Classes, and the Academic Side of Japan

This week marked the beginning of classes in our program. The winter vacation actually just started a week ago today for all of the regular Japanese students at Kansai Gaidai, so the campus has not been so crowded as it was before. Nonetheless, we international students here are working hard. I decided on the following schedule:

Japanese speaking 6
Japanese reading & writing 6
Ceramics
The Intersection of Fantasy & Real Life in Modern Japanese Fiction

I was excited to be placed into upper level Japanese classes (there are 7 levels total, and the speaking and reading/writing are separate), and although I think that they will be a challenge, I feel like I'm at about the same level as most of the other students in my class. I'm sure that I will learn a lot this semester. Since I'm only taking 4 classes, of which only 3 are academic, I think I'll really be able to focus on getting better at Japanese and exploring.

My 2 Japanese teachers both seem really good so far. I first met with my reading/writing professor, Yuki-sensei, and she is a very tiny and cheerful lady. That class focuses mainly on learning kanji, although we will also work on writing compositions about current events. R/W meets 3 times a week for an hour. After that, I had my first class with the speaking professor, Shikaura-sensei. She also seems very knowledgeable, although a little older and maybe not quite so 元気 (energetic). Still, I think that I will like her class, and definitely I will be much better at speaking by the end. I am not so confident in my oral skills so far, but already we have given speeches and taken 2 quizzes in her class, as well as learning 12 new grammar patterns, and we have another speech on Monday. There will definitely be a lot of practice. Speaking meets from 11-12 every day.

As for the other classes, I knew for sure that I wanted to take ceramics, since I really enjoyed working with clay in the past, and I figured this is a good chance to get a lot of intensive instruction. The class meets for 8 hours a week at times arranged around my other classes. The teacher is very stereotypical of what you would think of as the older Japanese art master type--he really heavily emphasizes learning the basics really well, exactly right. For example, on the first day of class, we spent the first 2.5 hours wedging the clay (kneading it to make the texture even and to get rid of air bubbles). Although it seems rather trivial, he taught us a technique that was pretty hard to master and which I still can't do quite right. Today we spent more time wedging clay, and eventually we got to use the wheel for the first time. Naturally, we spent the whole time practicing his technique of centering the clay...in spite of the amount of time spent on not-super-exciting activities and the resulting soreness of my wrists, we have gotten to make a few small pieces, and I am happy to know that at least I know I am doing things right.

I spent a long time debating about the 4th class I would take. Basically I was trying to choose between this modern literature class and the Kansai art history class. I attended both, and they seemed pretty equal, both having their own pluses and minuses. I was really interested in the readings for the literature class, but then the art class takes interesting field trips. I have heard very mixed reviews about the literature professor, some quite positive and some quite negative, while I heard nothing about the art professor. In the end, of course, I decided to go for the literature class. It has been a long time since I got to do intensive reading, and regardless of my views of the professor, I will at least like that part. So far my only major complaint about the class is that the professor has a horrible laugh. If my laugh sounded like that, I'd keep that thing inside. Perhaps over the semester I'll learn to see it coming so I can plug my ears beforehand...

At the moment, I have 9:00 classes 3 days a week, and 10:00 classes for the remaining 2 days. Getting here on time hasn't been much of a problem so far. Classes here run a lot later than Oberlin's classes, which always end by 4:30, but I'm usually out by 3. I hope things will go well this semester...