I'm Still Alive!

I'm still alive! I know it has been some time since my last post (sorry!), I really don't have an excuse other than I've been caught up, and I've been straight up lazy. I think I'll start off where I last left off-- I was about to introduce to you all my room:

When I first got here I really was not expecting anything too fancy: I wanted a simple room-- one with a bed, a desk, a chair, and, if I was lucky, a lamp and a drawer. Maybe a closet. Well,  I got all of that plus a kitchen and a bathroom-- not that I use it at all...The kitchen I mean...
On top of all of this, I don't have anyone to share it with. Yay? Nay. I really wanted a roommate, especially one with whom I can practice Japanese with-- but it's okay, there are many other methods for practicing. So yes, I have this bad boy all to myself! Bad-ass, right ? Actually, it gets pretty lonely...

Front of Closet/next to my desk

Bunk Beds/ My desk

Kitchen Area

Front of bathroom/kitchen/exit

This semester I'm taking some interesting classes-- Intermediate Japanese, Kanji, Reading Comprehension (for Japanese), and calligraphy. These are all in Japanese. Then I added Economics of Globalization and Bank of Japan & Business Cycles. Luckily (or not) these are in English. It might have been way cooler to have these in Japanese, but hey, it's some complicated stuff, even in English.

In calligraphy we made our own "Hanko" Stamps, which is basically the legal way of signing documents in Japan is. This was obviously not as official, or as handy, but it was a lot more fun and a lot more abstract! Here are some pictures of what I chose to carve as my hanko: The first  one is a really old version of 天 "ten" the first part of 天使"tenshi" which is Angel in Japanese, and the second is a really old version of 使 "shi".

 Really old version of 天 "ten" 

Really old version of 使 "shi"

I'm liking the majority of my classes, especially my Japanese ones because I get earnestly excited to learn a new grammar patter, or random vocabulary words that I will either utilize right away, or probably wont use until next semester. Whatever the case may be, I am happy to have the tools necessary to  (or at least try to) have some solid, albeit probably at third grade level, conversations in Japanese. Progress!

Speaking of speaking (ha), when I first got here I found it extremely hard to get around with my current level of Japanese. I never knew how difficult it could be to express my thoughts, concerns, or even my words of approval in Japanese and not sound painfully incompetent. It has definitely been a roller coaster ride, but I've joined some clubs to help me overcome this language barrier!

The first one is Japanese Conversation Friends or JCF for short. This club is for International Students to come and enjoy having conversations in, yupp you guessed it, Japanese. I think it is one of the more successful clubs on campus, and incredibly effective. We meet once a week, but here's the fun part-- we get paired with a Japanese speaking partner. This is great because your partner is available to speak with you at any time, you practice your Japanese and make good friends. Haha, sounds a little corny, but it has helped me so much.

Volleyball Tourney Location

I also joined the volleyball club! This is where I've met most of my Japanese friends. Here I've been able to pick up some sweet phrases to use on the court like "Ni mae" (lit. two in front) and "Sei-no" (the equivalent of ready-set-go). We play 2-3 times a week, and mix between 6 person volleyball and 9 person. We recently-- well not recently, more like a month ago, we had a 4- team tournament. For lack of better words it was ridiculous! There were these huuuge Japanese guys that all had Udon (Japanese noodles) arms and were easily averaging 6'3'', 6'4'' in height, not to mention probably 30 or 35 in age. Needless to say, our 5'9''-5'11'', 20 year old team had our work cut-out for us, but it was a lot of fun! We had our moments of weakness, but we also had our moments of head-turning greatness. We came in last place.

One last group I decided to join was the Community Outreach Services, aka COS. This group facilitates community service events where international students (hey I'm one of those) teach English to Elementary school, Middle school, and High School students in Akita. This is pretty cool because we get to interact with younger students and use the bit of Japanese that we know to effectively communicate some English to them. I feel good about myself when I serve the elementary or Middle school students because I can understand what the teachers tell them, and I can understand little conversations they have with each other on the side (most of the time).I can also practice phrases like "Are there any questions?" or "Does everyone understand?", so on and so forth. We usually sit in small groups and I give them a small presentation on where I'm from, then they give me a small presentation that they have prepared, then we all play some kind of game to wrap up the session. Sometimes it's dodge ball, sometimes its the Japanese version of Rock, Paper,  scissors (which is Janken Pon), and sometimes it's Bingo.

Fun day with Japanese Middle School Children  

  One of my main goals from this experience in Japan is to think in Japanese. I think that after watching the entire Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z series in Japanese (with English subtitles), reading Doraemon (a cute Japanese Manga), joining those two clubs and doing the volunteer events have all contributed to my Japanese learning experiences and will help me achieve my goal over the next 8 months.

When it was a bit nicer outside we would jog into the town nearby and see what the country side of Japan had to offer! It really is a beautiful place-- there's nothing but forests, green, wide open spaces, mountain views, and more green wide open spaces. We also found this pretty cool temple with some nice, classical Japanese statues. There really wasn't much else in the area, but it was really nice!

I still have not been able to go to other places in Japan since I've been here in Akita (like Tokyo or Hokkaido), but I will once I have the opportunity to! I'm thinking of waiting for the spring time to visit Tokyo and it's surrounding areas like Kyoto and Nagoya, but I want to make a trip to Hokkaido during the winter months! That'll be really exciting!  But until then, please enjoy these pictures!

Mountain View 

Temple near AIU

Left side view of the Temple 

Right-side view of the Temple