今日の日本語の言葉: kanji (感じ) - feeling; emotion; impression
This word was brought to you by the fact that we're going to start learning kanji soon! Woohoo! Of course, by "kanji" I mean those darn Chinese characters, but I wanted you guys to know that "kanji" has another definition too, just in case you ever encounter it. ;)
Today I woke up early as usual, had a nice session of writing for my next chapter, and then promptly started RPing with Anna after breakfast (which was leftover curry and rice from yesterday). My chapter got deleted by the FanFiction site yesterday, and it was running high at 5,000 words of awesomeness. So I had to rewrite the whole thing this morning, and it currently stands at 8,000 words. I've started writing on the train on my iPhone. :3
For lunch, I packed a bento, but, again, I ended up eating that at home, wanting to stay home longer to talk to people, do homework, Skype Anna, and relax. By bento consisted of rice, left over houresou, chicken, furikake, and pumpkin. I have never been a fan of pumpkin, but somehow the way Yoshiko-san cooks it makes it so damn delicious! I have no idea how, but I must learn.
When I got to Akihabara station, I dropped into Vie de France because I had time, and I needed change for dinner (all I had were bills, and we would have to pay for our own meals; there was no way I was going to find a meal that perfectly fit 1,000 yen, and I didn't want to anyways, because that was expensive). Thus, I got a katsu sandwich, which was delicious.
If you've paid attention so far, you would know that I had curry last night, and then curry this morning. And then now, at around lunch time, I'm having katsu. That comes in later tonight, when I go to dinner, because little did I know, I'd be going to a katsu curry place. So much curry!
When I got to school, I went by the vending machine and bought a random drink. I wanted to avoid fizzy things and coffee, but other than that, I've been thinking that I should start picking a random drink whenever I want to get something, and seeing what cool new drinks I can discover. Today's lucky pick was this thing by Bikkle. It tastes like that Korean and Japanese after-meal drink. It's usually for kids, and it comes in a little bottle shaped like my Bikkle one. I don't know what it's called, but it's pretty delicious. This one wasn't that good, though, compared to the other ones I've had.
During class, we had to stop during second period to do our earthquake and fire training, which Ian, Julien and I already did with CIEE. I was very happy because I could understand all the instructions they were giving in Japanese (I find that the best aspect of my Japanese is listening comprehension, and the worse part of it is reading, because of my lack of kanji knowledge). It made me a little bit proud of myself. :3
For practice, some of us fire-extinguished a tree that was definitely not on fire to begin with. Keep in mind that this is a public park, with children playing, and their parens lounging, and office workers hanging around outside eating their lunch. And this is what graced their lunch time today: a bunch of loud obnoxious students who spoke a variety of languages, all not knowing the Japanese definition of "quiet." *sigh*
It was great fun, though, in the end. It was nice to have a break to walk around, since that woke me up a bit (class is... boring, remember?). I also made plans with my classmate, Saya, to go to Book-Off again tomorrow. It'll be exciting!
As we were walking back, I spied this guy, who is one of the students, but he's in like, Japanese 4 or something. He was sitting near me when we took the placement exam, and he was speeding through it like hell. However, what struck me from that day I met him at the placement exam until now was how much he resembles a real life Ivan Braginski. Yes, he's Russian, and he speaks with this brusque way that is soft, but also somewhat sinister. And when he smiles, it scares the crap out of me. That's how I imagine Ivan would be. He's got a pretty heavy accent too, and likes to walk around in suits with a cane. I know it sounds terrible to compare someone in real life to Ivan, but it's true! He gives me Ivan vibes.
For those of you who don't know who Ivan Braginski, this is him:
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| That's his murder face. |
Anyways, my Russian classmate is even dressed in the same color as Ivan is usually depicted in. And with his scary expressions and loud unnerving laughter, I can't help but see Ivan every time I see him. As I said, forgive me if it sounds terrible to compare him to Hetalia's Russia, but if you could see him, you would realize that it's so plausible.
After school, I had dinner with Julien and Emin, who is half Swedish, half Tunisian. That is such a badass combination, I have to say. It's so... unheard of too. Do you guys know of anyone with that mix?
We had curry at a curry shop near our school (there are around five of them, at least, and we picked one at random). It was delicious, and I asked for my curry to be extra spicy, but it turned out to taste like a sprinkle of black pepper or something. Not inspiring, I have to say. But that isn't to say that it wasn't damn delicious. That katsu is so crispy... Yum!
And you would think that after all of this, I'd be tired of curry, but no. I could still have more for breakfast tomorrow, though we don't have any anymore. Japanese curry is just so good, and the katsu is even better. I will never get tired of katsu. Ever. I swear upon it. I'll give you $20 if you catch me at a time when I don't want katsu.
I got home at 6:45, which surprised me, because I usually get home at 6:30 when I don't have dinner at school with friends. So we either had dinner really fast, or the trains were running especially quickly. I don't know which it was, but it was definitely nice to come home just in time to bid Yoshiko-san good-bye before she went off to choir rehearsal.
And now I'm here, writing this blog and getting distracted by what I keep thinking are mosquito sounds, though I hope that I'm wrong. I hear it, and then it goes away, and then I hear it again. Damn. That one mosquito really took a bite out of my sanity.
Below is a picture of my new textbook set. There's the fundamental grammar book, which is a bit too fundamental for me, at the moment, and then the worksheet collection that goes with it, which I've already finished all the way through out of boredom in class. In addition to writing in class, I've also taken to doing the work earlier, and also reading manga with a dictionary by my side. Manga is so much more difficult than I thought it would be. Even Yoshiko-san sometimes has to read a speech bubble a couple times over before she understands, because it's so different than real life Japanese.
That's all for today, folks! Tomorrow I have to go into CIEE at 10:30 for a meeting (which is at Yotsuya) and then head to school. Our meeting is about our... *drumroll*... trip to Nagasaki next weekend! Woohoo! I'm so excited! We had to do some independent research about various topics on Nagasaki, and what I researched was food. Yummm. :3
Mata ashita!
Maggie
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