February 16

This is another day-late entry, so I hope it’s accurate.

I missed my train by about a second today. When I got (finished running) to my platform, the train was just waiting, but the doors were closed, and in a few more seconds, it pulled away. I caught the next one and everything was fine, but I hate waiting.

In Japanese class today, we had our first of three assessments for the week. This one was the two-part chapter exam. It wasn’t too bad (I don’t think), but I’m guessing I made a few errors. After the test, we had Japanese class that was a bit different from normal. The three periods of class were adjusted around the test and our course sections were mixed, so I ended up moving to a new classroom with students from another section. It wasn’t too bad, but since Molly was no longer in my class, I didn’t have the guts to give the chocolate snack that was left over from Yoshi’s gift to Hanashiro Sensei as a Valentine’s day Joke. I ate it instead, and it was delicious.

Afterward, I had shodou class. We wrote kanji in script. Rather than making each stroke individually, we connected them and it was really artistic. I liked it a lot, though it is really hard to make a perfect work. I think I’m catching on to the technique though, and I’m finding I need to use as little ink as possible and a higher ink-to-water ratio.

Directly after shodou was history class. We were moving through the material so slowly that our professor postponed our mid-term by a week. Originally, it was supposed to be next week (the fifth class of about 14), which I thought was really early. I’m a bit worried about it though because the professor’s thought process is hard to follow and I’m not sure what he will ask on the exam. He assured us though that he would let us know more about the exam next week so we would be prepared. We’ll see....

Afterward, I went home (as always) and okaasan made dinner earlier than I had expected. We had chicken, potato, and mushroom soup as well as rice (yay!), miso soup, and salad. Okaasan commented that I had been in Japan for about a month and wanted to know if I was homesick. I said I was, and when she asked what for, I said I missed my family and friends. She thought this was crazy since I speak to them every day (according to her) online. She said that when she and otousan were in South Africa, they were the only people that spoke Japanese and that the only other people were natives and English people. They only communicated with Japan by letter and that their friends only phone once per year. She told me that people are spoiled now with the internet.

After dinner, we had a Japanese dessert. I can’t remember the name, but it’s a reddish-orange Japanese fruit about the size of an apricot. It’s dried and filled with chestnut paste (marzipan?) and it tastes like a sweet potato. It was very good, but unexpected.