迷失的老美

It has been a month or so without an update, and I am lazy. So here are some things going on or things that have happened that I have not blogged about.

After arriving in Japan, and having the horrors of the new airport in the middle of nowhere inflicted upon me, things have slowly gotten much better than the crap we had to deal with last semester. For one, real classes, with teachers and books and classrooms! I got back to Japan in time for the trip down to Hiroshima and all that, and it was a pretty good trip. Sure, it was a guilt trip and our hotel was right across the street from ground zero and all the monuments to our totally awesome bomb. But, after seeing what the Japanese did to bring this fate upon themselves 60 years ago, I really didn’t feel any guilt at all. This, of course, means that I am a horrible human being. We also went to Miyajima via ferry and stayed in a hotel there. The island is famous for the wooden gate sitting out in the harbor. Other than that, they are famous for inventing some form of rice spoon that you see omiyage for everywhere. The best part of the island was of course the deer. Deer are like goats, they eat everything. Me and Ron discovered that the deer like to eat paper. Oh the joys we had with a roll of toilet paper. TP one deer, and it is swarmed by others to eat the paper off of it.

The trip was not all that bad, but it was much better once everyone else went off to Himeji and I went down to Kokura to meet Chika instead. I love Kokura for some reason. Unlike Nagoya, there are things to do, and it is an exciting city. We went to a movie together, had lunch, hung out around the city for fun. This made the trip worthwhile. I also learned how to reduce my train fares in the process. Sure, it is not legal exactly, but JR has raped me far more than enough as it is. And coming back from Kokura I had no choice but to take Shinkansen, so, they got enough money from me as it is.

Classes:
All the bitching last semester seems to have paid off. They put us in the same classes as the Ohio students and all the other exchange students get. So, magically, this semester does not seem to suck as much. Sure, it is all still busywork and I learn virtually nothing, but on occassion it is interesting at least. I got placed in their highest class along with the Ohio students, the Koreans, and one of the new IES students. Me and Ron both are bored to death still, but the teachers notice this and are working on seeing if they can’t get us into a better class. Teachers who care? Obviously they have studied in America and do not act like normal Japanese. Vast improvement. We have a total of 9 possible Japanese classes, of which I am taking 8 to make room for another class. Composition, listening comprehension, conversation, grammar, reading comprehension, and vocabulary. In addition to this, I have gotten into the 2 highest levels of Chinese classes (which are godawful easy). Oddly, now that the program has been changed to something halfway decent, I have heard that they are CANCELLING the IES program at Chubu. So, in short, this is the last semester of IES at Chubu.

My other battle was with Sallie Mae. I was checking up on the procedure I will have to go through during transfer so my loans don’t go into repayment. I got some scare there due to an incompetent representative who was full of shit. But, everything was straightened out in the end thanks to a SkypeOut phone call and a conversation with a moron who at least knew what she was doing… sort of.

“Can you tell me the name of the school you will be attending?”
“Beijing Foreign Studies University”
“Can you spell that for me?”
“spells, it is also known as BFSU”
“WHAT?! WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?!”
“BFSU…. Beijing Foreign Studies University….”
“Ok… and where is that?”
“Beijing… China”
“Ok, I am going to need you to go online and download a deferment form and give it to them, they should know what to do”
“What exactly do you guys need from them?”
“They should know, if they have a problem they can call us”
”…but they don’t speak English….”
“We also offer Spanish services”
“They speak Chinese…”
“Oh”

Other stuff:
I now have another GB of RAM in my laptop to make it happier.
During Golden Week here, I pretty much did nothing. I was planning to go to Kokura again, but I decided it was too damn far, which it is. On Thursday I went to the Aquarium at the Nagoya Port with YanYing and had a great time, despite the aquarium not being all that fantastic. We had perfect weather and spending more time with YanYing was great, regardless of where it was or what we were doing Pictures of that trip will follow shortly.

Overall, it has been same old same old here, nothing remarkable really.
Some pictures of the Sakura though, Cherry Blossoms that Japan is famous for.

At Nagoya Castle