Cross-countries Homework

One thing most people won't tell you about studying abroad is about the actual studying part. For a lot of people who do, or are planning, a study abroad, you will probably be going to a country that speaks English as it's first or second language (either way, native speakers abound.) For those of you who aren't going abroad in Eastern Europe, and don't speak the language fluently, there probably won't be that many classes taught in English. This means putting quite a bit more effort into your run-of-the-mill courses, just to get by. Or if you're as bad as me in the language (2 semesters) only taking the English classes and hoping they transfer.

My school in Japan offers 6 majors that involve international communication or the English language specifically, but in any given semester there are only about 10 classes actually taught in English. Add to this the fact that half of those are "Basic English Writing and/or Reading"  and it gives me little opportunity for credit transfer. Especially so because my school back in the states is small and out in the sticks and doesn't offer Japanese in it's comprehensive 5 choices of language major/minors.

This is a problem both I and my European classmates all seem to be facing. We are in mandatory intensive Japanese language classes 3 hours a day 5 days a week, plus a Saturday (as some of these classes take long field trips) traditional culture class. What to do for those of us that have to keep 12 credit hours to remain enrolled in our home universities? Well one option, that my British friends have taken up, is online courses. Now I'm no expert on how British unis operate, save for knowing that they're different than American ones, so I suspect that the course they all seem to be in despite coming from 4 different schools is mandatory. I for one though, absolutely loathe online classes. So that was a definite no for me unless I had absolutely no other option.

Or I could go the way of my Colombian friend who signed up for all the English classes she could fit in her schedule and was allowed to take (the office made her drop 2 courses because she had too many hours.) I'm not that dedicated, and most certainly more lazy than that so I signed up for a couple of English taught classes that looked like they might fill electives and while poking around on my uni's website, discovered a handy thing that no one in my school, be it teacher, adviser, or international office staff thought to tell me about. There is a "Study Abroad" course I can register for! It is worth 12 hours and there are 2 separate modules, so if worst comes to worst and "Independent Study in Foreign Language" and "East Asian Culture" can't cover my bases and give me actual credit toward graduation, then the studying abroad module will at least keep me enrolled, which means keeping my scholarships and keeping my flat rate tuition from when I first enrolled 2 years ago. よかった！

So if you plan to study abroad, also plan to do more study than you probably do currently, also look through your school's course registration listings to see if there are any useful things like a study abroad module you can sign up for, just to show your school that you do, in fact, still exist. (Unlike my school that has threatened to put me on academic probation, then shut down most of their offices for summer break so I can't get in contact with anyone to argue the point.)

Current Projects

Since I haven't written in a while I felt like I needed to do something. So I thought, well why not? I'll just give them a run down of current projects! So some things I have running now... Japanese class (of course) 3 hours a day, 5 days a week with the occasional Saturday culture class thrown in. These are only occasional because the teacher is actually a full time historian working at the Tokyo National Museum and teaches all us lovely exchange students on a volunteer basis. 

We learned about e-maki or scroll painting in the last one and about how they were the predecessors to modern manga. Yet another thing that Japan owes to China in the beginning but has made its own over the years (along with the kimono, ramen, kanji, Buddhism ... the list goes on.) But she brought in carbon paper and dollar store hanging scrolls and calligraphy sets for everyone to try their hands at Japanese painting. It's pretty hard don't get your hopes up for my skill, despite my long years of art class, I always did drawing and using a brush is a lot different from a pen or pencil.

Also in the works is a rabbit eared hat (blog address if you want to check her other stuff out) for a friend of mine who just moved north from warmer climes. This means that I now have no particularly good excuses to visit Florida, but can finally make her those cute fuzzy things she used to love when she lived outside the same town that I lived outside, albeit on different sides. So because I don't particularly care for the hat pattern that goes with the bunny ears, I decided to use M.K. Carroll's Top Down Ribbed Beanie instead.

A note on this hat: not only do I generally dislike using solid white yarn because it gets dirty easily and like solid black yarn the individual stitches are often hard to see, but this stuff is fuzzy. I don't know if I will ever knit anything fuzzy again in my life after this. I really dislike the fact that I can't see my stitches to see where I messed up when I end up with an odd number of stitches instead of an even number. Oh well, I'm trying. I made the hat way too big the first time around and took it out to try it smaller. If my luck holds out I'll end up with it being too small this time.  It looks a little like a squid at the moment because I have it bunched up on the needles so my stitches won't slid off while it's in the night stand drawer, but I think I'll be done with it in about 12 rows of ribbing. 

Ice-cream in Japan

So my desperate fandom of ice cream is nothing new to those who know me. I once braved the cold out in December for nothing more than to walk three blocks to the nearest crepe shop to get an annin ice cream cone then come back to where my friends were hanging out at. Ice cream and popsicles can be found in any convenience store around the country, but with summer coming on and the weather warming up I have noticed a profusion of new varieties, not just in conbinis but also in  the local supermarkets.

がりがりくん Garigari-kun so named (I believe) because gari-gari is the sound your teeth make when you chew on the little tiny ice pellets all throughout the popcicle. It is the cheapest option for conbini ice, averaging about $0.70 depending on where you get it, and comes in a multitude of flavors. From normal to I cannot believe they are actually trying to sell that. I've tried their white soda flavor, which is actually light blue, and tastes like any of an assortment of fake fruit flavors.

Ones I have also liked are Pineapple, Kiwi, Nashi (a type of delicious Japanese pear), and Peach. Ones I'd like to try are cream-puff (also called shu cream) and grape. Flavors I've seen that I think I'll avoid... Stew, yes folks stew flavored popsicles, speghetti, which I've been told has actual chunks of tomato in the popsicle, and corn soup, good when hot but as dessert?

チズスーチーク lit. Cheeze stick. This is not actually an ice cream bar. It is baked cheesecake, frozen, dipped in a white chocolate shell and sold in $1.20 increments. Need I really say more? Sooo good.

My personal favorite is Annin (pronounced an-neen) anything. Annin is a Chinese desert kinda like runny pudding, that I think tastes like marzipan. You can get it in various shapes, forms, and consistencies, but given my love for all things ice cream this one tops the list. There's a shop not far from where I live (refer to anecdote in first paragraph) called Hakusan Crepe that takes vanilla ice cream and puts in all the flavors to make the thing you ordered and mixes it in a blender right there! They have a cantaloupe (melon) flavor that also has fresh fruit in it and tastes pretty good. There's also a convenient bench sitting out on the sidewalk so you can sit and enjoy your cone without the hassle of walking at the same time.