(no subject)
Today I had my first experience with morning rush hour subway traffic. I was going from the station near my home in Itabashi to Ikebukuro-eki...anything going to Ikebukuro is usually quite full or so I thought. This morning around 8:30 it was completely packed...and then everyone waiting at the station got on. I didn't really board the train so much as I was forced onto it by a billion people behind me. And then when the train stopped at Ikebukuro, I didn't really get off, but was released out of the train. During the ride was pretty awkward because you're pressed so close to people all around you that you can't even move and no one talks whatsoever. And whenever the train takes off or slows down everyone kinda sways as one big group. It's very weird and looks like it will be something I get to experience nearly every morning while I'm here.
Today was the big Japanese Placement test. I'm glad I didn't study that much for it because no matter how much I could have studied, nothing would have prepaired me for it. Of course, it's supposed to test many different levels of proficiency in Japanese, so that's to be expected. There were four sections and each section had three parts. Well, on each sections I got the first part done very easily, the second was pretty hard and the third I had almost no idea what the hell it was saying. That's mostly because the third part of each test was very kanji heavy and I just didn't know them. As far as I know though, the test results are dependant on how well everyone else did and everyone else seemed to think it was pretty hard. So hopefully I didn't do that bad and end up in a class that I won't get credit for at Earlham. We'll see.
After the test the Japan Study people and some students from Waseda went out to karaoke. It was my first time and I ended up doing a duo of Black Dog with Sam, which was a lot of fun. Since we had been planning on going for a while, Colin had actually practiced some of the songs he inteded to sing, so I think that kind of defeats the purpose of karaoke, but whatever. It was still a good time.
Today was the big Japanese Placement test. I'm glad I didn't study that much for it because no matter how much I could have studied, nothing would have prepaired me for it. Of course, it's supposed to test many different levels of proficiency in Japanese, so that's to be expected. There were four sections and each section had three parts. Well, on each sections I got the first part done very easily, the second was pretty hard and the third I had almost no idea what the hell it was saying. That's mostly because the third part of each test was very kanji heavy and I just didn't know them. As far as I know though, the test results are dependant on how well everyone else did and everyone else seemed to think it was pretty hard. So hopefully I didn't do that bad and end up in a class that I won't get credit for at Earlham. We'll see.
After the test the Japan Study people and some students from Waseda went out to karaoke. It was my first time and I ended up doing a duo of Black Dog with Sam, which was a lot of fun. Since we had been planning on going for a while, Colin had actually practiced some of the songs he inteded to sing, so I think that kind of defeats the purpose of karaoke, but whatever. It was still a good time.