Updates anyone?

I could try to describe how busy I've been over the past month, but I don't think that describing anything could paint an accurate picture of my life right now. Things are getting better, to be sure, since the holidays are coming and I'll have more time to myself. Still trying to get things under control though, so just bear with me for a while longer!

Since Sophia University is on the strange Japanese academic year, my fall semester doesn't end until the beginning of February. So while my family in California (and Texas/Washington/Illinois) was enjoying Thanksgiving food, football, and quality family togetherness, I was cramming for my midterms, trying to remember half a semester of Japanese that I'm pretty sure I slept through. I didn't do so badly compared with some of my classmates. My Japanese course this year is repeating a lot of the things that I learned in my two years at GW, which makes for a good refresher course during the turbulence of getting settled in here. For the first time, my Japanese midterm included an interview section--me talking to my professor one-on-one for seven minutes. Sitting there waiting for my name to be called was nerve-wracking, but I managed to get through it okay. My biggest problem was that I kept speaking to him in plain form, when I should have been using my more formal verbs. You can read the last post I made for all about the verb forms.

My midterms for my other classes were just papers, so nothing too painful other than trying to find time to sit down and write them. I've started teaching English every week now on Saturdays from 11am-5pm. My classes are mostly kids, which makes for some interesting fun. They spend most of the lesson screaming at me (or each other) in Japanese, while I stand there with a smile plastered on my face telling them "Eigo de! eigo de!" ("In English! In English!"). My ability to understand Japanese has thankfully improved exponentially, so most of the time they can ask me questions in Japanese and I can understand what they're talking about. But answering them in Japanese? Not going to happen. Not only is my speaking ability not that great, but it's supposed to be an English class. They can learn English the same what I'm learning Japanese--by having the teacher talk to you so much that you just start to understand.

Like I said, things are settling down around here. There's only one week left until winter break (two weeks off!), so I'm trying to spend some weekends at home with my host family to make up for the fact that I won't be at home much over the break. Not that I think they mind particularly. Sunny (Taiwanese homestay sister) is leaving in about a week, so I think our family is going to have a big dinner tomorrow night to wish her well. I'm still not sure about my winter break plans (I really hope they include a trip somewhere, but you can never tell). I'm sorry about the lack of updates in both the blog and the photos, but as soon as something interesting happens, I'll be sure to let you know.