Test

10: 45 am…Waiting is. I’m sitting in a classroom after having taken the placement test, which made me feel like I had learned nearly nothing in the two years of study with Sensei. I guess that is no surprise. One thing it brings into light is how poor my hiragana and katakana reading skills are. Well, now I’m waiting for the next test, the interview. I’ve been sitting here with some of the other students who took the test this morning, all Asian young women between about 19 and 21. I feel like the elephant in the room. To entertain us while we wait, they are running “Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind”, Miyazaki’s anime film that I have seen a dozen times, which still wouldn’t be bad if the color was a bit better. I’m fighting feelings of panic and loneliness. I will have to deal with both if I am to make this work.

12:30 pm… The interview went about as well as the written test. Even things I thought I knew I couldn’t get out of my mouth. I was rather flustered. (Maybe I’m still a bit jet lagged?) My interviewers were patient and nice but I could sense they were frustrated with my lack of ability. I didn’t understand the verbs they used or the question words sometimes. They asked me about my room, what was in it, and I couldn’t tell them because we never learned things like desk and stove and shelf. They asked me what I bought at Daiso (the 100 yen store) yesterday and I couldn’t tell them that either. Now I can think of a few things I might have said, but I was at a loss for words. So soon they sent me off saying come back tomorrow for the Orientation at 9:00. I politely left, feeling even worse than I did before. Tomorrow will be the entire group of new students starting at this point. I fear it will be a difficult and challenging time, but I have to remember my goals are to learn the language and the culture, no matter where I start. Well, after the thunderstorm this morning (during the test, an omen?) and the warm drizzle as I walked home, it is now getting sunny. I will go out for another walk today. See what I can discover.

5:30 pm: There’s nothing like a walk to clear up the blues. Even getting lost is a worthwhile adventure. The map I have from the school is sort of rudimentary and since there are no street names on it, and I couldn’t read the ones on the streets themselves, it’s helpful only to a point and not at all when asking for directions from a policeman because what little it says is in English. Never the less, here I am back in my room safe and sound and I have covered a lot more of the city. I found another lovely lake. Like the other one, it is surrounded by a walk way and trees and other vegetation and it, too, had ducks. I was thrilled when on my way there I passed two older women (like me) and they greeted me and I them with “konichiwa”. Then they asked me “sanpo desu ka?”, “ a walk is it?” which I understood (that was a miracle). I get sort of tongue tied, but I managed a cheery “hai” (yes) and was thrilled. Earlier some primary school girls, all in navy blue uniforms and bright yellow plastic hats, greeted me and giggled wildly when I replied.

After walking around the lake I headed generally in the direction of a shopping plaza marked on my map and sure enough there it was, a short distance away. Even finding the door can be a challenge. I watched as people all seem to be going to the movie theater next door, but I couldn’t see the door to the get into the grocery store, which is what I wanted. Finally I figured out that the door everyone was going through got me to everything. This super market was a little different from the one I went to yesterday. It had a better selection of fresh fruits and vegetable. Here, everything is wrapped and packaged, even if you want just one carrot, which you can get, but its already wrapped and priced. While I was there I check out the movies playing. The biggest advertisements were for the latest Indiana Jones movie and “Wanted”. They are certainly not far behind us in getting our big “block busters”. Do you think they have subtitles or have been dubbed? I’ll have to find out. I bet they are expensive though.

On leaving the store I wasn’t sure the best way to get back short of retracing my steps, which was surely the long way, so I asked a policeman for help, showing him my map. He looked at it and said “chotto”, then he told me to ask another policeman who would know better. (I don’t know exactly what he said, but I understood him!) I walked over to the other policeman who was directing traffic in the parking lot, and when he had a moment between cars I asked him the way to a road on the map, mostly by pointing and saying “doko desu ka?” He was a bit put off by the English too, but looking at the road numbers he was able to tell me to go straight and then take the second right and I understood, wow. I thanked him and headed off as directed. Once I turned right I was on a bigger street but in totally new territory. As I walked in the hot sun I was hoping I was heading in the right direction but there was really no way of knowing. After about 10 minutes I saw a lake to my left and was able to find it on my map and then knew just where I was and soon was walking home on streets that have already become familiar. I may have failed the placement tests, but I feel OK about negotiating these real life situations all by myself.

To see more pictures of my living quarters check Yamasa wet page. It has pretty representative pictures. http://www.yamasa.org/acjs/english/villa34.html