Ahhhh, Japan… How your vending machines have been calling me back for the past three years. How could I forget how deliciously cold and wonderful your Milk Tea is. Of course, vending machines haven’t been the main aspect of my exchange so far, but I would be lying if I said they didn’t play a large part in terms of nostalgia.
I do plan on keeping a daily diary while I’m here, but as of yet things have been so extraordinarily hectic that I haven’t quite had the time to do so. I know, I know, that’s no excuse (especially with all of the studying that I have to look forward to this semester), but I PROMISE there will be no dearth of entries through which you can vicariously live through me this semester. For now, we’ll both have to be satisfied with a summary of Orientation week. I’ll try to keep it as interesting as I can!
The plane ride to Japan took me a whopping 25 hours. Even having gone through this several times before, airports have a way of reminding you just how excruciatingly long this process is. For those of you who go through Newark, New Jersey every semester, you have my sympathy.
I didn’t encounter any of the other students until I got to Los Angeles. There, I sat amidst an enormous crowd of Chinese people waiting for the next flight, struggling to stay awake and wondering whether or not I really would pay eight dollars for the most caffeinated drink I could find at the nearby Starbucks stand. It was just as I wondered this that someone started speaking to me. A few minutes later, we became a group of three excited-yet-nervous Americans on their way to Kansai Gaidai. Our powers combined, we traversed immigration and customs with very little problem.
Arriving at Kansai Gaidai some-odd hours later, things started with a bang when none of the RAs could figure out which dormitory I was supposed to be in. I got a personal tour while we looked for my name in the list of residents. Little did I know that not knowing where to put me would soon become a pattern I was used to.
During Orientation week, all of the other exchange students and myself reviewed rules, regulations, and local area laws, followed by an hour long discussion on how to properly separate trash and why it is important to do so. I’ll be sure to take a picture of our countless trash bins and explain this next time.
The international students started classes yesterday, meaning that the reality of school is once more upon us, homework and all. For me, the past two days have been especially hectic. Having taken the Japanese Language placement exam at the start of orientation week, the school originally placed me in the third level (of seven or eight) for both speaking and reading classes. Arriving to class, my professor and I both realized this had been a serious miscalculation. Whereas the class was just starting to gain conversational skills, my professor and I had successfully held a conversation in Japanese for half an hour with little difficulty, thus starting the long process of meeting much of the Japanese department. The consensus was that I would attend each of the classes to see where I should be put due to the severe difference in my perceived ability from the exam and practical ability (a humorous side-effect of self-study). Four tests and one essay later, the department decided I would do best to go into level 5, a good balance of review and challenging material.
Outside of Japanese, I’m happy to say that my Japanese Cinema and Japanese Literature class, taught by the same professor, look as though they will be very interesting. First on the menu are Iwai Shunji’s Swallowtail and Junichiro Tanizaki’s The Key, respectively. Starting from tomorrow, I will be attending Ceramics as well, the class that I am looking forward to the most. Having no background in Ceramics and being a Studio Art major, I’m sure it will be a career-/life-changing experience.