Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Beware the Midterm! Another All Night Karaoke?!

Okay, now for the post about midterm week! 11/14-11/16

Monday morning was funny; showed my picture off to everyone. XD Duke was jealous because he is not fabulous like the drawing (really, I just can’t draw beards, so there isn’t one). And Jil and Jess love their characters. Hooray for me! We all hung out and tried to study until class. In class we went over the homework and basically finished the last chapter to be included in the midterm on Wednesday. At the end of class, I was informed that I had to do my hatsuon check, which I had completely forgotten about. Yikes. Luckily, we’ve been working on a simple story: Momotarou. It was not difficult to read, so I got A’s for this check too. Thank goodness.

Tuesday was a hilarious class. Konno-sensei is always so funny, but on that particular day, I had a fun experience with another student. We were put into pairs to create a dialogue using the most recent grammar pattern. This conversation was meant to include “hurdles”, meaning that one person would ask for permission for something, and the other would essentially challenge the need for said permission. We were meant to go back and forth until one person backed down/granted permission. I was paired with Mokuhou-san (using a Japanese spelling of her name). For our conversation I actually took the initiative. XD I pretended to be a young girl asking her mother for permission to go play with a friend. She asked if I’d done my homework or studied, and my response was that I studied the day before. Then came the best line of the day: “Kinou ha kinou da yo!” Basically, she yelled that yesterday is yesterday. We were dying of laughter as the teacher pointed out that it was actually a common expression. Eventually I asked if my friend and I could study together and was granted permission. XD

After that, Zach and his partner were up. I’m not sure their conversation made too much sense. It was about borrowing a book, which was apparently the other kid’s “girlfriend”, but it had Zach’s name written on it, haha. Regardless, it was a blast.

Alas, the dreaded day of the midterm arrived: Wednesday. We got to school really early to do some last minute studying, mostly kanji on my part. Listening was something that couldn’t really be helped, and the grammar seemed doable. The reading section involved two stories we’ve already read, but it had slightly different questions. There was no preparing for the sakubun portion at all; we were not given the theme until time for the test. Thus, kanji was my biggest worry. We could be tested on any of the 135 kanji learned in class, but it was more like 300 possible words that could be made out of them. Needless to say, I was a little worried about that.

We shuffled into our usual classroom, followed by a different teacher from our usual three who was our test proctor. I went to sit down in one of the few remaining seats, only to be told by Junso-san to look at the board for our assigned seating. Turns out I picked the correct seat anyway. Duke, oddly enough, was at the desk behind mine and vowed to annoy me during the exam. Punk. Before I could come up with something clever to say, which probably would have failed anyway, the test had begun.

The first part of the midterm was the sakubun. I wanted to bash my head into the wall beside me. Duke wasn’t lying when he said these people were terrible trolls. Jil and I felt they wanted to crush all our hopes of doing well by throwing the worst section at us first. To top it off, the theme was absolutely horrendous: Things That Have Surprised Me since Coming to Japan (日本へ来て、びっくりしたこと). I’ve been asked this question on multiple occasions, and not once have I ever been able to come up with an answer. I had a time limit of 50min, though, so I simply wrote about a few differences between life in the US and life in Japan that I knew to expect. Okay, so I fibbed, but I had to write something. Worst section ever (read: worst essay ever written). There was a ten minute break after the sakubun for students to use the restroom, eat a snack, etc. Jil, Duke, and I used most of the time to tell each other how poorly we did.

Part two was the listening section, I believe. Many of the conversations/questions were ones previously done in class, so I knew how to answer them. Other questions involved a description of something, leaving us to pick one of four pictures that best matched what was said. The last few conversations were more difficult, as they were longer and had slightly more confusing questions to accompany them. Regardless, I think I did well on that section (read: I hope I did well). Another mini break was given before the longest part of the exam.

