-my-very-existence style of speaking), and the second hour is a series of practical workshops on resumes, interviews, stuff like that.  Since I'm the one person in the class already with a job lined up, I was volunteered to go first for the panel interview next week.  It will be a six on one interview with the other students poring over my resume and preparing questions as representatives of the company.  The Sensei will play the role of (what I think translates to) "Chief Tormentor" and be mean to me.  To see how fast I cave under pressure.  Waaaaah T_T

Outside of the regular classes, there's also...
Calligraphy painting - Tu 3:15-5:00
My handwriting is lousy to begin with, but that's all the more reason to try to learn the stylized painting techniques for kanji characters.  I still don't excel, but I'm approaching what I might dare to call adequacy.  The teacher compliments us (in all sincerity) "oh look how good you're getting at writing your own name!".  Makes me feel a little bit like a kindergardener.  The sensei also tells me that my characters have their own "distinct interestingness", (独特な面白さ）which I think is a polite way of saying I'm doing it wrong.

By the way, the characters I chose to spell my name are
井惇 (Eaton: "well" and "considerate")
伊雷 (Eli: "having style" and "thunder")

Business - Th 3:15-5:00
This is different than my Business Japanese class, and also different from the Business & Society class additionally offered by the center.  (You'd think they'd be more creative with names).  Its the only lecture class I've had here, and also the least interesting.  We receive upwards of 30 pages of charts and graphs each time, and the teacher points out a couple fun facts, without a very clear path of where he's going.  Someone best described it as the kind of one-sided conversation you have when you sit down next to the drunk old guy at the bar.

Apart from just the class hours, school day itself is pretty long--I'm almost always in the building by 9 AM preparing for morning, working through lunch to prepare for afternoon class, and staying until the building closes around 5 doing homework, so I keep myself pretty busy.



In lieu of having pretty pictures, I shall instead introduce something else japanese-y.  The cellphone carrier Softbank has a commercial campaign centering around the antics of the Shirato family, mainly starring the iconic white dog Otoosan (Dad).  I'm not sure how these commercials sell phones, but they're entertaining.  Softbank also manages to sell a lot of Otoosan merchandise in the process.