simply very happy.
Lately, I keep finding myself ending up at cafes, sometimes three in one day.
Part of this comes from finding my misplaced will to work hard when it comes to improving Japanese. A little over a week ago or so, I woke up one day with the idea that just as a game, it could be pretty fun to just speak Japanese all day, even with other English-speaking friends. Part of that came from the itch to have an excuse to be left alone by other foreign student friends, I'm afraid.
I should confess that I've tried this challenge a lot throughout my study-abroad, and usually three hours into the day when I'm bored on campus but don't know where else to go, I end up gossiping with girlfriends in English, destroy my train-of-thought in Japanese and also get frustrated with myself, and end up frowning inside at my lack of will. So that day, I peaced off of campus early and went to Ages to study and chat with the cafe workers.
By now, since I end up at Ages just about every other day, I feel like I've gotten to know the men who usually work there. Of course the owner is pretty gaijin-friendly, seeing as his cafe is down the street from a school with too many foreign students.. I feel like we're pretty friendly now. Ha ha, so knowing that I would end up having a conversation with him, I thought, why not, practice that a bit and then go home early, right?
At some point, he said probably the most complimentative things I've heard thus far in Japan. That when I come in and insist on speaking Japanese, however hard it may be to understand through my mistakes, that he admires someone pushing and pushing to use Japanese. I feel silly re-typing that because whenever I think that someone feels warmly towards that sort of effort, I feel proud to the point that it might be too much. But it's the sort of pride that has tremendously motivated me these past two weeks so I want to hang on to it. Part of me though, figured that since he recognizes my face it was just another case of over-flattery that I feel like as a foreigner is easy to receive in this country.
That night, I also ended up in Osaka by myself, wanting to just take a walk and find a little cafe where I could get some studying done. Even after wandering around Shinsaibashi for a few hours, I didn't find much. I ending up finding an adorable cafe-bar in Amemura.. I had stopped to read the menu outside where one of the workers popped his head out, said, "Come in, come in" in perfectly fine English and feeling a little flustered at being surprised by that, I went in without really thinking but I'm so happy I did.
In Japan, at coffeeshops and restaurants, I've always been intimidated when people (somewhat fairly) assume I can't do Japanese and end up not speaking very much or well. Whenever I also end up running into Japanese people who speak English, I feel almost obligated to use English with them since they seem excited to practice. Luckily that the day I stumbled across this bar, it was my Japanese-only challenge day, ha ha.
So even though this waiter seemed totally fluent in English, I pushed forward with Japanese a little aggressively, feeling embarassed in the back of my head the whole time. Ha ha, I probably look like a total jerk, I keep thinking but whatever.
I ended up asking the guy why his English was so good, and he apparently had studied abroad in Canada for two years. I remember starting to apologize that I wasn't using more English with him but that blah blah blah today was a 日本語だけでしゃべるってやり狩りの日... And he cut me off to say, no no no, it's wonderful to see foreigners trying so hard to use Japanese.
I guess I meant to type up a short anecdote about my two-weeks-ago Friday but it got a little out of hand.. The point is that I think I'm doing well. My updates have been few because I really AM avoiding English more often than not, and it's helping so much. That same weekend, I had another lonesome adventure into Kyoto, where I stumbled into a tiny little Spanish-looking bar where another of the bartenders had studied abroad already and we could bond on living abroad and killing ourselves to get better at language.
Knowing that I can go out and about and run into people like that encourages me to come back to Japan someday. The beginning half of this semester, I kept wondering if I would really want to return to Japan, because returning will be lonely and tough without my support system I'm lucky to have now. But not only am I coming to be more comfortable with being lonely, I'm also realizing that if I keep killing myself to be passionate and throw a bunch of postive energy out even as I clumsily stumble through this language and this country, people will be endeared by it.
Yikes, too long. I need to update more! Too many good stories as of late, and I'm happy that I keep making them all by myself too. I think I'm doing alright for once.
