A Typical Day in the Life of a Studying-Abroad Me
Herro! Normal blog post here, and then blog post filled with tales of adventure later on. :D I shall separate them to avoid extreme longness.
So here is the dealio, in the life of me:
I have class Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays. I'm taking four classes so I'm just barely a full-time student. I walk twenty minutes to the train station in the morning, take the train for twenty minutes from Meguro-ku into Minato-ku, and then walk another ten minutes to class. My calves are going to be even more monstrous than they already were by the end of the semester. I usually get lunch from one of the convenience stores near the school building, and my lovely roommate cooks our meals at home (if we don't go out). (I do the dishes in return... I'm not good at cooking things that a) don't come out of a box or b) don't involve butter in some way... She is excellent at making Japanese-ish food. Recipe suggestions are love, btw.) We usually go to bed freakishly early on MWF days because we stay up freakishly late doing homework on Tuesdays and Thursdays and Sundays.
The first class is Art History, which is interesting but unfortunately has a really-annoying-question-asking guy AND a legit hipster guy who are rather annoying. So far we've covered Miyazaki Hayao and Noguchi Isamu.
The next one is Religions of the World, which is interesting and far less terrifying than its CMU equivalent. (We've only had one reference to performance studies so far, and I made it through without ptsd-tears.) We're doing Hinduism right now, which is a really fantastically interesting religion. :D I sit next to a fun gay boy and a really hot Japanese guy who's totally hopeless at the class.
Then I have my lunch break. Sometimes I eat with people, sometimes I eat alone; my friends' breaks start an hour and a half before mine so I usually don't make them wait.
Next up is Japanese - Advanced II. It's actually nowhere near as bad as they made it seem at first, although it is pretty tough. I actually like it a lot better than CMU's program, if only because it's something new and different. We spend enough time on one topic that I actually remember most of the vocab, for one thing... *glares at giant vocab worksheets of yesteryear*
Finally I have my Japanese History class. It's both interesting and annoying and probably worthwhile. For one thing, we are tested on geography weekly so I can now tell you where pretty much any major city in Japan is as well as naming all 47 prefectures and some various and sundry landmasses and bodies of water. The class itself hasn't progressed too far into history yet (still talking about hunter-gatherers and wet-rice farming) but the teacher's more than a little nuts and all of my friends are in the same class so it's quite fun. :D
On my off days I mostly sleep an indecent amount (I'm beginning to suspect my body is making up for all the sleep I've ever missed, ever) and sit around putting off doing homework until very late; recently this procrastination has involved a lot of k-pop music videos. I spend a lot of time hitting up the various Seven Elevens and Lawsons and whatnot for chocolate-themed desserts also, it is a failing that I have no strong intentions of casting aside. >.>
One nice thing about one of the peeps I hang out with (specifically Wyatt, who reminds me a lot of Collin in a lot of ways) is that he's pretty much on the same level of Japanese as Jenny and I, so when it's just the three of us (or when it's not, to mess with the rest of the group, always fun) we talk in at least half-Japanese and text each other entirely in Japanese for practice. It's quite handy. :D
And tomorrow is a long day of catching up in reading for my art history class; I am unfortunately over a hundred pages behind from not reading for two class periods. >.> therefore, I shall bid you a fond farewell and goodnight, and shall post about last weekend's adventures in great detail on the morrow. Adieu!
Also, hello new friends! Welcome to my ramblings! :)
So here is the dealio, in the life of me:
I have class Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays. I'm taking four classes so I'm just barely a full-time student. I walk twenty minutes to the train station in the morning, take the train for twenty minutes from Meguro-ku into Minato-ku, and then walk another ten minutes to class. My calves are going to be even more monstrous than they already were by the end of the semester. I usually get lunch from one of the convenience stores near the school building, and my lovely roommate cooks our meals at home (if we don't go out). (I do the dishes in return... I'm not good at cooking things that a) don't come out of a box or b) don't involve butter in some way... She is excellent at making Japanese-ish food. Recipe suggestions are love, btw.) We usually go to bed freakishly early on MWF days because we stay up freakishly late doing homework on Tuesdays and Thursdays and Sundays.
The first class is Art History, which is interesting but unfortunately has a really-annoying-question-asking guy AND a legit hipster guy who are rather annoying. So far we've covered Miyazaki Hayao and Noguchi Isamu.
The next one is Religions of the World, which is interesting and far less terrifying than its CMU equivalent. (We've only had one reference to performance studies so far, and I made it through without ptsd-tears.) We're doing Hinduism right now, which is a really fantastically interesting religion. :D I sit next to a fun gay boy and a really hot Japanese guy who's totally hopeless at the class.
Then I have my lunch break. Sometimes I eat with people, sometimes I eat alone; my friends' breaks start an hour and a half before mine so I usually don't make them wait.
Next up is Japanese - Advanced II. It's actually nowhere near as bad as they made it seem at first, although it is pretty tough. I actually like it a lot better than CMU's program, if only because it's something new and different. We spend enough time on one topic that I actually remember most of the vocab, for one thing... *glares at giant vocab worksheets of yesteryear*
Finally I have my Japanese History class. It's both interesting and annoying and probably worthwhile. For one thing, we are tested on geography weekly so I can now tell you where pretty much any major city in Japan is as well as naming all 47 prefectures and some various and sundry landmasses and bodies of water. The class itself hasn't progressed too far into history yet (still talking about hunter-gatherers and wet-rice farming) but the teacher's more than a little nuts and all of my friends are in the same class so it's quite fun. :D
On my off days I mostly sleep an indecent amount (I'm beginning to suspect my body is making up for all the sleep I've ever missed, ever) and sit around putting off doing homework until very late; recently this procrastination has involved a lot of k-pop music videos. I spend a lot of time hitting up the various Seven Elevens and Lawsons and whatnot for chocolate-themed desserts also, it is a failing that I have no strong intentions of casting aside. >.>
One nice thing about one of the peeps I hang out with (specifically Wyatt, who reminds me a lot of Collin in a lot of ways) is that he's pretty much on the same level of Japanese as Jenny and I, so when it's just the three of us (or when it's not, to mess with the rest of the group, always fun) we talk in at least half-Japanese and text each other entirely in Japanese for practice. It's quite handy. :D
And tomorrow is a long day of catching up in reading for my art history class; I am unfortunately over a hundred pages behind from not reading for two class periods. >.> therefore, I shall bid you a fond farewell and goodnight, and shall post about last weekend's adventures in great detail on the morrow. Adieu!
Also, hello new friends! Welcome to my ramblings! :)