STUDY ABROAD: WEEK 21

JANUARY 19

Sunday is dance day! I arrived a little earlier than usual today to find two strangers in our usual dance spot. Patiently, I waited off to the side until Ken, our designated group leader, showed up. It turns out that the couple that was practicing in our spot were actually acquaintances of his. He also brought along another break dancer— quiet, serious, and super strong. He was a power specialist, and power is the kind of breaking I aspire to be able to do, which is why I was excited and reluctant to practice today. Thankfully, Ken gave me a lot of good advice. We even had a small practice battle: the first time was okay, the second time was just a mess. I keep getting stuck between moves because I can’t decide what to do next. The music is also a lot faster than the hip hop I am used to, so I’m terribly slow. I should lay off the hip hop for a while and just practice break dancing I guess.

At 6pm I left dance practice to meet with Jessica in Kanayama. We ate dinner at Yama-chan and just caught up, talked about the last month’s events, and the near future. She will be going back to America soon, which she’s really excited to do because she has this great plan for her future; she wants to set-up a women’s safe house in New York one day, so she hopes she can work up a network after she’s back in the States. If I were to go back, I don’t know what I would do myself. I wouldn’t go back to school because there’s nothing specific that I want to study, nor do I care to put out the money for graduate school. There’s really no job I would like to do either. I have my manga series, but I prefer to keep my art as a hobby. The stress of a job only kills my creative inspiration.

I say there’s nothing I want to do, but over the last few months I have been helping a lot of people study English. It’s something I can honestly say I do enjoy: a personal challenge and accomplishment. I know that many people choose to teach English just so they can stay in Japan. I don’t know what other motives they have, but I know that I like teaching, and I’d like to improve at it. If that opportunity is here for me in Japan, I want it, and I will find it.

JANUARY 20

Curry, the lunch of champions, only 750 yen. Four months in and it’s still one of the best meals I have found yet (that isn’t made at home). That lunch was my amplifier for the day. I was going to have another job-related meeting in the afternoon, this time, not with the group from Toyohashi, but with a different school. The owner was actually an acquaintance of the students who studied before me from my University. Through their contact, I was able to meet with her. We’ve met a few times as I have visited her school to volunteer on a couple occasions, but today it’s tea time. Of course, we talked about how my job search was going, and to my surprise she mentioned that her company might be interested in hiring me on.

Shock! That was great news, if they could make it happen. I really love their school’s atmosphere and staff. The place also seems more stable than the one in Toyohashi, which is comforting for me. But, they have never hired a full-time foreign staff member before so they have to look at the paperwork. I have my fingers crossed. The excitement carried on even after tea-time so I spent a good four hours searching for possible apartments between Okazaki and Toyohashi.

JANUARY 21

Back to school for a moment, literally, today we had one exam, and that was for the conversation class. None of us knew how to study for it; we only reviewed the chapter points. I was the first of us four students to take the exam. It started out with a paired conversation; Jason and I were paired up, and we both were able to pull the conversation together once we understood the exam’s format. After that it was one-on-one role play and question time with the professor. I think it went well overall, but it wouldn’t have hurt to study the conversations in the textbook a little more.

Two more exams to go! Kanji and Grammar, which may be considerably more difficult than the conversation exam, but at least I know how to study for those. I studied for tomorrow’s kanji exam in the library before dance practice. This time I went a little earlier because I was hoping that I could use the multi-purpose room, which was bigger than the studio. Now, I understand there is a reservation process, so I reserved one of the rooms for BPM and we were able to practice until 9:30pm. Really, it’s supposed to only go until 9pm, but the guy at the front desk didn’t say anything. Thanks, but next time, I’ll make sure to only reserve until 9pm~

JANUARY 22

The Kanji portion of the exam went really well. I had no trouble remembering all the kanji for the two lessons that were compiled into the exam. It was about eighty or so to write, and about the same number to read. The problem came afterward during the composition part of the exam. The subject was about ‘value’, but I misinterpreted the meaning as I was writing it. I guess I messed that part up.

