Tadaima!

It’s 6:30 PM, I left at 7:30 this morning and am just now getting back. This morning I found the train station, got the right train going in the right direction and managed to find the school on time with only a couple of wrong turns. Yay GPS!

The school was really busy with about 20 new students starting today. There are about 70 students in total. It’s a leave your shoes at the door and wear slippers kind of place. I met about a dozen new students, mostly from European countries and mostly beginners before I was called to take a test. The test was 4 pages of circle the correct answer questions and a few fill in tables of verb and adjective conjugations. Mostly OK but I found that there were a few things that I had to struggle to remember.

I did well enough that I had to write another harder test. No basking in accomplishments here. Go till you fail! This one did me in and I could not finish it without guessing which seemed counterproductive. I then had an oral test and waited for results.

I was placed in a class that had already started and was told that I needed to catch up as I was 1 lesson behind. This equates to about 1 week of solid work so I won’t be lazing about much for a while. Tonight I have 10 pages of homework that is due tomorrow. I am 1 of only 2 people in this class so the spotlight is on me half of the time. I found today’s classes pretty tough. On the other hand I should get a lot of practise in.

My schedule is 4 to 6 50 minutes classes a day. There are 4 core classes each day, 2 grammar and 2 4-skills classes. I only had grammar today so I don’t know what is done yet in the 4-skills classes. In addition I am taking additional classes in conversation which gives me an extra class each day except for Tuesday when I have 2 extra. Tuesday is going to be a long day. I will have 5 or 6 different teachers and was told that I should do about 4 hours of homework per day.

The weather today was sunny and about 30 degrees with humidity in the 90% range. This is hot for me. A lot of building seem not to have air conditioners or else don’t turn them on. I try to walk in the shade.

After class I went shopping, took the wrong bus, walked, took the right bus and ended up at the Pokemon Center. I had tried to buy a limited edition Pokemon 3DS that came out today but it was already sold out. Gaming is a much bigger deal here. Last week in Tokyo I had tried to buy a Monster Hunter 4 3DS that came out before I got to Japan but it was also sold out. There were “only” 300,000 made for Japan and they sold out the first day.

Having learned my lesson I pre-ordered one of the new PS Vitas that will be out later this week. At least I think that I have. It was a pretty difficult transaction and involved filling out forms that I could not read with addresses, telephone numbers and other info that I don’t really have here. Why would they need my birthdate? So now I am officially living at GenkiJACS and using the school for my answering service. What could possibly go wrong? We will see on Thursday.

Afterwards I found my way back to the dorm via JR Rail. The Hakata station was crazy busy at the end of the work day. I found that my dorm rents bikes for only 350 yen per week and I now have a new black steed that any grandmother would be proud to ride. Tomorrow I will try cycling to school which should take about 45 minutes.

But now it’s time for a shower and a lot of homework. My room does have a working A/C for which I am grateful.