Reading comprehension was up next. The two stories picked out of the three we read were the obvious choices because they were the two more difficult ones. One was about soybeans and the Japanese people; I left a few questions blank on that side because some of the vocabulary was too complicated. The other side was the story of Noguchi, Hideyo. I answered all of those questions, and I think I got them all right. With any luck, that’s not just me being too optimistic, heh. Once time was up for that, we were immediately handed the bunpou section of the test. Throughout most of it, I felt I was able to put the correct answer, but there was at least one question I did not answer at all. I was still kind of in panic mode, and I could not remember for the life of me what one little phrase meant. That made the whole sentence that I was supposed to write pointless for me. I’m sure I made other mistakes too, even though what I wrote for certain questions may have seemed correct at the time. As long as I didn’t make too many little mistakes, I should get a fairly decent grade. ^^;;;

A short break later, and the time for kanji had come. I was the most worried about that section for the sheer volume of the content that could be used. Much to my delight, they picked a lot of simple kanji that I knew! There were fifty words we had to change from kanji to hiragana or vice versa, and I answered all but five. Provided all the ones I answered were correctly done, I have a 90%. I was only unsure of one or two that I answered, meaning the lowest grade I could have is an 86%, with which I am totally okay. Once I finished, I handed in my paper, put my chair upside down on top of my desk, grabbed my bag, and gleefully ran down the stairs to freedom. XD (Yes, we have to do that with our chairs every day) I was so happy to be finished the day of testing! Shortly after my retreat, Jil and Duke joined the group of freed prisoners. XD Jess was already downstairs, as each level’s exam worked a little differently. I believe the level 2 test sections were slightly shorter than ours.

So, our group gathered together to go eat dinner at the Italian place in Ikebukuro. Then we prepared for all night karaoke! Woot! We didn’t even care that we had class the next day; we wanted to party in celebration that the midterm was over. A group of seven this time (Jason, John, Matt, Duke, Jil, Jess, and I), we headed for Sunshine City.

Free time for karaoke during the week was cheaper too because it was a weeknight! We of course had a blast. Munchies were eaten, including some McDonalds at some point, drinks (only water and tea for me) were had, and all were merry. Jason was, as usual, far gone after only one drink and dancing as he sang. Matt got relatively drunk too throughout the night, which was also entertaining. As for me, I pushed myself too hard while singing not far into the night, but I kept up with the water and had a decent length break between each of my songs, so I was fine. XD I all but monopolized Duke’s giant headphones to listen to music on his phone once the other guys were so lost that their singing became drunken yelling. And I believe Duke asked me for about the hundredth time “Why are you not getting paid to do this?” I dunno, maybe I should try to be a singer. XP

Much like the previous all night karaoke trip, I was totally passing out by the end. However, this time I was able to at least stand for the walk home. I did however need help with the walking part; so of course, Duke was practically holding me up the entire trip back to the dorm. This time, at least, I was smart enough to bring my coat so that I wouldn’t freeze. We did decide to walk back through the station this time, so I did tear off my coat for that part of the trip. It’s always disgustingly hot in the subway. Once we reached our exit, though, we had to walk up a couple sets of stairs to get back outside again. I said I could handle it, but I was picked up before I had the chance to take even one step. I was set down again at the top of the stairs, and almost fell over trying to regain my footing before being pulled along yet again. I seem to recall saying fairly ridiculous things in my sleep deprived state. Mostly funny things that may not have made any sense. Heh.

We returned to our rooms to pass out for as long as possible, and poor Duke had to get all the way back to his host family before getting any potential sleep.

That’s all for now!

1 comment:

  1. I am reading up on your crazy adventures. You are awesome! I so happy of the oppurtunity you have to live abroad. We certainly miss you but it's so fantastic that you get to do something that you love AND get college credit for it. Keep up the bloggin. I know its hard when you are running around like a crazy lady but it helps feel like we're with you. Michelle says hi and we both miss you. I want stories on what you are going to do for American Thanksgiving. Turkey sandwhiches? Turkey sushi? LOL. I'll bet you miss the WaWa Gobbler! LYMI

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