busy weekend paints Originally uploaded by nitaspitas. Somehow, I ended up doing a lot this past weekend--even more than I'd planned, and it was already a relatively busy weekend to begin with. Started off with some volleyball at church with the youth group (my weekends are Sunday-Monday), and then yakiniku/soba/veggies bbq with the college and women's group after church. I ended up hanging out with some of the girls from the college group afterwards for a bit, then went shopping. During shopping, I got a text message saying that there was dinner and karaoke for a trainer's birthday that night. After an afternoon out in the sun, I felt too tired to go, and I almost didn't... but I hadn't hung out with the foreign staff in a while, so I thought I'd at least stop by and say hi and ended up staying out with them until we did print club and won candy and toys at the arcade next to the karaoke place. The next day (yesterday), I went and printed tenugui in a workshop outside of the city (after going to a park and having lunch and being traumatized by the giant ants and this strange insect that was sucking the juice out of a caterpillar while trying to lift it off the ground). Anyway. It was my first time screen printing, but it was so much fun, I think I'm going to look for more things to print now ^-^ I was so tired when I got back that I thought about cancelling my Japanese lesson last night, or shortening it, since we weren't covering that much material, but somehow, I still had the energy to get through the whole lesson. And the material was really easy, so the lesson ended up being really good. Even though my weekend ended there, somehow, today seemed to be practically weekend, too. I have two of my favorite classes on Tuesdays--one with a parent, and one with a high schooler who's pretty high level--and it's my lightest day of classes. And I went to a place my parent student recommended for lunch today that had a lunch cake set (pasta, consumme, salad, panini, juice, cake, and ice cream. good thing everything was Japanese-sized...). And one of my other favorite students had a Japanese teacher's class today, so she came an hung out with me during one of my breaks. And then while I was preparing for class (i.e., coloring), Manager told me we were going to Universal Japan for our "special training" (i.e., field trip!) in July. I heard it was small and kind of boring, but hey, free trip! So I didn't do any of the cleaning or laundry that I'd been planning to do the weekend, but somehow I'm not exhausted, even though I totally expected to be, running on not as many hours of sleep as I'd like for the past few nights. p.s.- I signed my contract to extend an extra month (with a raise, yay!) today. So I'll be here until the first week of September. And then I'm planning to be home for a couple weeks before coming back to study Japanese in October.

paints
Originally uploaded by nitaspitas.

Somehow, I ended up doing a lot this past weekend--even more than I'd planned, and it was already a relatively busy weekend to begin with. Started off with some volleyball at church with the youth group (my weekends are Sunday-Monday), and then yakiniku/soba/veggies bbq with the college and women's group after church. I ended up hanging out with some of the girls from the college group afterwards for a bit, then went shopping.

During shopping, I got a text message saying that there was dinner and karaoke for a trainer's birthday that night. After an afternoon out in the sun, I felt too tired to go, and I almost didn't... but I hadn't hung out with the foreign staff in a while, so I thought I'd at least stop by and say hi and ended up staying out with them until we did print club and won candy and toys at the arcade next to the karaoke place.

The next day (yesterday), I went and printed tenugui in a workshop outside of the city (after going to a park and having lunch and being traumatized by the giant ants and this strange insect that was sucking the juice out of a caterpillar while trying to lift it off the ground). Anyway. It was my first time screen printing, but it was so much fun, I think I'm going to look for more things to print now ^-^

I was so tired when I got back that I thought about cancelling my Japanese lesson last night, or shortening it, since we weren't covering that much material, but somehow, I still had the energy to get through the whole lesson. And the material was really easy, so the lesson ended up being really good.

Even though my weekend ended there, somehow, today seemed to be practically weekend, too. I have two of my favorite classes on Tuesdays--one with a parent, and one with a high schooler who's pretty high level--and it's my lightest day of classes. And I went to a place my parent student recommended for lunch today that had a lunch cake set (pasta, consumme, salad, panini, juice, cake, and ice cream. good thing everything was Japanese-sized...).

