*note: this post originally had a very well-written recap of my 5K race, but the wireless cut out so it stopped autosaving. When I clicked submit, I promptly lost that entire half of my post. I’ll recap again sometime when I’m not angry, but I’ll just post the second half for now, which loses all its impact without comical hijinks of the race as a contrast.

It’s midterms time again, and thus my semesterly pledge to myself to work harder than I did the first half. Ever since my Sophomore year of college, I would kind of waft through the first half, get to midterms and then fight to the end (before my Sophomore year of college, I would waft through the first half and then waft through the second half).

Granted, there was no wafting this semester — you waft at KCP you get the horns in a hurry — but there’s always room for improvement. Starting last week, I stopped working on Tuesdays and Thursdays so I could have at least four hours on those days for dedicated study time. I’m able to fit in the study I need from day to day at night, but I run out of time to do the extra things one needs to do to succeed in this school. I also need to allocate some time for JLPT study. The JLPT, by the way, is in 20 days. For the last three or four weeks, I have been living in the library on weekends. They open at 9:30 and close at 7:30, and I’m there for about the entire time. It’s not like I’m gripping a pencil ’til my hands turn red, writing feverishly in a notebook until the sweat from my brow and my tears form a pool on my desk. It’s a relaxed atmosphere, and being at the library gives me an opportunity to check out as many American CDs as I can (which usually have Japan-exclusive bonus tracks).

Part of it is the incoming tests, but a significant part is that in 38 days I’ll be leaving this — the best learning environment I’ve ever been in — so I can go back to school. It’ll be back to fitting Japanese study into the cracks using my own ill-conceived methods. The graph of my improvement will level off so quickly that skateboarders will do kickflips off it. I’ll have things that I’m working on next semester, such as two semesters and a few side projects I’m pursuing, but I’d be lying if I said that it isn’t nice being able to focus on just one thing.

As for this midterm test, I don’t feel particularly good or bad about it. It’s going to be on the good side, but the school has beaten the impulse to feel good about a test out of me. I will say that the holes that resulted from 6 years of self study and jumping into a higher level are just about filled. I very rarely make simple mistakes about particles and verb conjugation. I’m still below average on listening comprehension, so I’ve been focusing on that pretty heavily over the last few weeks. It still takes me a while to hear a word, visualize the kanji, and then understand the meaning. With any luck, upon leaving this school I’ll be at the same level as anybody else who can pass JLPT 2. In order to do that, I need to take advantage of the last six weeks and make sure the last holes are filled.