It’s Christmas time even here in Japan, where I believe Christianity is not too common. (1-3% if I recall Ian’s lectures correctly?) In the end it’s just like in most countries in the World where it’s celebrated: commerce. I really dislike seeing Santa Claus & Co. everywhere I go, but no mention or depiction of Jesus anywhere to be found. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not particularly interested in religion in that way, it’s just that the reason for Christmas is, well, Jesus Christ’s birth and thus the name of the day. It just seems odd that because the religious explanation doesn’t sell well, Santa Claus was invented and now celebrated instead.
Anyway, enough complaining. I bought Christmas lights!
1500 yen at Donki!
They make for a great atmosphere, very soothing. I might get one or two more Christmas ornaments, but it would be a waste of money to get too many things, as they can be used only for a couple of days and will be thrown away once I leave Japan.
Tom, Kat and I were talking about making it all homely and Christmassy so that we can get together one of these days and spend a whole day in: watching movies, listening to Christmas songs, eating sweets and a nice meal. Personally, I would love to do this on the 24th as it’s tradition in Germany, but Tom already has plans, and Kat and I have plans for the 25th. I wonder if and what day we will turn our hope of a great, festive day into reality?
On Monday we had our mid-term exams in Integrated Japanese 401 and Kanji 902. I spent less days studying that originally planned, but in those two days of study I only stopped for food and bathroom. As a result, the exams went seemingly well. We received our results for 401 yesterday and I got 80%, which is 20% above passing and, obviously, 20% below aceing the exam. I’m not too sure whether this is considered a good result or not, but, relating it to the feeling I had when class first started and thought it was too difficult for me, I’m quite happy. The only depressing thing about the exam was that ONE page where I apparently failed hard: 1 out of 12 points, haha. OTL
902 results will be announced on Monday, but I’m pretty sure it’ll be around the same percentage.
So I suddenly got ill Tuesday midnight 2 weeks ago. I’m not sure to this day what exactly it was. I suddenly felt really weak and left a gathering to go to bed. That whole night I had a high fever and started to develop symptoms I later found out perfectly match the flu. Now, with all this swine flu hype going on at the moment, my first reaction was obviously: “Oh no.” The next day I was sent to a clinic to get checked. It was a tiny clinic close to the university; maybe 5 minutes walk away. After signing up for clinic membership (yay in English!) and waiting a short while, my temperature was taken. 6 times. The first couple of times it displayed 39°C so the nurse thought that can’t be right, as I was clearly looking half-well and not dead. With a different thermometer it showed 35°C. Hrm. Two more times later it displayed I think 38°C so she thought that was appropriate enough for her liking. After this adventure, I got taken to the doctor, who checked my heart beat at about 15 different points at a rate of 0.5 seconds per place. After that he said something Japanese I didn’t understand which according to the the nurse translates into “not flu, cold”. 2500 yen later I was free to go home and rest.
I informed the Foreign Affairs Office here at TUFS of what happened and they said to rest until I feel better, and that because it’s not swine flu, I’m not excused, so every day of rest is marked as absent. Great. Let’s see my attendance requirement to complete my Japanese language class is 80%, so 4 out of 5 days, I’ve been here almost 8 weeks, so I get to miss 8 days…… right, OK that’ll work out. Just can’t afford the luxury of being ill again.
In total I missed 5 days of class, so it wasn’t too bad. My tutor helped me during this time to think of ways to get those 5 days attendance loss back, including going to a different clinic, but that would have involved more time, effort, money and nerves lost. Sigh.
10.12.2009 04:51 | 
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