First Week of Class

Tuesday was the first day of classes. I am in the afternoon class for level 3 from 1:30 to 4:45 with Duke, Jill, and Zack. The first class with Konno-sensei was fun and confusing. She's the one who calls herself "KCP's prettiest teacher". I could understand most of what she said, but saying something back is a different story. x.x So my brain did hurt a bit after that first day. Poor Zack, who was in my class in the US, seemed to have a bit more difficultly than I. The instructions in class are fired off fairly quickly, so keeping up can be a headache.

The first grammar pattern we learned? I knew half of it. The order of lessons home and here are all kinds of out of whack. So I need to catch up on a few that I didn't do from level 2. Another mind-boggling detail. The order of the kanji learned here makes less sense than the order did at home. And that's saying something. There are so many simple kanji needed to make common words that aren't introduced until the middle or end of level 2, while some more obscure and complicated ones are taught earlier. I, unfortunately, have a looooooot of catching up to do on kanji. x.x I shall memorize until my brain explodes.

Wednesday was the 2nd day of classes. We have a different teacher on Wednesdays. I can't remember his name off the top of my head, so I'll look it up later and add it. He seems to be fun too, but not quite as wild as Konno-sensei. He likes to reference her a lot in class though, haha. So on that day, we finished the grammar for CH 38 and were assigned the appropriate homework.

Thursday was yet another teacher. She's nice, but not as crazy and fun as the other two. This class was the listening and reading comprehension class. I already have named it my least favorite lesson. Not for the listening. That part is mostly fine. But the reading comprehension? I can read a passage and understand it, no problem. But to explain why things happened in Japanese? Yeahhhhh... not so much. I suppose I'll learn, though. Even so, we were given a worksheet for it that was rather particular about the sentence structure for the responses. Luckily, we went over it with the teacher before having to hand it in.

Friday was Konno-sensei again, hooray! That was one hilarious day in class. I laughed so hard I cried. Besides the teacher's normal antics, responses from students were entertaining as well. Konno-sensei began a sentence meaning "because my lover was scary (looking)" and a female student (Korean, I believe) answered with "goodbye". Might I say that I love this teacher's responses to insanity. She makes some great faces. For another sentence structure, she pretended to invite a student out drinking with her. His response was simply "no". That does not happen in Japanese. Refusals are always polite, such as, "I'm sorry, but I have work to do." Needless to say, we all had a mild giggle fit when she asked him again, expecting a proper response. This time he just said "yes". He clearly did not feel like using the grammar pattern she had just taught us, heh.

The highlight of the day, though, was when we were put into groups and asked to create a conversation based on a picture. The picture was of an annoyed mother frowning upon her child's behavior of sleeping in past noon. Konno-sensei put a row of empty desks together as a bed, and asked Duke's group to act it out. Duke was paired with Zack and a male Korean student, as there were an odd number of students. Duke played the father, the Korean boy the mother, and Zack was their son. Zack, being extraordinarily tall, barely fit on the desks as he pretended to sleep. Duke began the conversation by yelling at his "wife" in Japanese, saying basically, "What is this? That is not my son! He's your son, so wake him up!" A pitiful attempt to wake Zack followed by Duke literally throwing water at him, and he was up and yelling too. Duke asked why he slept in so late, and Zack's response was too much drinking with friends. After the argument, Zack hopped out of the fake bed and pretended to pull up his pants to start the day. Duke, still in character, yelled about such indecency in front of parents. The class was roaring. We could not stop laughing for anything. That was the best day of class thus far. XD

Random tidbits that I missed during the week. Tuesday, I believe we went to a bookstore for English translations of the texts, then dinner out again. Beef and cheese over rice. Excellent. Wednesday we went to a place called Shaky's for all you can eat pizza night. I had a larrrrge soda to go with. But I should probably explain the pizza. It's very flat and tends to come with weird toppings, such as mayo and corn. Don't ask, please. There were also dessert pizzas, like apple cinnamon or chocolate and banana. Interesting place. Also, at some point throughout the week, Duke wanted a beverage from the vending machine at school. He didn't have any change on him, so I got him the cocoa he wanted. Hot beverages from a vending machine = brilliant! We all knew they existed, but it was still so fascinating. And tasty, too. Duke decided he would have to pay me back. Which he did the next day I think. He popped in 100yen and, at Jess' suggestion, hit the Pepsi button. One half liter of Pepsi for me! Not a bad price, considering most places at home charge almost 2 bucks for a 20oz.

And that's all I can really remember for now. Oh, that and Jill and Jess got lost coming back to the dorm from the 7 eleven around the corner. So precious. I will be going with them everywhere it seems. ^^;;; I shall update with weekend info later!