This week has been so exhausting, the hardest yet. A lot of it has to to so with studying my ass off for my language courses only to see no improvement. I'm the type of person who loves to see the fruit of my labor. I love the end result after I have worked hard for something. I love to overcome challenges and obstacles that life loves to throw in my direction.
No one likes feeling defeated. I study so much for these classes but to no avail. I am still doing poorly. After 4 weeks of hard labor, it' s still not "clicking."
One of the language courses, Intro to reading and writing, is a 1 credit course and only 5 weeks long. Next Thursday I have a final exam for it and then I am done. I won't pull an A by any means but I will pass. The other class, Spoken Language 1 is the one that I am so worried about. It's the whole semester and it's getting harder and harder. It doesn't count for credit for my degree but will affect my GPA. I'm so pissed about this. I do well in school usually so the thought of not doing well drives me crazy and pushes me even harder to try and understand it. I studied for 6 hours the other night and 4 tonight. I just want to see positive results for the love of god.
Anyways, enough about that. Being exhausted mentally and emotionally takes its toll on your body. My life here is so strange. I haven't connected with that many people here. I know I already mentioned it but there are a lot of dorks and weird people that come to Japan to study. And it's not just me that thinks this. I have had many conversations with people who were here last semester about this phenomenon. Japan attracts a weird bunch of people. I don't know how to really explain this to you because I don't get it. You have the guys that are obsessed with Japanese manga (comics) and anime, which don't get me wrong I like comics but these dudes are the creepy dudes who look like they might shoot up a school and want nothing to do with anyone that doesn't share their love for Japanese pop culture, seriously.
You have your guys and girls who have a love for Japanese dudes and girls and come here looking for love, no joke I have been told this by them directly. You have your group of people who for whatever reason got into Japanese everything, hate their home countries and want to make Japan their home. They hate everything that isn't Japanese. You might think I am being dramatic or exaggerating but I am not, wish I was. I have had too many conversations with these people to make this shit up.
Then you have the people who are majoring in Japanese language or history, international relations, business or Asian studies. These people, myself included, range from pretty cool to "what the hell are you talking about? please never open your mouth again, ever cos I want to punch you," to "why do you think you know more than the teacher?" to "you seem pretty cool, lets grab a beer sometime."
The latter are very rare. I'm the type of person who can pretty much find anything in common with anyone. I have always been able to relate to people. But here not so much. I was thinking about how different my experience in Japan would be if I was just traveling around instead of going to school. I'm surrounded by more international students than Japanese students for the time being due to the Japanese academic calendar. Right when we started this semester the Japanese students were taking their final exams and heading off for spring break. They get two months for spring break by the way! They return at the end of March right after our measly 10 day spring break. There are Japanese students on campus now but not many so it will be interesting to see how things change once they come back. I am told that the campus will triple in size.
Basically, I can't stand more than half of the people on campus. There I said it. It's also hard for me because I would say over half of the students here are extension students from last semester so they have their cliques and friends and don't care much for newbies. Yeah I have been called a newbie so many times. What the hell is this, high school? Oh wait, kinda cos everyone is 19 and 20! Sorry, obviously I am having a bad day. I don't stand out on campus but when I leave the gates of school, I get so many stares from people. I used to bow my head and say the appropriate greeting while making eye contact but a lot of people don't say anything and just stare at me with their mouths open. So now I just stare back but you know how when you catch someone staring at you they look away? Well not here, they keep staring so then you get locked in a vicious staring contest battle they you have no hope of winning. They will never back down, not yet at least. So after a month in Japan, I am the new girl who is old, has no friends, gets stared at, sucks at Japanese and rules at history.
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