Sunday, January 20, 2008

Study Abroad in Japan
Azure: I guess you could say that I have a healthy Asian-girl fetish, but I've seen enough "Asianophiles" to know I'm not one of them. XD Having said that, I probably wouldn't take them up on the "free lessons," and I'm hoping to avoid speaking English almost entirely.

If I do actually succeed in getting a girlfriend before going to Japan, what's a few months when I've been waiting years? haha Though I'm hesitant to classify it as a relationship, I've tried the long-distance thing and know that it doesn't work well. But the last thing I want is to get a girlfriend there; I mean, what sort of meaningful experience would that be when the clock is ticking away for just one semester? It's difficult not to miss what you've always wanted, though. :p

(Almost) all the books that I want to read this year I already own. There are 23 in total that I have that I'd like to read, among others I'm skipping over right now. lol I also have 70 of 383 anime episodes I want to watch, and 11 of 21 video games I want to play. It's going to be a long year.

Bench pressing is where you lay down and lift the bar with weights on either side. I currently weigh around 165, and recently benched 9 reps of 155 (UPDATE: I just benched 10 reps of 155 twice in a row, so now I'll be doing 165!), so I'm pretty close to this goal. And that's as much as I really want to lift, ever. The six-pack is there, and I can see it when I cough, but I need to burn some more fat so that it's more prominent. haha

I'm content with learning kanji in class right now, but I'll bookmark that site in case it's not enough later on down the road. Thanks!

I do think the reason for the suffocation might be something like that, since I only remember feeling it strongly once before when I came to school early from a break and no one was around. However, this time it was combined with thoughts I've been having lately rethinking my social abilities, and how I can improve them using this girl's outgoing personality as motivation. lol But I feel that my mood is improving, and since I'm taking an Asian Philosophy class right now I decided to briefly experiment with meditation, which helped a bit so I'm going to try it for a longer period one of these days.

Shin: It could be, Shin, it could be. ~_^

So I've been pretty busy with classes these past couple weeks. Billiards is hella 'lax, since we can just come in and play around for a couple hours, then leave. Asian Philosophy is pretty interesting, and is also kind of relaxed with half of the class time devoted to watching videos anyway. We've learned about Hinduism, Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism primarily, with a few other philosophies/religions like Shintoism thrown in for good measure. The second, and final, exam is this coming Wednesday, then I'm done with both classes and am free from all work until Monday when Spring classes start up. Hurray! >_<

I've been coming home on weekends, from Wednesday afternoons to Sunday evenings. Those are spent looking for friends to hang out with, but not being able to get in touch with half of them and deciding to play video games instead. The two I've been playing lately are still Twilight Princess and Mario 64. After beating the 7th dungeon in the former, I'm now exploring the land high and low looking for all sorts of goodies, and I've found many (bigger bags for arrows and bombs, more bomb bags, heart pieces, poe souls, bugs, sword moves, etc.). I have now clocked in 70 hours in the game and I still have a lot to explore before finishing the final two dungeons, but yeah.. that's how I play video games. haha I have about 45 stars in Mario 64 I think, but I've neglected it the past couple weeks for more Zelda time. Ah well, with Brawl delayed I still have plenty of time to beat both. *grumble grumble* >_>

Before I go any further, I wanted to make a few changes to my New Year's Resolutions list. I'm combining the resolutions of increasing socialization and becoming more assertive/opinionated because I sort of look at them on the same level, and I've lowered the number of books to 10 after picking out the ones in particular I feel I can realistically get through. I think everything else is good to go, though..

One thing that I wanted to do today was make finally make headway in the application for studying abroad in Japan. Well.. alright, I was busy hanging out with friends and didn't get around to it, but I'm going to talk about it anyway.

So I first became interested in studying abroad when I heard about the experiences of the Japanese tutor on campus, talking about how he went to Japan after taking the Japanese classes here, and about how his brother was planning it but after college just got caught up in the rest of his life. I realized that if I was really serious about learning the languae and wanted to go to Japan some time in my life, this was the perfect opportunity for both, in addition to exploring my various interests with Japanese culture. This past semester I decided to look into studying abroad, preferably using an exchange program, which involves paying the tuition (and possibly room & board) to your home university then switching places with a student doing this in a foreign country. This would no doubt be the cheaper option, with the alternative being to find an independent program that could be around $20 grand for one semester.

After talking to the campus study abroad coordinator, I chose to pursue the ISEP exchange program, one that goes through a school in your state. In other words, I pay tuition and room & board to that in-state school, and that will cover me for going to Japan, apart from transportation and a few other expenses. The best thing about this program is that they offer three potential Japanese universities, and if I'm accepted then they will attempt to place me in order of my preference, which stands currently:
-Nanzan University
-Kansai Gaidai University
-Ritsumeikan University

Nanzan is located in Nagoya, a city between Tokyo and Kyoto on the main island of Honshu. It's my first choice primarily because it doesn't have a few of the faults of the other two schools. I wanted to find an area that focused on Tokyo-ben, the dialect of Tokyo that is taught all over the world alongside the Japanese language. And for those of you wondering, yes, dialects can be drastically different, and I want to polish off the one I'm used to before trying my hand at some of the others. Sure, the classes I take will use Tokyo-ben either way, but if I go out to the town I would be in an entirely different world.

One dialect that is particularly distinct is Osaka-ben, which would be spoken around Kansai Gaidai, located in Hirakata city of Osaka prefecture. And just look at the name! Gaidai means literally foreign (gai) university (dai[gaku]), something that I feel gives off the sense of being less authentic than a normal Japanese university. My study abroad coordinator tells me that none of my experiences will be genuinely "authentic," but at the same time I still don't like the idea that teaching will be geared to foreigners, and possibly unnecessarily watered down.

Lastly, we have Ritsumeikan University, a highly respected school of Kyoto that has been around for ages. While Kyoto would be an awesome place to live, it's last on my list because the dialect is similar to Osaka-ben, but more importantly: the only option for housing is single rooms. One of the things that has become highly anticipated for me when going to Japan is living with a homestay family. Families provide a room and 16 meals a week, and the opportunity to constantly improve your use of a language by forcing it to be mandatory at all times. Plus, it will be a fascinating look into the culture first-hand through people who will be more than willing to help. And Ritsukeikan doesn't offer that? No, thank you.

Now I have to fill out this application to turn in by the 1st of February to be eligible to study abroad this Fall. It's your ordinary bureaucratic packet of forms, along with two recommendation letters, a language-proficiency report by my Japanese professor, and two personal statement essays that I have yet to write and will probably be waiting until the last minute for. So yeah.. turn that shit in, and I should get a reply by late February as to whether I'm accepted and where I'm going. Tons of fun to look forward to! lol

Wow, now that was a post. If you guys have made it all the way down here and have any questions, leave me a comment. lataz
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