by Whitey | Jun 13, 2008 | Weekly Re-Cap
This week…
1. I found out how I did on last week’s big test. It was pass, but not nearly as good as I’d have liked. I’m also kind of weak on my kanji and vocabulary. It was a bit of a wake-up call — I need to take it up a notch, and put in some extra time studying. So this week I’ve been working on building some good study habits. I need to study about 3 hours a day just to keep up. To catch up, maybe more. I’ve put some other stuff on the back burner, at least until I get caught up.
2. For some reason, after Wednesday night prayer meeting this week it struck me afresh just how much I love my church. Have I ever mentioned that? The people here just really enjoy being together, and that makes me enjoy being around them. Though the church is on the conservative side, I don’t get the impression that it’s legalistic. And these people really love the Lord and want to reach others with His love.
3. It’s the rainy season, but today’s weather has been beautiful. So much so, in fact, that I may just go back out for a while, and take my camera, before it gets dark. I love the weekend…
And that’s a wrap for this week.
by Whitey | Jun 6, 2008 | Weekly Re-Cap
Thoughts on the week…
1. Too many tests! I had a big one yesterday, and lots of not-so big ones literally every day. We’ve come to the end of the first textbook, which means it’s all-new stuff from here. Which means I should add about an hour to my daily study routine.
2. We have a late-night prayer meeting tonight from 10 till midnight, focusing on an upcoming outreach event.
3. Youth thing tomorrow afternoon: a planning, praying thing.
4. The weather’s been pretty yucky most of the week — it’s the rainy season, after all — but today’s super nice.
5. I don’t have much to say today, and should get some other stuff done. So… meh.
by Whitey | May 30, 2008 | Weekly Re-Cap
It seems like it was a pretty quiet week, but here’s a look at school and life here this week, such as it was…
School is moving along quickly, though. In fact, we’re getting into stuff I don’t really know that well and by the end of the week will be starting a new textbook.
This week we learned the “plain form” of Japanese speech — what you would use in daily, casual conversations with family and friends. You’d think that the plain form would be easy, but no, this is Japanese, so of course not. The plain form actually uses bits and pieces from various tenses and forms and so it’s not so simple after all.
Yesterday I almost missed my English Bible class. I was sitting in a cafe with some school friends, having just finished lunch, when I received a text message on my phone: it was from my student, telling me he was running late. Ironically, I’d completely forgotten we were meeting and had to rush out of the cafe and catch the train from Sakae Station to Nagoya Station, probably about 10 minutes later than my student. In spite of my forgetfulness and lateness — and thus unpreparedness — we had a good time together anyway.
Today my class — actually all 3 full-time classes — had a day out instead of a Japanese lesson. We went to the Aichi Prefectural Ceramic Museum to do pottery. It was fun, and I made a HUGE coffee mug, which will come in very handy on many early mornings.
And now it’s the weekend. And I’m glad. And that’s a wrap for this week.
by Whitey | May 24, 2008 | Weekly Re-Cap
It’s Saturday morning, and I’m taking it slow and easy. It’s been a full week, and it seems I’ve not spent a lot of time at home. Or when I was home I was studying. So today I’m staying in. All day. It’ll be nice to relax, but I’ve also got housecleaning and blogging to do. So here’s the blogging — a look back at some of what kept me so busy this week:
1. School — We’re getting into the stuff I’m not as familiar with. I also have some catching up to do on my vocabulary. You can say a lot with just basic grammar, but you need the vocabulary to plug into it.
2. English Bible study — Monday I met with my student this week for the first time in a while. We’ll be making some minor changes to the structure of our lessons to help him get more out of it. And to help me get more out of it, too, as he’s paying me by helping me with my Japanese. We’re planning to each do some writing (journaling) in the target language and then go over it when we get together. We’ll still be working our way through the book of Mark, too.
3. Tuesday the Watoto Children’s Choir was in town. Wow.
4. Wednesday I finally met my “boss” — GP Asia area director Romy Caringal. I took the day off of school to host him, show him around, introduce him to people, and get him to the airport on time. It was a good but busy day.
