「妙にでかいね、小さな世界を照らす～」

Originally written (but not posted) last week (I'll set the date on the post appropriately):

-Being in two clubs with conflicting schedules really sucks. Splitting my time between them, I'm not really able to participate in either as much as I want... D+++ I like both so much, I can't quit...

-Although I couldn't really participate in very much of the actual 五月祭 (the school festival in May - at TouDai's other main campus [Hongo], and only two days long), the Chabashira uchiage afterward was a blast. So glad I went. <#

-Spitz has so many amazing little songs I keep discovering.

-Kii Hantou trip from Tuesday (the day after tomorrow) night! +DD

-My current pledge to not speak English except in class and in situations which particularly call for it expires tomorrow. Not sure what I'll do (extend?) after that. This last week was rather bad for Japanese, though, in that I didn't add nearly enough to my SRS, and also broke my pledge and spoke some considerable English... Uaahhh...

Mashup of things written since the last time I updated this:

I read The Little Prince in Japanese recently. I really, really liked it. Reading a whole book that's not manga (even if it is a children's novel) in Japanese for the first time was pretty cool.

Since then I've been reading a lot of manga. I discovered that the manga I had been reading was a lot harder to read than most manga. So now, I have more normal manga, and have been reading voraciously. It's slightly expensive (not too bad, since I buy it all used), but it's for ~study~...

Using monolingual dictionary was hard at first, but I'm starting to get quite convinced of its awesomeness. The one time it failed me so far (the difference between 解く／とく　and 解く／ほどく), Satoru kindly (and very throughly, with surprisingly good drawings and everything) explained to me.

I learned that おにぎり　=　お握り. Mind blown again. Japanese amazes me every day.

Recently, I keep having this strange experience where I look at a word that has multiple kanji (that I haven't known for years), and, without any effort or thought, and without parsing the characters individually, the meaning and reading (sounds/way to say it) comes to mind instantly, and I sort of feel like, "Whoa, how did I do that?"
Oh yeah, I guess there was a time when I looked at each letter in English, too...XD Practice, practice... For a while there I wasn't reading that much in Japanese for fun, but it's good that I am again.

Talking with Akabane-san and some people I met for the first time, middle names came up. As a habit carried over from high school (where there was another person with my first and last name in my year), I quite often write my middle initial on things, so they knew I had one. Akabane was saying how it'd be cool to have one, so I replied that, sure, a middle name is nice, but I wish I had a name that had kanji. At which they brainstormed together and finally gave me the kanji 小鈴　（コリン, Korin). (As a side note, I go by Korin more than Colin here, and exclusively by Korin to this group of people.)
It's a bit 可愛すぎる and 女の子の名みたい, but it's fun. XD
And, coincidentally, though when they gave it to me I knew 鈴 as "small bell" (via RTK) and the word suzu (鈴 - meaning, happily, "bell"), but just a few days later I encountered the word 風鈴 (fuurin - which, by its kanji and the context I saw it in, means, quite transparently, "wind chime"), which uses the "rin" reading of "Korin."

Today I finally decided not to got to Okinawa with AIKOM friends in late July, the period after classes end and before I go back tot he US. I really wanted to go; it seems like it'd be a really amazing last AIKOM memory... But, although I have enough money to go, I decided it'd be better use the money for other things.

Sunday was the Chabshira birthday outing for May! It was great fun. I was given a 扇子 (Japanese folding fan) by Chabashira, which was cool, some awesome 白虎 socks with metallic thread by Koyanagi, and free dessert by the restaurant. <### I also made a new friend who I really liked. I feel like I've been meeting a lot of awesome people lately, which is bittersweet since I'm only here a couple more months... It was actually my first time in an American chain restaurant in Japan, and it was totally surreal. Reverse-culture-shock or something. Finding I'm currently more used to Japanese restaurants than American ones is the weirdest feeling evrar.

I totes forgot until yesterday, but tomorrow we're going with Boccha-sensei on a bit of a field trip, to several places. +D One of them is Yasukuni Shrine (~controversial~). The really, really awesome part about this, though, is that thanks to Boccha-sensei's connections, we get to go into the inner shrine, which is normally closed to the public (liek, even several of the Japanese students, whose classes matter somewhat, are skipping their other classes to come, since it's a pretty unique opportunity). Excited~

And, of course, Kii peninsula trip from the first of June (a week from today). Week long trip with all of AIKOM, some of the senseis, and a few Japanese friends... Fuuuuuuuu so excited.

