It’s pretty much exactly the same as before, except now I’m working from a larger kanji list. The JLPT 3 list was about 800 words and took 28 pages in Word. Now that I’m finished with that test I figure it’s time to move onto the JLPT 2 vocab list. This one is much more substantial, about 5000 words and 200 pages in Word. I’ve got my work cut out for me. But I’m not studying for the test, which is next December; I’m studying so that I can understand the people and things around me. The list is simply a good guide of well-used vocab and kanji. I’ll be working off of it for a long time.
School this week is tiring; it’s another one of those six-day weeks. It’s parent teacher conferences to so I don’t get to a free period because the library is being used all the time. I do get to go home early though because today, tomorrow, and Saturday are all half days. The schedule is so strange and changes so often I don’t even try to follow along. Classes are randomly swapped for other classes, we have days off and days added on at will, I have no idea what’s going on. Luckily I don’t really have to keep track. All I have to know is what comes next so I can get my books out. I don’t have to worry about when to turn in homework or prepare for a test. That’s good. I try to learn during the classes I like, math, science, occasionally English, and read or memorize words during the ones I find hopelessly boring. Then when I get home it’s a race to get to bed as early as possible. I crave sleep like no other. But dinner is so late here that the earliest I usually make it is around 11. 8:30 is a normal dinnertime and 9:00 or 9:15 is pretty common as well. I’ve gotten used to it though and I usually don’t get hungry until around then.
Because these are half days I have more time at home so I can make my flashcards. Tomorrow I’m going to another basketball game with the track team. I’m looking forward to that. I really like basketball, especially when playing with other kids. Being tall and fast makes up for my lack of Japanese, and this week I’ve been feeling that affect. I don’t know why but all of a sudden I’ve become very frustrated with the learning curve. It’s like I feel like I should be farther along than I am. It’s still really hard to understand kids when they talk and following along in class is almost impossible. I can’t read anything unless it’s all in hiragana. My self-disappointment turned inward and I stopped attempting to speak at lunch. That coupled with my host mother’s late work nights meant I didn’t say much at all the first half of this week. But it’s amazing what a little conversation can do for self-esteem. I had a rather long with Kaname at track on Thursday. We talked about interesting things, video games, track, learning English, what we want to do in life. It felt like a relaxed thing instead of a mind workout. My biggest beef recently was that I wasn’t having interesting conversations. I can tell someone what I did today or ask how much lunch is but just talking seemed out of reach. It’s good to know that I was wrong.
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2 comments:
As long as you can talk about sexy ladies, you're fine
It's understandable that you would get frustrated with the learning curve. Languages are often front loaded, and you are taking the brunt of that now.
Put this into prospective. Think of how much faster you are learning and applying your Japanese than students back at ETHS. I'd say you are outpacing them like you outpaced me in that 5k. Similarly, think of how much more practice the Japanese have had.
What you are doing is no small feat. Keep pushing through it. You can do it.
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