Tests, Track, and Tokyo

After Wednesday, things picked up. I had another conversation with my counselor and he’s okayed the plan to go to the library once a day. I have a good idea of how to study and my language seems to be making progress. Language is such a gradual learning process that it’s sometimes difficult to gain satisfaction out of it. I was talking to Marianne today, who said she’s craving that eureka moment where something clicks. Like in physics when you just don’t get a concept, and then all of a sudden it fits. That doesn’t happen very often with language. Sometimes it does, but to a lesser degree. I do really like when I hear a word I just learned. Like on Thursday. I was eating lunch right after spending an hour studying passive verb forms in the library. Passive verbs, by the way, are really confusing and I still don’t understand them. Anyway, I was eating lunch and I asked the kid I was sitting by, Hazame, what he was doing this weekend. He said he has a soccer match. What was great was I had literally just learned the word for match half an hour ago. If I had asked that question in the morning, I wouldn’t have understood. But I got what he was saying and I could continue the conversation. That is a eureka moment.

Thursday I went to my class after school. I still haven’t fixed my bike. No one has a tire lever in this town. I am determined to find a way to get it fixed tomorrow. I can’t walk to the train station every day any more. Plus I need my bike on the weekend to get around. It is my lifeline, my one source of freedom. With my bike I can go anywhere, distances don’t bother me. Walking is a big pain and takes way too much time. I have to get up earlier to get to school, which sucks because I barely get enough sleep anyway. So Thursday I went to this evening class at the community center after school. I’m glad I go; it’s a great way to learn. It highlights what I have to learn, where my weak points are. It’s also satisfying to be able to understand the Japanese that is being spoken. The teacher uses simple Japanese. She also explains grammatical concepts in Japanese. This is cool because I can understand. And week-to-week I can see progress. Last week, I was terrible at reading. I worked on it and this week I was much, much better. It is great to see improvement. I look for it all the time. It’s there but it doesn't always present itself. You have to turn over a few rocks to find it.

Friday was a good day in school. When I first arrived, I was merely copying the board in class to pass time. But if I’m in these classes all day I want to get something out of them. So I’m glad I’m at the point where I can follow along in the math and chemistry textbooks and do the problems. It makes the class more interesting to do math as opposed to watching someone do math. I’m still a long way off to understanding history or social studies, but I’m sure those will come along. English is getting better too. At first, when the teacher spoke, I understood nothing. He would write notes on the board, about how to translate the English textbook. Right now we’re reading a passage about Jane Goodall. I still understand nothing but at least I can read my own notes. He writes in kanji on the board, so I can’t read them. But I’m good enough at listening now that I can hear what he says. I can pick out the sounds and put them on paper. I don’t know what they mean, but at least I can write them down phonetically. Then I can look up the words. I gave myself some homework this weekend. I looked at what the other students were doing and though, “I can do that.” So I get to use the notes I’ve been taking in class to translate a long section of the book. Finally I get to put the time in school to use, and it won’t be just killing time. I hate that feeling, like I’m not getting anything done. I wouldn’t mind if it was fun, but listening to lectures in a foreign language rarely is.

Something scary happened on Friday. I was walking to my 6th period Ethics class in the media room. We’re watching a movie, when this giant door started to swing close on me. I had never noticed it before; it covered the whole hallway. So I stopped the door and put it back, and then noticed a cell phone on the ground. Very strange. I kept walking and then saw a few students helping a girl up. She looked unsteady, but it looked like they were doing okay with her. So she gets up and starts walking next to me, but still looks kind of funny. Then she turns and walks straight into a closed door, and falls back completely stiff and cracks her head on the ground. Her eyes were kind of glazed over and her lip looked like it was bleeding. “Not good,” I thought. So I ran to the nurse’s room while two students helped the girl. I know enough Japanese to tell someone to come quick. Then this girl appeared at the door, I have no idea where those other students went. She said, “Sensei” (teacher) and then fainted right there into our arms. I helped the nurse carry her to a bed. She looked like a zombie. Then I had to hurry off to Ethics. I hope she’s okay. I didn’t have time to go back and ask. I’ll do that next week.