And Robert is coming not long after that!

最高の誕生日

So, Joon Woo asked me if I (as a native English speaker) would look over his paper that's due in Yaguchi-sensei's class (that we're both taking) tomorrow. Of course I said yes, so he said he'd come up to my room when he got back to the dorm. 全然あり得る。

But, actually, when I opened the door a group of seven of my closest friends of AIKOM surprised me and cheered and pressed sweets on me. And then we ate them together in my room.

<#####################forever 何 か、愛されていると分かった。凄く感動した！

My first earthquake.

A year ago today I found out that I'd gotten a place at TouDai in AIKOM, and that I'd gotten a scholarship that meant I could claim that place. <###
Of course, today I'm busy being depressed about how little time is left. XD

Not really. But I do increasingly feel like I need to try harder in the time that's left. Related, I've recently found some better Japanese radio online (the two stations I get on my actual radio are both pretty bad). Yaaaaay~ Not that it really relieves my withdrawals from US public radio (still off-limits, as it's in English)... But it's something. Seeing how I am at TouDai, there are probably people who know about good Japanese radio, if it's out there. I should ask around.

Tomorrow my 15-day (I think it was) pledge of speaking no English aloud whatsoever when outside of classes conducted in English will end. I think I'll renew it, until the end of the month, for now.

In other news, I felt an earthquake for the first time today! There've been a few that other people have said were feelable while I've been here, but I'd never noticed them. I was sitting in my chair, diligently studying, and actually felt my chair shake, looked around and saw the curtains swaying a bit, saw people on the street going about their business as normal... And eventually decided that it probably was an earthquake. It only lasted for, liek, ten seconds, tops, and nothing fell over in my room or anything, but it was kinda cool. A few minutes later people (in other areas of Tokyo) were posting about it on Facebook, so I was sure. Earthquakes are kinda scary... But I'm also kinda glad I got to feel one. XD

Also, I went back to Kendo yesterday after missing two practices in a row before that. <# Maybe it's just because I'm still recovering things I used to know/be able to do but lost, which is perhaps a much faster process than normal learning, but I really can feel some improvement at each practice, which is immensely gratifying, even if overall I'm still terrible. I even got really praised by one of the senpai I did "jigeiko" with(? This may have actually happened before... But anyway, it was certainly the first time I believed the senpai XD).

Some recent notable events:
Some time over Golden Week I went with Sarah, Joon Woo and Team China (including, somewhat unusually, Yu Chen) to 外延前, where we ate a pasta restaurant Sarah recommended. The sign read 生パスタ (nama pasuta - "fresh" or "raw" pasta) which at first bewildered those of us who had never been. Usually you see "nama" in front of "beer," meaning beer that's from a tap, not a bottle... And besides that, yeah, I only knew it as "raw," as in what sashimi typically is, or sometimes something like "plain," as in eating bread straight out of the bag. The restaurant was tiny, just one room (with kitchen area divided off by only a counter), so we got to watch them prepare our orders. The pasta came out of plastic packages, and was already soft-ish; not dried (though they did then cook it in hot water). So I guess that's what it meant. It was, by the way, the best pasta I've had in Japan, easily. Ffff so good.
After that treat we went to 自由ヶ丘, a neighborhood famous for its sweets shops. It has an annual Sweets Festival, which is, as it turns out, that week, and was in full-swing. And holy cats, there were a lot of sweets shops. Joon Woo took us to some famous ones, and I ate two deserts, which were both excellent.

Also, there was the Chabashira Golden Week BBQ, which was a blast, although it involved getting somewhat sunburned on my part. We went waaaay out to the countryside (well... By Tokyo standards, anyway), to a place on a river with tons of BBQers. Chatted, played with frisbees, waded across the river, cooked over fires, and had a good time. <#

「本当の自己紹介させていただきます！」

A week ago was the 新歓コンパ　for Kenyuukai, which... Wasn't that different from normal Saturday practice, in most ways. We practiced, then adjourned for food and drinking... Then 二次会 for more of the same, which is as normal. I managed to do the formal self-introduction correctly for the first time ever, (学生注目！　(何だ！）　わたくし、誠にせんえつながら自己紹介をさせていただきます！（お！）　Ａｎｄ　ｓｏ　ｏｎ）, although later in the evening I felt totally unable to communicate at all... Well, it comes and goes. I had a really good conversation with one other ichinensei, whose name I still cannot remember, got rained on heavily and hailed on painfully on the way to Shibuya, and was taught about 飲みニケーション　by my wonderful　Kamada-senpai, and had many other memorable experiences.

