My First Week of School... Well Sort of...

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I did start school on Monday Sept. 11 but it was only my Japanese Language class for that first week. Ifm in Level 2, and we have class from 9:00 to 12:00 with a ten minute break around 10:30. There are four class levels with about six exchange students in each. Most of the exchange students are from America (USA) except for three. They come from London, China, and Canada. I made friends with a girl from Lewis and Clark College the very first day of orientation and we hung out a lot. So now every one thinks Ifm with Lewis and Clark. It causes quite the confusion for everyone. Between Lewis and Clark and the BCA (Brethren Colleges Abroad) students it covers almost every exchange student except me and a couple others.

Class is going quite well, Ifm learning stuff for a second time but this time itfs finally clicking, which is awesome. We have class four days a week on Mon. Tues. Thurs. and Fri. We have a quiz almost everyday, if not everyday. Itfs either on the grammar or on the Kanji (Chinese Characters for writing).

I met Jason the BCA coordinator on campus. He helped me get a three month bus pass. So as long as I donft loose it I wonft have to worry about having enough money to get to school, and I saved a lot of money too. Speaking of which, to get to school I ride the bus for about 20 minutes and then Ifve decided to walk another 15 minutes approximately to school. When it gets colder out and snows I might decide to ride the subway one stop instead of walking, but wefll wait and see. The third day of class I finally got on the same bus as a fellow exchange student and we are now able to go to school together, which is nice.

Another girl and I have decided to see about joining the volleyball club on campus. Two other girls joined the lacrosse team/club and they are loving it. Wefre going to try and find volleyball members once regular classes begin on Tuesday Sept. 19. Monday is a holiday so we donft have class.

It was nice having only one class for the first week and hardly anyone on campus. It allowed us the chance to get to know the buildings while there were very few people around. This week will be a different story. There are about 1,100 students that go to Hokusei I think. Itfs about the same as BVU. No one lives on campus though. They either live at home, in an apartment, or with a host family.

The other two classes besides Japanese that Ifve decided to take are Japanese Culture through Performing Arts and Language and Gender in Japanese Society. Those two classes will fulfill my general education requirements. Itfs sounding like Ifm going to be very busy with my three classes, possibly volleyball and sightseeing.

We also got to meet the President of the University the other day. He seems like a very nice guy along with everyone else here.

Ifm having a blast with everything Ifve done so far and Ifll post about the places Ifve seen once I figure out what pictures I want to post.

Joy's Japan Photos (Please ask me for the password if you don't know it. Thanks)

Best Wishes Everyone

Joy



(This entry is a little late. I forgot I hadn't posted it yet. There will also be more entries after this one that are from about the same time. I'll catch you all up and then hopefully I'll stay on top of things now that I'm getting into a routine here.) Sorry about all the apostrophes turning into f's don't have time to fix it. Enjoy.

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Photos

The Olympic Bridge
This is the bridge on my walk to school. The buildings being framed by the bridge are my campus here.

Comments

[Mom]

School
Sounds like you will be very busy in school. Thank you for answering so many of my questions before I even asked you. God bless your semester there!