Saturday was my first track meet. It felt really good to compete, like I’m more a part of the team. The whole team cheered me on as I broke my goal time. 17:40 and I was shooting for 17:45. Overall I was pleased but I know I could have run faster. I didn't push those middle laps hard enough and I had way too much energy for my kick. This is how I usually feel after a race, so I’m content with breaking my goal time. It was weird running a 5k on a track. It’s 12 and a half laps. That’s a lot of times around. The half lap throws me off, because I like to time full laps, but the timer is half a lap in. Everything is in meters here and it doesn’t quite fit on a track. 400 meters is a weird distance when you think about it. It’s like this weird compromise between the English system and the metric system. Four laps is a mile, but they run the 1500m which is three and three quarters. Why 400 meters anyway? Why not 500? That’s half a kilometer. That would make more sense, but 400 is a standard track size. It made me realize how weird it is when I watched the races. I wonder who decided the distance for the standard track.

Then Sunday. Today was great. I went into Tokyo and spent the day with Marianne Finneran. It was great. We spent the whole day walking around Harajuku and Shibuya. It was much more fun to have someone to enjoy it with. I’ve missed that experiencing events with other people bit. Marianne goes to Harajuku almost every weekend, so she knew of many more spots to go that I did by myself. I had no idea Yoyogi park was so big. It goes on forever. There’s a bird sanctuary and a flower garden. Then we got the most amazing crepes ever. This time I got one with ice cream, heavenly. The ice cream here is really good. So are the crepes. This whole roll stuff up in a crepe business is brilliant. They had some weird stuff though, like salmon and cream cheese. I guess for all those Jewish Japanese people. We say some dancers of the Rockabilly club. These guys are really into Elvis and that type of music. Every Sunday they roll out speakers and dance in their leather jackets and pencil skirts. My camera died just before I got to take pictures. Rats. But they’re there every Sunday and I’m sure I’ll go back. Then we walked over to Shibuya and poked around some stores there. I bought a new journal and a fountain pen. I also got some word cards. They’re like mini index cards on a ring, an excellent way to study kanji. Marianne has been doing self-study as well, and had some great suggestions. Since no one here has given me any guidance on how to best study Japanese, I’m glad that I was able to get some input from someone else.

The whole day was nice, but the best part was talking. It was such a relief to not have to translate stuff in my head. I could just say what I wanted without having to choose only words that I knew. Ah. Plus the fact that we’re both exchange students meant we have so much in common. All the angst and frustration, as well as the exhilaration and accomplishment, she gets. She had stories of her own, which gave me advice and guidance. Being able to talk with someone who is going through the same ordeal is a great way to work through problems. The conversation never stopped, just kept going for the five+ hours we were together. She’s had a lot more contact with the other exchange students, there’s one at here school. So she had news from them, how they’re adjusting, etc. I’m not the only one who’s had issues. Mine are fairly mild compared to some others. I feel much more fortunate about my family and school now. I would hate to have a host mother that insisted on having a sleepover with my friend and me. Cannot even imagine.

Tomorrow I’m going to fix my bike. I’m determined to get that done. First thing on my list of things to do, fix the stupid bike. Then I’ll walk the dog, and get some of this self assigned homework done. I don't like working at home. Then it feels like I’m trapped. I like going someplace else to work because then when I come home it means relaxation and relief, not stress and frustration, which often accompany studying and homework. Then I’m going to find a basketball court and shoot some hoops on my own. I asked Yuto if he wanted to play but he said there were no courts around. So I’m going to find one and ask again. I will make friends here, even if I have to drag them kicking and screaming into my life. Spending the day with a friend today reaffirmed my belief that developing relationships with people will infinitely increase the level of fun and satisfaction during my stay here. So I’m going to do just that.