I regress
...written on 01.19.03, @ 3:59 p.m.
Sun January 19, 2003
Whew! I'm back. Hi Everybody! I missed you!
I have returned from my secret month long sojourn, which is not much of a secret anymore. I let the ninja out of the bag and told everyone where I had been. They had been trying to guess where I was and frankly their fantasies (as well as yours no doubt) were far better than most of my reality.
I was living in a dorm for most of the time I was gone, sharing domestic utensils and showering facitlities. No, I wasn't in rehab, but rather Japanese language bootcamp. Yep, I had my butt in a chair for over 10 hours a day (class time plus homework) studying Japanese.
I had an interview to determine my placement and was put in a class with two other students who had been there a month already and were half way through the textbook. We covered a chapter everyday, had to learn 20-35 vocabulary words, four to six grammar points, do four pages of homework and learn the vocabulary for the next class.
Yes, it was intense. Very intense.
There were various living arrangements such as studio apartments, hotel rooms, homestays, and a dormitory. I opted to stay in the dorm with over a hundred other students from all over the world.
My room was small and quite cozy. It had a desk, lamp, bookcase, closet and a kick-ass heater. I put it on "broil" every night and just relished crawling in under the rented covers of my futon bedding.
I also rented a bicycle for the month, thinking that I would use it for extra-curricular trips and shopping etc., but found my time devoted to keeping up with the pace of the course. Still I used it to coast to school early enough to take advantage of the "Morning coffee service" at the Woodpecker Coffee Shop right outside of the classroom door. We also had yummy and cheap Japanese lunches there. The proprietors also helped me out of a jam and took me to the train station when it was time to come back to work.
I learned a lot. While my speaking is as stunted as it ever was, my understanding of grammar and vocabulary has raised my comprehension tremendously.
It has also raised my confidence. Today I went to the CD store to pick up the new Matchbox 20 CD and I also wanted to get a Putumayo collection of romantic songs from around the world because it came with a calendar.
Well after making a few cursory pokes around the counter, the clerk handed me my cds without the calendar. I asked him about it and he said something I didn't quite get, but I figured it could have meant a "while supplies last" kind of thing, but if that were the case and they weren't getting anymore, then I wanted the display calendar, so I left the service counter to think about how to best structure my request when I saw the CD shop supervisor coming out of the bathroom and went and asked him about it. He poked in a different corner and found a calendar. Hooray!
Anyway, back to Japanese language bootcamp . . .
In the large kitchen were four refrigerators, gas stoves sinks and a mulitude of pots, pans and cooking utensils. Each room also had an alloted cubby hole in which to put personal food products. I had brought some beans, oatmeal, coffee and bought some rice at a local store. I also purchased a pair of Martha Stewart chopsticks!
There was a guy there that piqued my interest. A very tall stout goateed young man with a longish ponytail named Steven. He was from France and he and his clique would gather around the tables in the student lounge and loudly party the night away. You could always tell where they had decided to gather by the dusting of french bread crumbs and red wine stains on the table and the surrounding floor.
In fact, once when I had decided that I had done more than my share of cleaning up after everyone, I took it upon myself to hide the wine bottle opener!
Hee! It was gone for a week, though I realized that evolution had probably taken its toll and endowed said Frenchman with a corkscrew for a middle finger.
There were a total of 4 students in my class. A woman from China, one from Italy and a young man from Germany. We had five teachers. The Chinese woman dropped out leaving just us three. The Italian woman is a tour guide in Greece and Japanese will be her sixth language.
Felix, the German, was a bit stoic at first, often spending our lunches in silence, but after I gave him some rye bread and roast pork for Christmas, he started to warm up, especially when he found out that I was better at ping pong than Dennis the Canadian.
Now that was a surprise. The last time I played ping pong was when I was 14 or so. We had a table in our garage and my friend Joann and I would often play after school, but it all came back to me and Felix and I had some spirited matches in between classes.
We had two weeks of classes and then had a week long holiday break. Veronica ( a new friend from Australia) and I bought a special pack of train tickets and went on a very long trip. Details and pictures of our adventure will be in the next entry. I just wanted to say hello for now and let you know what I've been up to.