Perhaps most memorable, however, was a revelation. For the past three weeks or so, there's been a slightly shifting and changing group of ichinensei (newcomers to the club, basically), which I've been a part of. Maybe around eight or ten of us on any given day, and twenty altogether (at least, at the shinkan konpai). But... It turns out that two of them were actually third-year veterans of the kenyuukai, sent to infiltrate us/try to get us to join. XFD. One of them I'd never really talked to much, and actually didn't know who he was. But the other, Yamauchi, I'd talked to quite a decent amount. It was especially interesting for me, though. All the other ichinensei expressed a great deal of shock when they found out, and made him drink and such (as is, along with the infiltrating itself, apparently tradition of the club). But, though I certainly wasn't aware he was actually a 3rd year, I knew he wasn't a normal ichinensei, and wasn't very surprised at all at the revelation. My theory about this is that the strategies I've developed in my ~7 months in Japan so far for dealing with the language barrier allowed me to see through his facade to some extent. Since I can't understand what's being said, I rely much more than other people around me on learning things about what's going on at any given time by watching and observing in non-verbal ways. In this case, perhaps I was actually not blinded by his words the way the others were. ...Of course, this means that, in some way, I want to come to be able to deceived by the words as they were... XD Anyway, it was pretty funny.
(And then, perhaps I just wasn't as shocked because my poor Japanese leads me to talk pretty much the same way to anyone who isn't a teacher, so there was no "zomg I've been using such casual language with my senpai!")

Got kinda sick. Just in time for the start of Golden Week fuuuuuuuuuuuuu--
But, although I slept, liek, 18 hours on Thursday, I felt 90% normal yesterday and today, so maybe it's already mainly blown over. Because I still can't breath too intensely without starting to cough terribly, I decided that I needed to go to neither the Chabashira Oni Gokko game nor Kenyuukai practice today. Bawww, I wanted to go.

I registered for the JLPT (日本語能力試験), 2kyuu, for July. So, I've decided to start using the JLPT tango list again (which I was doing for a while, then quit). But, I'll use it with the AJATT sentence method, which will surely take a lot longer to input into SRS, but result in better learning. よし！絶対合格から！

I had my presentation for Kage-sensei's class (Aspects of Japanese Society - about pretty much that, social issues) today. Every student has to present over the course of the semester, and I just happened to be early on, so now I'm fairly in the clear.That class is, I think, da new bomb. Fascinating and satisfyingly academically meaty (some courses this semester I took because they promised to leave me with a lot of time to work on Japanese, and they do, so far, do that satisfactorily, but they are just not that stimulating).

Oh yeah, and on Monday I went to a circle (the name of which I still don't know) that discusses... World issues? I've actually been once before, when Zhemin randomly grabbed me (that time the topic was the movement of labor force in Asia). That first time I met a guy, whose name I also don't know (he's Chinese, so I can't even guess from the Kanji on my contacts list>_>), who invited me to this second one, on Monday, particularly because the topic was about US-China-Japan relations, and I'm, well, from the US. I couldn't actively participate much, but I understood pretty well, and it was pretty interesting. I may start attending these regularly, partly because it's all in Japanese, and partly because they have been so interesting.

Also related to pursuing topics of interests while working on Japanese, I bought a gardening magazine the other day. I am such a middle-aged auntie at heart, the way my heart melts at vegetative propagation of ornamental plants. It's surprisingly easy to read, so far. Actually, though the Japanese is at that perfect level that's just a little challenging, a lot of the actual content is, dare I say, a bit below my level? Maybe because I come from a place where things don't actually grow for half the year, or maybe because I'm a student and it's how I often approach things, I've spent perhaps as many hours reading about plants and their maintenance/upbringing as actually working with them. So maybe I've already covered too much ground for my own good. Anyway, I've learned lots of useful words from it, as well as Japanese plant names, which now enable me to talk about this hobby in Japanese much better.