Friday the 13th

I didn’t realise it was Friday the 13th until I sat down to write this blog and checked the date. My day was actually great, so I guess Friday the 13th hasn’t got any power over here in Japan. Lucky, that! So I started school on Tuesday and today was the last day of my first school week. So far, it’s been a mixed bag for sure, but I don’t have any real complaints to voice.

The first morning my nerves were all over the place. I was excited about meeting new friends and whatnot, but I was also worried that it just wouldn’t happen. It turned out to be a much better day than I had imagined, though. First up I met the teacher who will be looking after me at the school, Yoshimi-sensei. She’s incredibly nice and has good English skills, which is always a good thing this early on. After sorting through a few housekeeping matters I went off to my homeroom to meet my classmates. I have to say I am very lucky. I have a great homeroom, and all the other students are fantastic.

On the first day alone I was able to make a few friends. Most notable are; Yuji, probably one of the nicest guys I’ve met here and his English is pretty stunning; Koba, Yuji’s friend and also exceptionally nice, both of them have helped me out a heap since I started at school; and Azusa, a kind of quiet girl who just gives off a nice vibe, plus, she’s learning guitar! Winner! Of course, being the only male foreign student in the entire school I have been getting a heap of attention for the past few days. At first the attention was great (Ego boost!), but it does get a bit tiring. It makes for good stories though, I guess.

Anyway, I’ve digressed a bit, so I’ll try and get back on track. After Long Home Room we got to go home, as normal lessons haven’t started up again yet. The next day I once again met Yoshimi-sensei and then a fellow foreign student, a 15 year old girl from the USA named Ellen. Yoshimi-sensei showed us to the library, where we’d be having some Japanese tutorial lessons with some volunteers from a nearby University. The first lesson was a bit of a bludge and we mostly just talked (In Japanese of course) for the whole time, I also got to meet yet another foreign student, a half Japanese/German girl from Germany named Miyako.

After the tutorial lesson finished, I went back to my homeroom to eat lunch. Unfortunately, the rest of the class was out getting health checks and preparing for a special assembly, which introduces the different clubs to the freshman students. Lunch was a bit lonely, obviously. After I’d eaten, I met up with Hiroki and we went to the assembly to see the different clubs that I could choose from. The assembly was pretty entertaining, although a bit long. At the moment I’m thinking I will join the English club, in hope that I can help out a bit and make some new friends outside of my classes.

Day three started with another Japanese tutorial and then regular classes. Classes are tough. It’s hard to understand anything in any of the classes (Besides Oral Communication and English, which are both English based), especially Maths and Japanese (Think our Australian English classes, just Japanese). Hopefully it gets easier as time goes on to understand what’s going on though. I also had PE, which was Soccer, and much more fun than I thought it would be. I really enjoyed myself.

Today was better than the past two days, for certain. The first lesson was English, and the teacher, Okubo-sensei, had me introduce myself a bit in English to the class. After I’d ranted a bit about my background, she gave the class a chance to ask me questions in English and one of the first questions asked was “Do you have a girlfriend?”, I totally saw that one coming (Funnily enough, the same girl asked me later in the day what kind of girls I like haha). When there were no questions left to be asked, the teacher had me help out as an ALT with some exercises and then the class was soon over.

The rest of the day saw me joining in Japanese class, Home Economics, Maths and finally Chinese. Yes, Chinese. I have no idea why, but the way my timetable was made I am in a Chinese class. It was actually a lot of fun, and the teacher was interesting to say the least. I imagine it would be hard to learn another language in one that I can’t even fully understand yet though, so I don’t know if I’ll be able to stay in the class for long. It’s one of the many things I have to talk to Yoshimi-sensei about on Monday.

So that’s my week in a nutshell. A very condensed version of events, if I went into too much detail I could probably go on forever. So far school is good, I just hope that my Japanese skill can progress to a point where conversation is easier than now. I guess I should study more and harder, just living here isn’t going to make me a fluent speaker at all. I have to do a spot of shopping this weekend so I think it would be a good time to pick up some Japanese learning textbooks and whatnot.