Part of this comes from finding my misplaced will to work hard when it comes to improving Japanese. A little over a week ago or so, I woke up one day with the idea that just as a game, it could be pretty fun to just speak Japanese all day, even with other English-speaking friends. Part of that came from the itch to have an excuse to be left alone by other foreign student friends, I'm afraid.
I should confess that I've tried this challenge a lot throughout my study-abroad, and usually three hours into the day when I'm bored on campus but don't know where else to go, I end up gossiping with girlfriends in English, destroy my train-of-thought in Japanese and also get frustrated with myself, and end up frowning inside at my lack of will. So that day, I peaced off of campus early and went to Ages to study and chat with the cafe workers.
By now, since I end up at Ages just about every other day, I feel like I've gotten to know the men who usually work there. Of course the owner is pretty gaijin-friendly, seeing as his cafe is down the street from a school with too many foreign students.. I feel like we're pretty friendly now. Ha ha, so knowing that I would end up having a conversation with him, I thought, why not, practice that a bit and then go home early, right?
At some point, he said probably the most complimentative things I've heard thus far in Japan. That when I come in and insist on speaking Japanese, however hard it may be to understand through my mistakes, that he admires someone pushing and pushing to use Japanese. I feel silly re-typing that because whenever I think that someone feels warmly towards that sort of effort, I feel proud to the point that it might be too much. But it's the sort of pride that has tremendously motivated me these past two weeks so I want to hang on to it. Part of me though, figured that since he recognizes my face it was just another case of over-flattery that I feel like as a foreigner is easy to receive in this country.
That night, I also ended up in Osaka by myself, wanting to just take a walk and find a little cafe where I could get some studying done. Even after wandering around Shinsaibashi for a few hours, I didn't find much. I ending up finding an adorable cafe-bar in Amemura.. I had stopped to read the menu outside where one of the workers popped his head out, said, "Come in, come in" in perfectly fine English and feeling a little flustered at being surprised by that, I went in without really thinking but I'm so happy I did.
In Japan, at coffeeshops and restaurants, I've always been intimidated when people (somewhat fairly) assume I can't do Japanese and end up not speaking very much or well. Whenever I also end up running into Japanese people who speak English, I feel almost obligated to use English with them since they seem excited to practice. Luckily that the day I stumbled across this bar, it was my Japanese-only challenge day, ha ha.
So even though this waiter seemed totally fluent in English, I pushed forward with Japanese a little aggressively, feeling embarassed in the back of my head the whole time. Ha ha, I probably look like a total jerk, I keep thinking but whatever.
I ended up asking the guy why his English was so good, and he apparently had studied abroad in Canada for two years. I remember starting to apologize that I wasn't using more English with him but that blah blah blah today was a 日本語だけでしゃべるってやり狩りの日... And he cut me off to say, no no no, it's wonderful to see foreigners trying so hard to use Japanese.
I guess I meant to type up a short anecdote about my two-weeks-ago Friday but it got a little out of hand.. The point is that I think I'm doing well. My updates have been few because I really AM avoiding English more often than not, and it's helping so much. That same weekend, I had another lonesome adventure into Kyoto, where I stumbled into a tiny little Spanish-looking bar where another of the bartenders had studied abroad already and we could bond on living abroad and killing ourselves to get better at language.
Knowing that I can go out and about and run into people like that encourages me to come back to Japan someday. The beginning half of this semester, I kept wondering if I would really want to return to Japan, because returning will be lonely and tough without my support system I'm lucky to have now. But not only am I coming to be more comfortable with being lonely, I'm also realizing that if I keep killing myself to be passionate and throw a bunch of postive energy out even as I clumsily stumble through this language and this country, people will be endeared by it.
Yikes, too long. I need to update more! Too many good stories as of late, and I'm happy that I keep making them all by myself too. I think I'm doing alright for once.