First Day of Classes

Orientation week is over and classes have begun!

Speaking Japanese is required for all exchange students, and though I didn't take Reading & Writing Japanese last semester I decided to take it for the spring semester.
I had the best Japanese teacher ever last semester. He was awesome and class was always fun. I miss that class, but my Japanese teachers this semester also seem friendly.
My Speaking Japanese class includes three other people who were in my Speaking Japanese class last semester. In fact, out of 11 students, there are only three people who are new this semester. There were a few people who were absent though, so I'm not sure about the final count. Also, the first week is review and then we take a test. Therefore people have the ability to move up or down a level.
My Reading and Writing Japanese teacher lived in the U.S. for nine years so I'm sure she's fluent in English. I can't be certain because the class is taught in Japanese so I haven't heard her talk in English, but she did say a few words in English to translate and her pronunciation was great. She seems really nice.
The thing about Reading and Writing is... my level. I didn't take that class last semester. In fact, I haven't done much with kanji in over a year! I didn't take any Japanese class at all last spring when I studied in South Korea. I took a placement test last week and it was short, and somehow I was put into the intermediate level. I thought I'd be far lower for Reading and Writing. I was surprised.
Now, after the first day of class, it dawned on me that I really want to try to stay in this level. I'm worried now, since to do so I can't fail the review test next week. Therefore I hope to study lots of kanji and try my best to pass. I felt a little overwhelmed. I hope I can do it...

Since I'm taking two Japanese classes this semester I signed up for two lecture courses instead of three. One is Pacific Rivalry, which I really want to take, and the other is Japan and Globalization. Well, I didn't get into the Globalization class. They placed me into Visual Anthropology instead, which I don't want to take! I'm going to drop it. At first I thought I'd try to get into the globalization class, but over the weekend I talked to half a dozen people who are also on the waiting list. Since it seems difficult to get into that class and since I found another class that would be better for my major, I'm not going to worry about getting into Globalization anymore. Now I'm trying to get into a class about the modernization of Japan and China. I really want to get into it. It interests me a lot.

What else... I could write about a lot of things.


All exchange students here are in the Asian Studies Program, which is different from the rest of the university. We're on a calendar that resembles the American calendar, so although our semester started, the Japanese students won't start their semester until April or so. It was different in the fall. We started earlier then too, but the Japanese students started about one week later (and ended much later than we did). Now we'll be on our own on campus for roughly two months. It's emptier, and it's not difficult to find a place for my bike in the bicycle parking lot for now.


We don't have a fancy opening ceremony this time. Instead, we'll have a completion ceremony in May.


I live in seminar house 2 again. There are four in total and SH2 was open during the winter for extension students, but I moved out completely for the winter because I traveled the whole time. I was surprised that they assigned me to the same exact room I had last time. Initially I had a roommate from the U.S., but I met someone who wanted to change rooms so she ended up switching with my roommate. That means that I've had a new roommate since yesterday. She's from the Netherlands. We get along.
I'm used to living in dorms. I think this will be my last semester having a roommate, and I don't mind at all.
This will be my sixth semester of college and my fifth semester sharing a room. I will have had roommates for a semester from four countries: the U.S., India, Japan, and the Netherlands.

There are some changes to this seminar house. One major difference, compared with the fall semester, is that the third floor changed from a boys floor to a girls floor. That means there are only nine guys who live in this building now. Seminar house 2 is the smallest seminar house. We have four floors. The first floor barely has any rooms. The second floor is an actual floor, but it has slightly fewer rooms than the floors above because the kitchen and dining room are there. The third and fourth floors only have rooms. Last semester, the first and third floors were for boys while the second and fourth were for girls. Now all floors except for the first are for girls, and the first floor only has four rooms.

Aside from more girls, there are some empty rooms this semester. At least two or three rooms are completely empty. Also, rooms are assigned to a refrigerator, and they changed the numbers. Even though I live in the same room again, I'm using a different fridge now.

As for RAs, only one RA from last semester is an RA again. We have three RAs here in total, and I actually knew two of them already because one of them who is an RA now was a resident here last semester. That means there's just one new person (in my view), and she's quite nice. Also, she's good at English.

Last semester we had three Japanese RAs and four Japanese residents. This semester we don't have any Japanese residents.


I'm still adjusting to this new semester. I'm having a bit of a hard time because I don't warm up to change like this easily. I'm in a bad mood sometimes or feel sad.
Last semester wasn't always the greatest and there were some people I disliked, especially towards the end, but I've started to look back at it and I miss it. Last week I was thinking about all the people who used to live here in this building, many of which are no longer in Japan. Since our seminar house is small I knew everyone by name and face.
Now there are all these new people. That's ok, I get along with some of them and we have fun, but... it's different because I'm not new.
One major change is that my two really good friends don't live in the seminar house this semester. I met them here in the fall and we started to go to places together on weekends and watch movies together and stuff. I spent my winter break with them. This semester, however, they decided not to live in the seminar house. One of them is doing a homestay and the other is living in an apartment. I never looked forward to living in SH2 by myself. We wouldn't see each other in the hallway anymore, or hang out in the kitchen, or spontaneously watch movies together. I miss that. I think it will be alright, and we can see each other at school and make plans on weekends, but it's another adjustment.
Many SH2 people from last semester were either in their second semester already, were only here for one semester, or are still here but live off campus in their own accommodation now.

I'm still getting used to all these new people, some of whom I haven't met yet, and my new schedule and classes.

I actually counted the other day, and I could think of 12 people (myself included) who lived in SH2 last semester and who are living here again for the spring semester. In addition, I know of five extension students who lived with host families last semester and who live in SH2 now. This is just based off of my memory and the knowledge I have. SH2 supposedly has a capacity of 58, and I know that the number of people who live here is lower than that, so 17 people from last semester actually isn't that bad.

Sometimes I wish I weren't living here again just because I could then avoid having to deal with all these changes and differences.


The weather has been warm lately, at least during the day. I keep thinking that it feels like spring.


I looked at the list of everyone who is living in the seminar houses, and not including SH2 I could only recognize a couple of names. Wow. Are there no students left from last semester? Perhaps a lot of the extension students live off campus now? Then I reasoned that most of the people I knew last semester I only knew because we lived in the same building. There are plenty of people who I can recognize when I see them, but I don't know their name. Since I was on campus for classes today I realized that I recognize a lot of people from last semester, only I don't know their names. I don't think it's that uncommon for the people who do a year here to stay for the fall and then the spring. Still, I met plenty of one-semester students last semester.


Anyway, these are some things that have been on my mind. I'll probably come up with more things I could mention later, but I'll end this post now.