And one of my other favorite students had a Japanese teacher's class today, so she came an hung out with me during one of my breaks. And then while I was preparing for class (i.e., coloring), Manager told me we were going to Universal Japan for our "special training" (i.e., field trip!) in July. I heard it was small and kind of boring, but hey, free trip!

So I didn't do any of the cleaning or laundry that I'd been planning to do the weekend, but somehow I'm not exhausted, even though I totally expected to be, running on not as many hours of sleep as I'd like for the past few nights.

p.s.- I signed my contract to extend an extra month (with a raise, yay!) today. So I'll be here until the first week of September. And then I'm planning to be home for a couple weeks before coming back to study Japanese in October.

make that four...

Right after I started counting down the months, I got a phone call from the head trainer asking me to stay on for an extra month because they couldn't find anyone to fill my position in time for the end of my contract. It means I get extra money, and it works out with the schedule for the language school I want to go to, so it looks like I'll be working until September instead of August.

Today, I bought this ds kanji game my friend told me about. From what I've seen of it, the easiest two levels (of ten) are around where I'm studying now, and then they just get harder. The most annoying thing about it for me is the stroke order, because Japanese stroke order is slightly different from Chinese stroke order. Not enough to make the final kanji look different, but enough to screw me up when the game asks me about specific numbers... It's nice that it keeps track of the ones you get wrong, though, because then you can go back and correct it. And it keeps track every time you get it wrong. So even if it's been cleared before, if you miss it later, you have to go back and correct it again for the level to be 100% complete.

So I'm getting into studying again, even if I still fail at making full conversations in Japanese. In between the youth service and the main service this morning at church, one of my friends started asking me about the places I wanted to go in Japan and ended up talking about some old shrines she'd been to once in Gifu because I couldn't come up with anything interesting, exhausting my vocabulary after naming the places I'd been and the things I'd visited there in pretty much the briefest manner possible.

Apparently, I can give directions now, though. When I first got here, an old woman asked me something while I was using the wireless outside a coffee shop, and I had no idea what she was saying and couldn't answer her. But today, in the middle of one of the busiest intersections in the city on a Sunday afternoon, two tourists happened to pick the only foreigner in the entire intersection to ask for directions. Granted, they probably couldn't tell I was a foreigner, but I'm just glad I managed to 1) understand them and 2) tell them where to go. Even if I still can't really speak Japanese, I can at least pretend I can sometimes...

three months left

My work contract finishes in less than three months, and I still haven't worked out exactly what I'm going to do yet... I know I want to stay in Japan and study Japanese, but I'm not sure if I want to try and work part time while I'm doing that or not... I also just had my last vacation before I finish my contract, and I have to go back to work tomorrow ><

Lately, I've been trying to read more in Japanese. I've been working my way through some of Roald Dahl's easier books, but they're kind of hard in translation. I also discovered the cutest manga over Golden Week called Chi's Sweet Home. It's about a kitten that gets adopted by a family who isn't allowed to have pets in their apartment but doesn't want to abandon her. It's a really easy read, and it's all in color.

For some reason, even though I watch a lot of anime, I can't seem to get into the manga as much. I think it's because I like to watch the action too much, so I have little patience for when I can't really tell what's going on, especially if I don't have time to look up everything that I don't know. And then, if I've read the manga, I already know what happens in the story, so I don't want to watch the anime anymore. I always hear that the manga is better, but my excuse is that I learn more Japanese when I'm watching it rather than just skimming through reading it...

In any case, instead of reading manga then, I end up reading children's books. Or manga that I can understand almost completely, like Chi's. It's more satisfying, even if I don't understand everything when I'm reading the books. It's like Mrs. Phelps told Matilda (which I'm also reading in English with one of my students), "...don't worry about the bits you can't understand. Sit back and let the words wash around you, like music." I'm pretty sure that's what I did when I read in English when I was little, so I don't see why I shouldn't do it in Japanese as well. I forget a lot of what I look up, but if I see it enough, I'll eventually remember it. Mostly vocabulary. Grammar is really hard to pick up this way, but some of it helps. Some things just take longer than others...