The First Weekend

Yesterday was my second day of classes and my first day being taught by Umezu-sensei. The time flies by really quickly since you pretty much have to stay on your toes the entire class time. You immediately use whatever material you just learned and get called on frequently and then you move on to the next whatnot. It's a great system. I feel like I'm learning very quickly. And being the charismatic wonder that I am, a lot more people started talking to me. I spoke with the Korean girl that sat next to me in between exercises and drills in class really frequently so even when I finished something I was still speaking quite a bit. When we would get paired up to do stuff the teacher would usually walk around and see how everyone was doing. With us it went like this:

"Do you two have any questions?"
"Nope! We're done."
"Ohhh..."

And then she'd look really pleased that we were practicing conversation and stuff. Some of the Korean students have a habit of sticking to each other and speaking with each other in Korean, even when the instructor is speaking. BAD. The teacher kept calling on us because we would be really creative with the material that we had learned and would always be ready. Yessssss.

After class I got a snack at 7/11 and then walked to the commercial district of Shinjuku to meet up with my friend Yasuhiro. Since I still don't have a cell phone, I've been using the giant Alta Studios screen as a meeting point, which is across from Shinjuku station. He spotted me immediately and then we went out for coffee and we talked about Japan, America, Seattle, and the stuff we're doing in school (he's currently attending a dentistry school). He can speak and understand English very well but he didn't use any unless if there was a word I really didn't understand, haha. Afterwards we kinda moseyed around and took purikura together.  And then we had soba and it was amazingggggggggggggggg. Being gentlemenly, he paid for stuff and escorted me back to my station.

So yesterday my use of Japanese to English ratio was round 80/20. I love all the practice I've been receiving.

On my way home from the station I wanted to stop in Lawson to poke around and around six high school boys were hanging out outside and talking and laughing and being loud like high school boys are. One of them spotted me and then said something and then the others IMMEDIATELY got completely silent. JAPANESE PEOPLE ARE SOOO SUBTLE. So that was amusing. It happened again when I left, too.

After I got home I talked to my friend AJ on Skype who I haven't seen for about a year and a half! Today is his birthday so I'm going out to dinner with him and a few of his friends. He's one of the honorary Thorp members who I hung out with a lot on the weekends my sophomore year of college. So I'm looking forward to that. And we're meeting up at, you guessed it, Studio Alta sign... which I need to go to anyway, so I can stop by SMBC and cash some traveler's checks.

Before I head out I'm going to study some more and eat. I think I'm going to try Japanese McDonalds for the very first time, haha. There's one really close to the Kasai station... or do I want Mos Burger? I've just been craving burgers like crazy lately. Afterwards I'm going to read my recently purchased Blackjack vol. 2 on the train ride. I am READY.

And that is the news thus far.