EVERYONE HAIL TO THE PUMPKIN KING

I discussed the future of American healthcare with Obama in office in class today.

Turning point in conversation practice?

BLOG SOUNDTRACK: Panic! at the Disco - "This is Halloween"

WHAT A WONDERFUL DAY! (FOR SOME INTERACTION...)

Overslept three hours. Ran to class (got there only about 5 minutes late, thank goodness). On the way, I passed a couple electric company workers on their lunch break, it looked like.

Worker: これから、学校？　(School now?)

Me: はい。(Yes.)

Worker: がんばって。(Work hard. Similar to "good luck" in English.)

Me: はい、がんばります。(Yes, I will.)

Pep talks from strangers is one thing I'll miss back in America.

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With the start of a new semester, Ichikawa-sensei introduced a new Thursday class schedule. For the last 40 minutes of class, native Japanese speakers (either our friends or other SatsuDai students) talk with us one-on-one about our home country, friends we've made in Sapporo, or whatever subject we happen to be practicing in class. Then, we individually evaluate ourselves (in Japanese, of course) and then our partners give suggestions for what we need to improve.

For the past two weeks, our partners were hard to come by. Most of my friends had another class or a part-time job and couldn't make it, and it seemed just as hard for my three classmates. Our teachers' solution: putting up posters asking for help from any and all students who want to participate. Slightly embarrassing for us, but the end result is worth the desperate cry for conversation partners.

Take today, for example. Two second-year girls from the cultural studies department, one third-year boy from the English department and an older man (an acquaintance of Watanabe-sensei, I believe) were assigned as our partners. We began with a warm-up of exercises from the book and, as we switched partners, we continued conversation about adjusting to Japanese life - with the goal of mastering the ーようになる grammar pattern. After the first round, most of our self-evaluations were negative. (I criticized myself for speaking so slowly, Jordan felt he needed to use polite form more, Emma was worried about not knowing enough vocabulary, and Ash jokingly said her conversation was awful.) I was surprised at how different our strengths and weaknesses were. For example, I am more comfortable with formal speech (i.e. です、ーます）but speak too slowly, and I'm jealous of Jordan, who speaks so easily even if he only uses casual form.

Eventually, we began to improve and the conversations flowed more naturally. The girls in general were more lenient, saying "That's okay" and "Take your time," whereas the boys (er, boy and man) put more emphasis on correcting our broken Japanese. Not sure if that's a gender-related difference or not.

We were nervous throughout the conversation exercise - Ash even mentioned it during one of her self-evaluations - but an hour and a half later, we all noticed our own improvements and could articulate how we had improved and what we still wanted to work on.

Thursdays just doubled on the Fun-O-Meter.

photo taken November 26, 2009

BLOG SOUNDTRACK: 嵐　「時計じかけのアンブレラ」

大学祭 / SCHOOL FESTIVAL #2

お誕生日おめでとう、市川先生！

Today is Ichikawa-sensei's birthday.

She won't tell us her age, but she hinted that she's in her mid-thirties. We only found out it was her birthday yesterday by accident, when Ash mentioned she had made no-bake cookies and Ichikawa-sensei suggested bringing them in today to celebrate.

Obviously, on such short notice, she didn't expect us to actually bring the cookies in.
Obviously, we decided to surprise her anyway.

Operation: お誕生日おめでとう！ began at 6 p.m. yesterday with Ash and I rummaging through her apartment for ingredients for the no-bake cookies. If you aren't familiar, no-bake cookies are just a combination of oatmeal, peanut butter, cocoa, vanilla and any other mixable flavors you choose to add. Mix it together, scoop out in handfuls, place them on a wax sheet, wait about 30 minutes and you're good to go.

I had started mixing the oatmeal, cocoa and vanilla together in one of Ash's hand-me-down bowls when she looked at the recipe, slapped her palm to her forehead and sighed. "We forgot the peanut butter."

So we braced the feet-numbing cold - really, Mother Nature? It's only early October - to trek to MaxValu, grab two clear jars of peanut butter with Snoopy cartoons on the label, pay almost $7 for less peanut butter than the typical jar of Jiffy in America contains and returned home again.

Attempt #2 was much more successful now we had the most important ingredient. While I fixed two batches of cookies and Sensei's no-bake cookie cake, Ash put her art degree to use and created a makeshift cookie cake box from cardboard. With a detailed drawing of Doraemon for the lid and a sewed-on button closure, our present was complete!

