So, the first week of classes in level 4 are over. I guess I should describe it a little.

Perhaps I misspoke earlier when I said the split between boys and girls was about 30/70. I counted again and it was about even. I think my miscalculation came because a large group of guys came late on the first day, and I noticed the NNU-like copious number of girls before the bell rang. There’s also a few Chinese people, and a handful of Malaysian. It’s actually pretty similar to last semester when you break it down.

Watanabe-sensei, who I had earlier mentioned was a new teacher and not quite as polished as other teachers I’ve had, has been getting better every day. I never really felt like it was something to worry about, but the standard for teachers at KCP is so high that it just surprised me a little. Our other twice-a-week teacher, Ujike-sensei, is very energetic and keeps the class engaged. We still have yet to have Eguchi-sensei, because he wasn’t at school on Thursday.

The focus in level 4 is completely different from level 3, in good ways and bad. In level 3 (and level 2 and 1), there’s a backbone of grammar that everything is built around. You can easily tell your progress in class by what chapter you’re on in the textbook. In level 4, the grammar is presented differently, and a lot less time is spent on it proportionately. There’s the JLPT preparation grammar, which is presented in a sort of sink-or-swim way by giving us a test on a bunch of grammatical concepts we haven’t learned yet and then figuring out why our answers were wrong. And then there’s the normal grammar, which has yet to introduce anything I wasn’t familiar with. As such, we have to look at the kanji book as the main backbone, which is kind of strange to get used to.

I think I already mentioned that there is a kanji test every day, which is already getting tiring. In order to fully learn the 5 characters assigned a day, I need to spend about two hours on it outside of class. Of course there is typically other homework assigned as well.

But when you come down to it, intrinsic to learning any language is the requirement that you learn a butt-ton of words. Have you ever seen a dictionary? Now imagine that you don’t know what any of the words in that dictionary mean, and you have to learn them one by one. It’s a daunting task, and at some point it becomes the last thing between someone and fluency. Even in English, I come across words I don’t know about every day. So, on one hand, it’s good that we’re reaching the point where we’re tackling the vocabulary (via kanji) head on, but it doesn’t make it any easier.

I got 10/10 on my first two Kanji tests, but I know I missed at least one on the most recent one. I’m aiming for above 90% this semester.

Oh hey. I entered my photo from Miyajima in the school newspaper club’s photo contest and it won the teacher’s award. So that’s cool.

I’m still going back and forth, but it looks like I’m taking three special classes this semester. On Fridays, it’s Intermediate Conversation. On Mondays, it’s JLPT 2 Preparation, and on Tuesdays it’s Koto. Well, hopefully it’s Koto. Anraku-sensei told me that there’s a possibility that I won’t be able to do it because they give priority to students who will be here longer than I am. If I can’t get into that, I may try Intermediate Kanji again. It depends on if the material taught will be exactly the same or not.

So, I know my entries haven’t been totally interesting lately. I wake up at 6:30, leave for school at 7:30, am at school until 12:15 on normal days and 1:15 on special class days. Then I eat lunch, go to work for four hours, go back home, eat dinner at around 7:00 and then do homework. I would love to post something more interesting, but there just isn’t the time to do much. Not that I’m complaining, mind you. With the exception of two hours in the train, there’s no part of my day that I don’t want to be doing. Still, I’m a little nostalgic of days where I could watch Lynda.com tutorials, get food whenever I want, and decide to do things spontaneously. If weather permits (the same conditions preventing me from doing anything in the week before moving), I’ll do something interesting this weekend.