So, Week Two

Has been pretty straightforward so far. :P

Like last week, again, mostly orientations and getting to know things, along with placing for classes, and doing our whole entrance ceremony thing. The ceremony itself was mostly me being able to understand maybe half of what was being said, but it ended up being pretty much all the same thing, so, at least the language barrier hasn't been too bad.

Classes started up this week, or at least half of the ones I'm in (two of them don't start until next week, which is pretty nice). I didn't do so well on the placement test, so I ended up placing in a level of Japanese that's kind of easy for me. If I really wanted to, I could take the placement test again, but, honestly, I'm not going to, and, frankly, if it just ends up being that the class is on the easy side, well, I'm fine with that. (Yes, I am horrible.) Japanese Pop Culture is going to be interesting, because this is pretty much exactly what I'm looking to do with my anthropological career, so hopefully this gives me a framework to be able to do the Honors Project in, and an eventual graduate career in.

The other two classes, we'll see how they go when they start. :P

So, my main adventure this week has been going into Akihabara a few times. It is just as insane as you think it is. There are lots of multi-level stores packed really close together, lots of people traveling about crammed together on the streets, and lots of people hawking either their store, or their maid cafes. (Yes. There are as many maids as you hear about. :P) Also, if you're looking for something specific, I very highly recommend going to multiple stores - there are a lot of stores that do have the same things, but at VERY different prices, and you can find a lot of good bargains that way (see - me finding unassembled FF Tactics Trading Arts and Sailor Moon figurines for 500ish yen).

The people at my dorms are really awesome; there are happily Japanese people who are willing to let the quiet foreign girl sit with them and listen to them talk and occasionally pipe in with really rudimentary Japanese, and occasionally puzzle over how we make the bed in my dorm room with them (though actually most of them didn't know either, which is how I wound up with five very confused Japanese people in my room trying to find someone who KNEW how to do so). My fellow IES people - well, most of them are pretty good people. There are two in particular though - both of them have a tendency to bitch about the food that the dorms offer, or about the lack of air conditioning in certain places, and just general cringe inducing whineyness and annoyingness that makes me want to be around hem as little as possible.

Gonna sign off for now, will get to that list of things that I posted the last time probably starting next entry. :)