Adventure Time

Lately I've been having lots of adventures with Macee~~

Yesterday, she and I went to Shibuya to apply for jobs at an English school.  Afterwards, we got coffee from Starbucks and walked around for a little bit.  While we were walking, we discovered a pet store.  I'll let the following picture speak for itself....

After freaking out over finding a Meerkat for sale, we decided to go shopping since Macee had never been to 109 before~  Then we came home and cooked dinner together and planned future epic adventuring times!



Today, we walked together to Toyo's second campus because we both have classes there this semester and wanted to be sure that we remembered where it was.  When we got there the sakura were just too pretty to pass up a chance to take pictures~!

On our way home we took a cute little back street and went up some super steep stairs and figured out another way back to school~  It would be an awesome short cut if it weren't for having to climb the staircase of doom.

Registering for Classes

Today Macee and I went back to the school together and I had my advising appointment.I really like my advisor.  He's super nice and he likes to just sit there and chat with me during our meetings haha  For the moment, I have decided on 4 classes in addition to the 5 Japanese classes I'm required to take.  I don't think I will be able to take all 4 of those classes but I wanted lots of options to work with during drop/add.

Ok I'm going to take this opportunity to explain how signing up for classes at Toyo works for exchange students.  So if anyone interested in studying abroad there in the future reads this blog it might be helpful for them.  I don't know if this is the typical way schools work for foreigners in Japan, but this is how Toyo Uni does it:


First of all, we had to take a placement test at the beginning of the year that split us into three levels: J1-beginner, J2-intermediate, and J3-advanced. Unless you test out of all three levels, it is required for you to take 5 Japanese language courses: Integrated Japanese, Kanji Literacy, Listening Comprehension, Reading and Composition, and Project Work.  These classes are taught between 9:00am and 12:10pm Monday through Friday.  This is the set time for everyone regardless of level. 

After that, there are two packets of classes that we were given at orientation.  Timetable A is all the classes offered that are taught solely in Japanese.  Timetable B lists the classes that are taught in English or with partial support in English.  Unlike most classes in American universities, which require you to attend the same class multiple times per week, classes taken at Toyo are typically taught only one day a week.

You decide what classes you want to take and then write the class information (ie course code, course title, teacher name, etc) on the Registration Form.

Then for the classes you want to take, you also must fill out these permission forms to give to your teachers that basically explain that you are an exchange student and you want permission to take their class. (We were given these forms at orientation as well) They are really simple to fill in. You just write the course title, the day and period of the class, and the room number.  All the other information is already printed onto the sheet.

After that, you take your registration form to a meeting with the advisor that the school assigns to you and your advisor signs off on it.  Then, you take the registration form and the permission forms to the GIO (Global Initiatives Office) aka the study abroad office.  They file the registration form and give you a copy to keep.   They also make copies of your permission forms for their own records, but give the originals back to you to give your teachers on the first day of classes.

The first week of class is a "trial period" or what we call "drop/add" at home.  If there is any class that you want to change, you just go back to the GIO and make the change on your original registration form.  


And that sums up the registration process!

Blowin' in the Wind

Well... it's 6AM and I can't sleep....
I have been sick whether from allergies or a cold I'm not quite sure, but either way I can't breathe and it's preventing me from sleeping so I decided to take the spare time to post a blog.

Yesterday was interesting.  I went with Macee to the school because we were both supposed to have our advising appointments.  Hers was scheduled for 1 and mine was scheduled for 3 so we were planning on just hanging out at the school.  However, while we were sitting in 4th building, one of the teachers from GIO found us and told us that all advising appointments for the day had been canceled and that the school was being closed because a bad storm was coming in.  This really freaked me out because...well let me go off on a side rant for a moment:

When Quaff stayed at my home in the U.S. it stormed.  Nothing super crazy just a normal thunder storm, but it really freaked them out and I didn't understand why.  Now, having lived in Japan for 7 months, I think I kind of understand.  Thunderstorms don't really happen here unless you count typhoons and even with the one typhoon I encountered here there wasn't a whole lot of thunder, just lots of rain and really strong winds.  Since being here, I have only experienced two of what I would view as thunderstorms.  One was in November, the other was last night. 

So now back to my original point: Japan doesn't really have bad storms very often so when the teacher told me they were shutting down the school because of an approaching storm, me and Macee decided really fast that we needed to get home and stay there.  I was really glad we made that decision when I was sitting in my room later that evening listening to the wind shake my door.  Yet again I feared that a part of the tree outside my window was going to fly into my room.  There was even a tornado warning (which answers my frequently asked question of whether or not Japan has tornadoes) and apparently it was the strongest storm Japan has seen in decades according to this website.

But all is well now and the sun is coming up.... I should be asleep.  I hope to go to the doctor soon so I can get over whatever this is that has me feeling so bad.  Also, I have to worry about rescheduling my advising appointment.  Only a few more days until school starts back~

ワッショイ!

Last night I went to Gevil's last live show at Club Seata in Kichijyoji.
I took the train to Kichijyoji by myself and somehow managed to get on a train that went past my stop so I had to backtrack some and ended up being late, which meant that I had to ask some 14 year old girls to help me find where Kazuma was waiting for me. Once I met up with Kazuma, we went to Mister Donut and met Haru, Ukisemi, and Takuma.  It was really great getting to hang out with them.  I miss my big brothers a lot.  It was also fun to realize that I can almost follow their conversations in Japanese now.
When we got to the venue, I had the realization that it was the same place I saw Quaff perform for the last time and it made me a little sad, but the show was really great! Also I got to meet Takuma and Kazuma's mom and hang out with Hiroka~ So I was happy!

"sealing" Gevil

encore~

After the show, we hung around for the after party and I got to talk with Taka for a minute.  He gave me some sort of strawberry cream filled pastry that looked like Totoro~! It was so cute I felt bad eating it, but it tasted just as good as it looked and I was super hungry by that point haha I intended to stay until first train, but since Haru and I were both dog tired he and Uki were super sweet and paid for us to take a taxi home <3  So I was able to make it back in time to actually get some sleep~

Taka can never pass up an opportunity to make fun of me lol

Today, I had to be at the school by 11:00AM for Spring Semester Orientation.  Basically we just had to go get the necessary paperwork and the list of classes and find out when we meet with our adivsors and the let us leave.  The -interesting- part of it was outside the buildings.  All through campus were two never-ending lines of people handing out flyers for their school clubs.  It was like nothing I have ever experienced before.  It was so loud and as you walk in between these two lines of people to get into the school building there are people on both sides of you trying to get your attention and holding out papers that they are begging you to take.  It was the strangest feeling! I imagine it to be a lot like how rockstars feel when they get done with a show and are walking back to their tour bus or something.  Now I'm happily back in my bed where I intend to stay for the rest of the day because I'm not feeling so great and I want to get plenty of rest and make sure I'm healthy and ready for school to start back on Friday~

Here's a LINK to a video that Emily took at the school today.  You see me attack Macee in a hug at one point in it ^^