Testing
It’s silver week in Japan, so school and many businesses are at a stand still until Thursday. Along with orientation, my placement examinations also began this past Thursday and Friday before we plunged happily into this holiday.
Orientation (so far) has been comprised of the induction ceremony, campus tours, earth quake simulations, lectures on swine flu and safety, introduction to the school cafeterias, information sessions, and, of course, the first 2/3rds of the placement exam. This past Friday I took Ritsumeikan’s listening and written portion of the placement test, and did a lot better than I expected. Most of the people that I keep company with (partially because of their linguistic abilities, but also because we all seem to get along nicely) scored high enough on those portions to take the Seiki test.
Because of this, if my interview goes well, and I did as good as I think I did on the first two portions of the test, I might be able to scrape into A class, an entire class above my worried expectations (editor’s note– time has passed, and I actually was accepted into class A1, far above my expectations.) I’ve been working hard to study before Thursday arrives, working on some kanji, and also going through a copy of Mushishi that I purchased, in order to pick up some additional vocabulary. I don’t really have a great way to review grammar, since I left so many of my study materials behind, so I’ve resorted to thumbing through my grammar dictionaries, and picking out forms to briefly review.
I snapped some shots of campus during the orientation experience, so I figured I would put them up for show. From now on, I may break up my posts whenever times are busy, so that there may be four or five posts all from the same day, addressing different occurrences. We shall see what suits me best.
Picture from the Ryoyuukan, where all my language classes are held.
I’m currently half way through my first week, and I’ve been absurdly busy. There’s a mandatory dorm party in 20 minutes where I’ll try to kick back some, and then I’ll probably have to do some studying before sleep. More on this week to come as I get settled in. . .
Mandatory parties! Ha.
Your campus appears to be much, much prettier than mine.
Based on the angle of that picture, you may in fact be in the same room where my class was. Or you might be the floor below. I can’t remember if you could see the roof of the other building.