April 9, Monday: Placement Test Part II, International Student Orientation (Before, During)

Whew! It's been a long time. I've been battling a cold this week, so I've been pretty tired. It's almost halfway through the semester; I'm having mid-semester exams next week (not fun!). On that note, I'm going to try to catch you guys up a little.

So, on Monday, April 9th, I set out at 9:30am for campus so I could finish my placement test.

Before I left the dorm, I took some pictures from the windows in the laundry room and next to the elevator.

I'm always impressed by all the beautiful and carefully tended plants at people's houses.

Oranges?

An attempt to get a good picture of the giant crows that live here.

Attempt #2.

A cemetery I pass on the way to school. It's haunted by cats, especially black ones. The graves are well-tended, unlike the grassy overgrown tombstones you'd see in a typical American cemetery.

The view from the International Student Center (留学生センター).

At the International Student Center, I finished my placement test. The first section I did was a listening section. I went to the computer room, and once the teacher had the other students and me wait for latecomers, she handed each of us a sheet of paper with a set of multiple choice questions. While she played a recording, we listened and circled our answers. This test was almost laughably easy.

After the listening test was over, we remained in our seats as we waited for our turns for the  conversation part of the placement test. I was one of the last people to go. The teacher handed me a laminated card with the room number that the previous student had brought back, and sent me to the room. I knocked on the door and entered after being invited inside. Inside, H-sensei greeted me and we had a brief conversation. During the conversation, he asked me how confident I felt about using keigo (polite speech). I told him I felt rather confident since it had been well integrated into my Japanese courses at the University of Pittsburgh. We did a little practice conversation where I had to call him to let him know that I couldn't make our appointment since I was sick. I used keigo passably well, and he confidently circled 4 on my results sheet.

After I brought the laminated card back to the listening teacher, I went downstairs to discuss my results with a teacher who would recommend which classes I should take. I had to wait a while. Once it was my turn, I sat down next to the teacher, who looked at my results, pulled the two class schedules toward him, and promptly began circling the hardest ones that matched my results. When I suggested that the classes might be a bit too hard, he said something along the lines of 「行ってみて下さいね。」. I remained uncertain but accepted his advice to "try them and see." The advising session was over all too quickly. I withdrew to a table to evaluate the schedule he had recommended for me.

As a foreign student, I had three schedules of classes to choose from. One sheet was from my faculty, Intercultural Studies, and had classes intended for Japanese students, with all but three explicitly taught only in Japanese. It was required that I take at least one class from this schedule, but since my Japanese was weak and these classes conflicted with the other schedules, I decided to look at that one later. The other two sheets were schedules for classes at the International Student Center; the green one contained classes for levels beginner to advanced, and the yellow one contained classes at levels higher than that. For some reason, although my placement test scores were all 4 and below (highest possible is 5), the teacher had recommended I try going to all of the beyond-advanced level classes. At the same time, he had also circled Listening, Conversation, Reading, Composition, and Kanji classes on the green schedule. Although I had scored rather weakly on Reading and Grammar, he recommended I try level 4 for Reading and Composition. Kanji, my weakest subject, was the only class that I felt matched my own estimation of how suitable I was for the class.  Everything else seemed a bit on the hard side. However, since I had finally made it to Japan and wanted to make the most of time here, I figured I'd try out the hard classes before I had to register.

After that ordeal, I had some free time before the next event, so I decided to eat lunch at the nearby LANS Box cafeteria.

The hamburger patty was surprisingly good, but I'm not really a fan of cold tofu or cold, sour squash. The rice was the perfect texture though. Japan really knows how to cook rice. In America, it's a gamble whether you'll get edible rice, especially at a school cafeteria; but here, the rice is always properly cooked, no matter what.

After eating, I took some pictures of outside LANS Box and Kobe University Centennial hall (神戸大学百年記念館) as I walked back the scenic area next to the International Student Center.

Then I went to the Bazaar held by the student group Truss. At the bazaar, there were all sorts of items being sold really cheap. There were pots, plates, bowls, silverware, purses, backpacks, clothes, towels, hangers.... There was also a free lottery for more expensive items like a rice cooker or a vacuum cleaner. Near the entrance, some kind elderly people from some organization (I feel guilty for not remembering what it's called) were giving out cups of tea, chocolate, and small flower bouquets. I enjoyed the chocolate and tried not to burn my tongue on the tea. I didn't win the lottery for the rice cooker, to my mild disappointment. I did buy a pot, wooden spatula, hanger, and hand towel for a total of 110 yen (~$1.40).

After the Bazaar, I had more free time before the International Student Orientation at 2:30pm, so I took a walk to enjoy the cherry blossoms with my new friend M-san.

The clover in this field are ridiculously huge.

That walkway is known as Uribo Road (ウリボロード, if I remember the katana right). It's named after the baby wild boars that roam with their parents (Inoshishi 猪　いのしし) nearby at night.

M-san.

The vending machines outside of LANS Box.

A couple of the squad of workers who keep the walkways free of leaves and stray branches. (There's never any trash to clean up.) Today they're wearing yellow.

After that pleasant break, I returned to Rokko Hall for a long and boring presentation that was difficult to follow since it was all in Japanese. I followed along as they instructed us to look at the materials from the packet each international student had each been given, but I couldn't read a lot of it. I became very sleepy. The most interesting part was when they listed all the countries students were from and had those students stand up as their country was called. I almost missed mine since I was confused and didn't recognize the word "America" when they said it. There are surprisingly few Americans here at Kobe; most students are from Europe or somewhere in Asia or Oceania. As expected, there are a lot of students from China.

In my boredom, I happened to look up and notice the ceiling of the auditorium.

It reminded me of a seashell for some reason.

I'd like to continue, but I need my sleep since I'm sick and I have to get up early tomorrow for an event with Art Club. お待たせいたしました。I'm sorry to have kept you waiting. You'll hear from me next in the post "April 9, Monday Continued: International Student Orientation (After), Karaoke and Hanami"!