School and Chiba

---

---

So, now that I've had a probable typical day, I feel more in the swing of things. This morning Okasan went with me on the train to Makuhari station, which was really nice of her. Tomorrow, I'm flying solo though. Today we had brush-up Japanese, and they definitely put me in the wrong class as I am learning new things, not reviewing old. Oh well. I walked to school with 6 other people, so I didn't get lost and it seems like we're meeting every day now. So that's good. I got lunch in the school cafeteria and there was another "aha" moment where I noticed all the benches, or stools rather, are hinged and so you just pull it out from under the table to sit and when you get up, it swings back under the table. It's very convenient and I think we should do that in America, as it cuts down on noise and confusion in lunchrooms.

After lunch I had to take the dreaded...

Placement Test

This test was brutal. The grammar was all in kanji and kana as well as being fill in the blank, choose the best answer or put the word in the right tense. This caused a lot of problems for me in two ways. I do not know a lot of words to begin with, and the kanji confused me. It had furigana but not all the questions could be figured out from context. The test had three parts. There was a grammar test 1, grammar test 2, and writing test. I answered all the questions on grammar 1, some on grammar 2, and for the writing, I did it, but it was almost all in kana with a couple of kanji. I could have taken an alternate test but I wanted to prove I could write about it, even though I didn't know the kanji.

After the test

Every single person who came out of that room wanted to die. Literally all 58 kids thought it was brutal. I walked out and said, aloud, "I'm dumb." Other people faked bashing their heads into walls, killing themselves, or just looked generally disheartened and downtrodden. Liz and I went to Carrefour, which Shin-san described as a French Wal-Mart, afterwards because she needed a washcloth. In my opinion, Carrefour ???????is a lot better than a Wal-Mart. They have way more variety, it's larger, and it seems to be better quality. I've purchased snacks there and it's reasonably priced. I can get Lintz chocolate, and Tobelerone, and some other American foods there, but I do want to check out the basements of depaato stores as well. Liz and I met Ian and Noah after the test there, so that we could walk to Makuhari station together. That was good for me.

Tomorrow is our entrance ceremony, so I will try to take pictures and whatnot. I'm supposed to look nice. On my way home today, I took pictures of my route to the station, so you'll see that once I upload them from my camera. I'm meeting Noah at the station at 8:30 tomorrow, and we'll take the train together to Makuhari and walk to Kanda.

As a side note - tonight I had the first dinner I've really enjoyed all of. It was chicken breast with sesame dressing and Chinese rice pilaf. It was really excellent but the best part is last. Apparently Chiba is famous for its peanuts, so I had fresh-picked peanuts that had been boiled tonight. My god, so delicious.

Today's random story: On the way to Kanda this morning, there were 7 of us. We were walking on one half of the sidewalk. On the other was 1 woman with an umbrella. A guy who was 40-ish was coming the other way on his bicycle. He rang his bell constantly for 10 seconds, and we 7 squished as much as possible to get out of his way, but he's lived here so he should be used to going through narrow places right? Apparently not the case. By the way, Umbrella Woman can't be bothered to move her lazy butt at all. As he rides past, the guy says in a loud-ish voice "Bakayarou." Which translates as "Bastards." I was so furious and surprised. So were the others. He thought just because we were white that we couldn't understand his insult!! I almost said to him in Japanese "What did you say?!" in really rude speech but Okasan says knifings are getting common with his type so I didn't.

---