First Classes

I had my first classes today. First was a reading class, and a small introduction. It was all in Japanese, and the teachers spoke pretty fast which was scary. I managed to understand mostly, although I think I had a stupid expression on my face while I was trying to figure everything out!

They gave us our timetable with room numbers on. The room we are in mostly is on the 8th floor of a building, millions of stairs to climb!  The teacher gave us 3 different sheets to work through, increasing in difficulty. I could do the first one fairly easily, although I did make 2 mistakes but I think mostly through panic than a problem with ability. The second was somewhat more difficult but I could do it, and the third I could not do at all. I couldn't read the kanji =/

I think that is okay though, because it wasn't supposed to be a test you had to complete - it was just to find out your level.

We also found out that on monday we have a placement test. Even though the class is very small we vary a lot in ability. I think it will be okay - the woman told us not to revise for it and not to worry about what level we ended up in. But I want to be in the right place for what I know and have learned rather than appearing very bad because I haven't looked over my notes in a while. So I think I will revise what I already know and see how it goes. I know I won't go in a very high class =p but as long as I'm learning that's okay.

Our next class was about Japanese tea ceremony. We had to look at different books on the subject of tea ceremony and give our impressions of aspects of tea - such as tea rooms, sweets, ceremony behaviour etc. As we didn't really know anything about it at all this was quite hard but I managed to ask some questions and stuff at least.

After that we learned about how to enter a tea room. First you have to kneel in the doorway, turn and place your shoes in the right place. Then turn again, walk to the scroll on the wall, kneel and bow to the scroll. Then you turn and admire some flowers nearby. Then you stand, walk in a diagonal line to the corner of the room, turn and walk in a straight line to near the tea kettle. You turn to face the kettle and kneel and admire it. Then you have to walk back towards the door, kneel and wait for the other guests to do the same. Then when you have all done this, you go and sit around the kettle in your appointed places depending on whether you are first, second, third etc. guest.

I found it an interesting class! The teacher was Australian and was very softly spoken. I enjoyed the things he had to say. The reading class was very hard, but I know I will learn fast if we have to do lots and lots of reading.

After classes I went to meet Marie. We went to a little coffee room in the uni and I had jam and toast and some orange juice for a good price. We had a nice talk =] and then I returned to International House to do some studying. I feel like I have a lot of work to do! I've had a look through my Minna no Nihongo books and need to start on Kanji in Context soon too. I have that early-year urge to learn!

Soon I'm going to go out and study with Ash, Sophie, Meike and maybe some others as well for a while and eat some ramen =3

I miss home a little =[ I talked to Alex last night and it made me miss him lots. It made me a little bit sad today, and also I had trouble sleeping so I was very tired. Today has been a nice day so far though so it's okay.