5. Thursday I had to stay late after class to take the test I’d missed on Wednesday. I think I did okay. I also had extra homework, of course.
6. Yesterday afternoon I met up with a friend to go see the new Chronicles of Narnia movie, Prince Caspian. I thought it was pretty good, and overall a good adaptation of the book. I didn’t think it was as good as the first movie, though, and it felt like they changed more from the book while at the same time not explaining a few things as well.
7. After the movie my friend and I went to the home of a family from our church, where several of us gathered for a dinner party. It was a good time, but with so much Japanese it was tiring too, and of course I missed a lot of the conversation. Still, it’s good to be building relationships here and being made to feel a part of things.
And that’s a wrap for another week. Happy weekend, wherever you are.
by Whitey | May 16, 2008 | Weekly Re-Cap
Here’s some stuff going through my head tonight, and in my life this week, in no particular order:
1. Now that I’ve been learning Kanji for a few weeks now, I find myself recognizing — and actually knowing the meaning of — kanji I see in the real world. It’s pretty cool to suddenly notice stuff that’s been there all along but I just didn’t understand.
2. Speaking of understanding, sometimes when trying to communicate with people here, I’m not sure if it’s them not understanding me or if it’s me not understanding them. It’s a little bewildering at times.
3. My friend just text-messaged me inviting me to go see the new Narnia movie with him this coming week. I’m stoked. But it may be a busy week, so it may or may not actually happen. We’ll see.
4. I’ve been debating for a while about getting an electronic Japanese-English / English-Japanese dictionary. Pretty handy — even necessary — if you’re studying Japanese. After some research, I opted to buy a Nintendo DS instead, along with their dictionary software, KANJI SONOMAMA DS RAKUBIKI JITEN — both of which I just ordered tonight from Amazon Japan. The system and the cartridge together cost less than a lot of the dictionaries you see around Japan. And of course the DS has the added bonus of game play.
5. My boss — GP Asia area director Romy Caringal — is coming to Japan this weekend, and I’ll finally get to meet him in person when he visits Nagoya next week. That’ll be cool.
6. This past Sunday, our church had our morning service outside — at a burial site. We were actually inside this big tomb thing where on the upper levels people’s bones are. It was a Christian tome, so rather unlike the typical Japanese one, but still seemed an odd place for a Sunday morning service. But that’s contextualization. As someone explained to me (as I understood it), in Japanese religious traditions there is a great deal of respect — even veneration or worship — for the dead, and a criticism against Christianity is a lack of respect for the dead and their tombs. These kinds of services are a response to that. Only unlike the Buddhist or Shinto versions, we remember — not worship — the dead. And we remember with hope, not mourning.
And that’s a wrap for this week.
by Whitey | May 9, 2008 | Weekly Re-Cap
Golden Week was this past week here in Japan. It’s a cluster of holidays that all happen within the same week. This year, one of the holidays was last Tuesday, two were this week (Monday and Tuesday), and one landed on Saturday (boo). If people are going to use vacation time in Japan (and oddly enough, it’s not a given that one would actually use one’s vacation time), Golden Week is often when it happens.
Since it was Golden Week, I had Monday and Tuesday off — no classes. So I took off to Osaka on Friday afternoon, to visit friends in my Japanese “hometown”. I got caught up with friends, ate some great yaki-niku, did some sight-seeing (more on that another day), even went to a movie.
I got back late Monday night. Tuesday, since it was a holiday, our church hosted a missions festival. Also a good time. Then in the evening, after an already full day, I went out: A worship band called Audacious (from the UK) was in town and there was a worship concert going on. Also good.
Then came Wednesday, and it was back to school.
Ouch.
I feel like I could have used another day off just to stay at home and catch up on sleep. The holidays were a lot of fun, but I didn’t have much down time, alone, just to chill out. I’ve been looking forward to the weekend since Wednesday. I haven’t slept well, despite being tired.
But it’s Friday now.
