Improving

My day has been ok, today. One Japanese lesson in the morning, in which we got through quite a bit of grammar, though it was just something we had done before but with different words depending on “social status.” Japanese is such a polite language. There are at least four standard levels of politeness, with some more subtle variations in between. It makes it harder to speak it though, but I think that is half the fun. I like choosing which type to use, and you can add subtleties to the way you talk simply by altering the way you end a sentence.

I had ramen for lunch, which was a nice change. I went home on the crowded bus and the person I ended up sitting next to started talking to me. He seemed quite nice and I think his name was Masa. He is in his first year at the welfare university and wanted to practice his English. We managed to talk for the whole bus journey home, albeit slowly. He plays football for the university though he does not think the team is very good. An objective outlook I think.

At home, I did my kanji homework, which took up most of my time, for some reason. I have started doing translations on all the phrases, which is quite useful, I hope! I sometimes do not understand, though, but I hope we will go through it in class.

I returned with Lauma on the bus to do Linden Hall, which went quite well. We had about 15 kids in total I think and it was a big effort trying to keep them quiet, but we somehow managed (lots of counting down from five). We had them name some body parts, which we numbered, then in two teams they picked a number from a box and drew the corresponding part. They created a couple of interesting looking people. We then took them to the gym, where we had them line up and name flashcards as fast as possible. They went in two teams from either end of a line as flash cards, and wherever they met they had to do Rock, Paper, Scissors. The winner was allowed to continue, whereas the loser went to the back of their line and the next team member had to start straight away. They often were not paying attention, allowing the other team to streak to victory.

There were a couple of first years that I had not seen before: a boy called Ryoga, who was very quite, but seemed to know what was going on and drew his body parts with vigour. There was also a sweet girl called Norika, who just smiled all the time. She waved me good by when I left, which was cute.

I came home by myself, as Lauma went to Yakuin to teach, and went to dinner. I sat with Akiko, Humie, and Kaori, and chatted. I am surprised at how much of their talking that I can understand now. I have progressed a lot, I think, but I still cannot speak! I find it hard to get the words out sometimes, but I can mostly get across my meaning, now. I like being able to communicate. It makes me feel like I am achieving something.