How long have I been back in Japan? Or away from England? They all seem to be blending into one another, being a strange mix of fairly busy and nigh-on inert. Before I start on Thursday, a few miscellaneous points about Wednesday that I neglected to mention before. We had a House Meeting Wednesday night, so I was able to meet our three new residents for this term. Still too early to know much about them but I think we'll all get on well enough. My time spent working and travelling has taken many casualties, chief among them my nails. While none of them are painfully short, it's going to take some work letting them grow, shaping and strengthening them before I'm fully comfortable again. Also, I may have mentioned in the past that Yamazato Koryu Kaikan feels more like a big old house than a student dorm. Now that it's Winter one starts to feel the age a bit more when icy draughts find a way to sneak in.
I woke up feeling bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and ready to take on the world on Thursday morning... at about 2.00am. Cursed jet lag. Eventually the time for the Academic Orientation and Course Registration rolled around. Most of it was aimed more at new students than those returning, but I did get my grades for last term (pictured below), which is sort of a nice way to know I was doing alright after all. As far as courses for the new term go, it's generally a succession of what I did last year - IJ600, Classical Japanese II, Japanese Religions II... but there is no Tea Ceremony II, and on the spur of the moment I went for a course called "Japanese Culture and Art."
Dropping by the CJS Office when all was done, I received a piece of news that even now (Friday evening) I haven't fully digested. I got accepted for a scholarship! Furthermore, due to a slight miscommunication I thought before that this meant I'd receive 80,000 yen across three months. In fact, it's 80,000
every month for three months. O.O Yarrawonga! But I still feel like this must be some sort of mistake, and there's someone with a similar name to me somewhere who has been cheated. I suppose this shows that I'm more a product of my culture than I care to admit. Coming from a world where student loans are the norm, and the attitude toward bursaries and scholarships is "Well, you probably won't get anything, but it's worth applying just in case," the idea that someone would give me money to study and not expect me to pay it back seems completely bizarre.
One other orientation session I was required to attend (though I think only a handful of returning students bothered) was a talk by some policemen about traffic safety, common crimes in Japan and preventative measures. A lot of it was common sense, and they made no mention of the incidents last term when several students were attacked, but I still appreciated them coming out to give us a bit of a briefing. The next big evnt was this term's Welcome Party! The returning students were all quick to rush toward the food lest in run out like at the Farewell Party. Yet somehow not a lot of it got eaten at all, though I certainly did my best. Also had a chat with a few classmates I hadn't seen for a while, so all in all a pleasant evening. That's not the end of my Thursday, but I'm going to split up entries a little bit, so stay tuned!
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| The sushi contained unexpected amounts of wasabi |