After that, it would have been a good idea to review grammar, but none of us had any motivation for that. We went to Saizeriya for lunch, and then watched the remainder of the Drama class presentations. I took the day pretty slow until the evening, when I finally settled down and read over all the grammar sections.

JANUARY 23

Test day? Okay, now it’s time to wish I studied more!

To be honest, the test questions themselves weren’t so bad, but the test setting was rather strict. No water bottles on the table, on a pencil and eraser. Mr. Yoshida monitored the first hour, and then Mrs. Yamamoto came back for round two. That’s when we all died a little. The second hour was about reading comprehension, something we had just barely practiced in class a couple weeks ago. At this point, I can’t even say if my answers were on point. I just wrote stuff. My brain was done.

And so, my fall semester’s courses came to an end. What to do with all my new free time? First, celebrate with chocolate, and then some more job research. Dance practice today was from 3-9pm in the gym’s arena, so we played a little basketball too. I finally feel like I am making progress with my freezes! Now I got to practice handstands some more, and I also started to learn how to do a windmill!! So excited, can’t wait to dance even more over spring break.

JANUARY 24

Okay, today was officially the last day of the semester. We still had presentations in culture class, so even though I was done, I still had to attend and participate. That was all fine and dandy because I could just sit back and enjoy the presentations. After that, I paced myself and did some cleaning around my apartment.

Off to Toyohashi for another day of “training”. Now, with other possible jobs in the wind, I was all business. We talked about the visa situation, since it would require that I be able to work full-time and receive a certain amount of money. No matter which job I was looking at, it had to satisfy the minimum requirements in order for the visa to be approved. I wish that wasn’t the case because I’m starting to like the students in Toyohashi also. They were very participatory today, which is an ego boost for me.

JANUARY 25

I woke up at 9am today for a breakfast meeting with the aforementioned Toyohashi school. Though the owner was hopeful that we could gather enough students to somehow make up the minimum salary and hour requirements for the visa, I think she is starting to see the same problems I am. I want to help them, but if the hours collide with another possible job, then it would be impossible. I have a sense that it won’t work out, I just need them to understand that. I hope this issue is settled sooner rather than later.

STUDY ABROAD: WEEK 19

JANUARY 5

FINALLY! Slept in this morning so I’m fully rested~~

I promised myself that today I was going to be progressive! First off was some overdue exercise. I went for a run, down the usual street, out past Piago, SUSHI-RO and then back towards the station. I ran out to the cheap little grocer, thinking that I would just grab a few things for 500 yen. In the end, I was able to get apples, bananas, sweet potatoes, and spinach all for only 450yen.

At that time, I suddenly realized it was past noon. My host sister was stopping by to see me today, and since I had gone running I left my phone on the charger. I hurried home just in time to receive her message as she was arriving in Nagoya. There wasn’t any time to even put the groceries away. I took the subway, since it would only take me two minutes to reach the station, rather than a twelve minute walk.

We met and ate a quick lunch back in my room as we discussed things about my possible job situation. As always there’s advertising to be needed, and visa paperwork to be filed. It looks like a lot of work, but it sounds interesting. I have yet to see the school or be told how many classes are actually going on currently, but that will have to wait for a bit.

Tomorrow it’s back to school…

JANUARY 6

As usual, I stopped by school a little before class so that I could work on my homework. I tried the fried chicken from Mini Stop, but it’s not that great. Not sure it’s even a good source of protein to be honest.

In our 3rd period class Margeaux informed me that she had lost Mark’s bike key after he lent her his bike on the weekend. That was mostly bad news, but fortunately, since the bikes were the school’s property, the school had the spare key. As the three of us went up to the International Center to retrieve the spare key I found out that Thursday’s bike check was only for the students who were leaving in March. I was safe! Mark, on the other hand, needed to replace the lock on his bike so that he could have a new set of keys. We all headed to Sakae to pick up his bike, where Margeaux had left it.

Then, part two of the mission began. A few days ago Margeaux had dropped her laptop and broke her screen. Our mission was to find a place in Osu that can check her laptop to see if it works, and hopefully fix it. The most important thing was finding out if the laptop could be used with a separate screen, or if it was gone forever.

