Katherine's Birthday

My day has been rather long, though not too tiring – not until the end, at least. I put my washing in the morning and then went into school with Drummond and Lauma, though Lauma went home straight away as she only came in to pick up her JR Rail Pass. Therefore, only Drummond and I sat the Level 2 JLPT. It was so difficult, especially the grammar section, which is always the hardest part for me, as the questions were comprehension questions: huge blocks of incomprehensible Japanese text followed by a few incomprehensible questions and their possible answers. In the end, we both took to guessing, as there was nothing left to do. I just made a pretty pattern on the answer paper. I got 36% overall and Drummond got 31%. Nowhere near a pass, but if you put them together, we passed! Supposedly, the average first attempt score for people on this course is 25%, though statistically anyone could get that just by guessing! I am quite pleased with it though, and it was good to have the experience. I think I will apply for the level 3 test in December, as I have no chance of passing level 2. Not yet at least!

The test took the whole day, after which I came back home with Drummond. I played some of my new, old game, and then I went to tea ceremony, which began at 5.30. There are many new faces – in fact, I was the only one there that had done it before! There were four new girls, as well as Maki-san from the office. The teacher made to do a lot of demonstrating – I did two and a half ceremonies, and made about six cups of tea in total. I only drank one, though. 3 hours 45 minutes later, we left! It was fun though. The teacher gave me a DVD with those tea-ceremony TV programmes on, as well. I had dinner with Oo-san (big bird!) who gave me some souvenirs from Taiwan. They are “Almonds Milk Candies”. Should be interesting, though I may share them around if they are not nice! It seems to be an Oriental tradition that you bring back souvenirs when you go away. I just pretend that we do not have the same custom so that I can get away with it! It must make going away very expensive.

That has been my day. I have not done very much. One of Drummond’s friends from school, Neil, has turned up. I am not sure how expected it was, but he is here now. It is also Katherine’s birthday, so we are going out tomorrow night to celebrate that. Should be fun (and potentially damaging).