Sensei's surprise was obvious when we arrived to class late after our ten-minute break with cookies, box and birthday card in hand.



Doraemon says "YATTAA!!" and thinks "It's sweet!"


For some reason, no matter how many times I upload this photo, it won't turn right side up. In some ways, I think it's appropriate, so I'll leave it like this for now. For Japanese language learners, you can click on this photo and read our three birthday messages to Ichikawa-sensei.

So, I would like to dedicate this post to an amazing woman,
the woman who shows me over and over again the value of taking risks in language learning,
who emphasizes that mistakes are only natural,
who truly cares about our well-being as both her students and as friends,
who laughs more than any other teacher I've known in my 21 years.

Happy birthday!

Sincerely,
The students who wish you could be our sister or mother or best friend in America and New Zealand,
Sarah, Jordan, Ashley and Emma

貧乏な生活 (THE POOR LIFESTYLE)

It's official: After almost five months of careful money management, I'm down to roughly $25, meant to last until I receive my next scholarship stipend in...6 days.

$25 for a week's food and transportation. Asking the 'rents for some extra change is not an option, and even if they had money bursting out their living room windows, I could no longer consider myself living "self-sufficiently" in Japan if I relied on it.

Besides, my theory is that a study abroad experience isn't complete without living on no money, or being rushed to the hospital for kidney stones, or something that makes for an interesting story back in America. It might seem difficult to hear about how my friends and I work two jobs while studying abroad just to pay for tuition, rent, groceries, and the occasional weekend in Susukino, but we aren't alone, and it shows - my professor even offered to copy an entire textbook for the class so we don't have to cough up another $25 each.

However, despite living in the 5th most populated city in Japan (slightly fewer people than Chicago), where walking in Susukino and Oodori means walking past teenage girls carrying designer bags and wearing Tiffany jewelry, you can live cheap. Example? My friends J and M from Australia, who went for five days without buying ANYTHING (food included) after returning from summer break in Tokyo.

The benefits of not spending any money: Um, more money? Plus, M got creative with the last bits of food she could scrounge up, like salad with only lettuce (can it still be called a salad?) and traditional recipes using only two or three of the original ingredients. Top Chef, eat your heart out.

My dinner tonight: Tomato soup I found in the back of my cabinet from a month ago, salad (with dressing), ramen (also from the back of the cabinet - it'll stay fresh long after I'm gone), and plain oatmeal drenched in chocolate syrup for dessert. Who needs purin (pudding) for 105 yen a cup or 85-yen ice cream when you have oats covered in chocolate that you already paid for?

So my only option - live like a "bimbou na hito" (貧乏な人), or poor person. (As in, "living in a box in the middle of a rice field" kind of poor. At least I already paid rent, so I can skip the box part.) It's crises like these when I turn to one of my favorite J-dramas and ask, "What would Yamada Tarou do?"



Yes, what would Tarou-kun do? I already have two part-time jobs teaching English, much more suitable than dressing up as the opposite gender and impersonating a butler as he would've done. Growing food isn't an option; besides, I'd probably kill my tomatoes before their leaves broke through the soil. And an air guitar contest? I wish! (Even though I questioned the authenticity of the contest's "American hamburger" prize.)

Granted, everything would seem more feasible if I had a friend who looked like Sho Sakurai. But I digress.



I did take some notes from the first couple of episodes and hit the Tuesday kurokke sales (57 cents per pumpkin-filled/shrimp-and-cream-filled piece of goodness). At least I never had to race other customers through MaxValu to get them. Yay for high supply (and low demand).

I guess the only other thing I can do right now is to not do anything at all. No bus trips downtown to window shop (because I'd probably only be able to pay one-way), no karaoke nights this weekend, no nomihoudai with the volleyball club after practice tomorrow night.

Basically, I temporarily will become a grad student. Thank goodness it's only temporary.

I'll look like the members of Arashi (minus our beloved MatsuJun) in "Kiiroi Namida" ("Yellow Tears") as they focus on their individual dreams and passions while trying to save money. A manga artist, a painter, a musician, a novelist, and a foreign exchange student. It's perfect.

Six days left.

BLOG SOUNDTRACK: Ninomiya Kazunari - "Himitsu"

私と笑顔を連れて歩いていた。。。

View of the mountains at dusk from the Language Support Center in Building 6:



The coolest paper ring display I've ever seen, even with my five years of experience with elementary schools' "engaging visual learning techniques" - the rings spell out the kanji for "culture":



BLOG SOUNDTRACK: Kazunari Ninomiya - "Kako"