The first place we went to in Osu couldn’t help us since the laptop was not purchased at their store. The place right next door to it was more helpful. The clerk there spoke really quickly as he asked questions about the laptop. Margeaux kept looking to me for help speaking back to him. Thankfully, my parents have fiddled around with computers enough times for me to understand what he was saying by context. Once we convinced him to hook the monitor up to a screen, we saw that the hard drive itself was fine.

With that knowledge in mind, our mission came to a close for the day. The laptop couldn’t hook up to our TV monitor’s without a converter strip, so we planned to come back later. Margeaux and I headed back to campus for a little bit before we ran into kenshiyo, then the five of us ate udon for dinner at the place near the station in the Lejac building. The servers are really nice there, and I don’t think it’s just part of their customer service. Also, the udon and tenpura is delicious, and cheap. It’s my favorite udon place.

JANUARY 7

I have completed my last class registration for University. I’ll be receiving another full time load of extra credits for this final spring semester. I can’t believe I am almost done with school! Part of me feels like I have already graduated, and the other wants to keep studying and enjoying this new school life. It’s weird; I’m not sure how I feel about it.

Part of the “I’m done with school” feeling carried on into class today. During conversation class usually we go through a chapter in the textbook, shadowing conversations, and practicing role-play. Today, however, we just talked… that’s what I strove to do, just talk about our holidays and have an off-book sort of day. I was already done with my survey presentation, so first period went easy for me as well.

After lunch with kenshiyo, Joy and I ran into Gakki from BPM. We chatted for a while in the cafeteria before she had to go to class. Then it was back to the usual Tuesday schedule of going to dance practice. My body feels so slow when I try to break dance. I’m sure the holiday delicacies didn’t help either. No regrets, just keep trying to improve.

JANUARY 8

Today out of habit Joy and I stopped by the English classroom during second period. There were only a handful of students who hadn’t finished their oral exam, so we were essentially useless. The teacher invited us to join his class again next semester, but we didn’t know what our schedules were going to be like yet. Hopefully it’s not the last time that we see those students. I mean, I think we will run into them on campus, but will they acknowledge us as friends? Will we hang out, or will it simply be ‘hello’ in the hallway.

JANUARY 9

An interesting thing is going on at dance practice right now. There’s a nationwide contest going on to make a dance-video cover to AKB48’s Fortune Cookie. A couple weeks ago this was mentioned in the group chat, but I didn’t think they were serious. In any case, the contest was about expressing international love, so they asked that I, as the lone international student in the group, would dance with them. Knowing that AKB’s dances were cutesy, and I was anything but, I wanted to say no, but since they asked I complied. Today we proceeded to go over the choreography for it. Technically it’s not hard, but it’s a bit embarrassing to try and be cute. Not to mention impossible. I’d rather be breaking and achieving new bruises, which I did do today! Plenty of new bruises on my left shoulder from a new freeze move that Tomoya, one of the seniors, taught me today.

JANUARY 10

(Level 10 curry marked with a heart. Is it a ‘thanks’ to our patron-ship, or cruel farewell?

There’s nothing better than an at-your-own-pace Friday, with delicious Indian curry for lunch with Margeaux, the Germans and Junko. Then we all chilled in Rachael’s room until she went to work. Most of us took a nap. Then, we rode on the bus out to a Thai restaurant in Sakae for dinner, via Totoro’s recommendation. I only ordered the shrimp rolls, which was listed as an appetizer, but there were really good. I sampled the other’s Thai food as well, though I can remember the names of any of the dishes.

Also, I have a cough now. It won’t stop.

JANUARY 11

Long time no futsal!! I still don’t know the other guys’ names, but it doesn’t matter anymore. We’re used to each other now, so we even have short conversations during the breaks. As I thought, most of them are graduated and working adults— some even older than I suspected. I would like to continue playing with them if I can get a job in Aichi. Even if it’s in Toyohashi, an hour train ride isn’t that long.