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.

Now that all these formalities are done with, I finally have time to study without interruptions. This comes just at the right time, too, because preparation, homework and revision for Japanese language class turns out to be time consuming and quite intense. The textbook we work with is called ‘Tobira 5 – Pre-Advanced Japanese’ and so far features text about stress society and economical campaigns for poor areas in Japan and third world countries. This means goodbye to the Japan Times’ ‘Intermediate Japanese’ in which Jerry and Mr. Kumimoto talk about how many fish they caught that weekend and how nice the weather was.

We are expected to prepare for every lesson or we will slow the class down, and after every lesson we have to review what happened in class and make sure we know all the kanji and grammar for.. ever. Every new article/text we read brings with it a set of vocabulary that is supposed to cover ‘new words’, but basically covers about 25% of the new words, so 75% I have to look up myself and learn on my own. Additionally, we have the Tobira kanji book that accompanies our text book with 25 new kanji and their popular compounds each week, but as already mentioned, that only covers about 25% of the to me unknown kanji appearing in the text. However, grammar points are easy so far, meaning my study focus here in Japan will most likely be vocabulary/kanji, which is why I chose to have extra kanji class despite it not counting towards my credits.

The last two modules are ISEP classes, which basically seem to be pretty easy. In Speech and Communication I we have to do roughly 3 3-5 minute speeches in Japanese a semester. I weaseled my way out of the first one, because during the first lesson I was asked to do the model English speech for Japanese students in class. Japanese Religions seems easy, too, although we ‘wasted’ our first lesson introducing ourselves and watching a video about ancient Japanese art.

Yesterday was the entrance ceremony and orientation for foreign students at TUFS. I expected it to be an all day, tiring event but it turned out to be a half-day tiring event. The lack of oxygen in that room was the main problem, though. Anyway, we were informed of several interest groups at university, several different apartments we’ll be dealing with and, of course, many new forms and registrations to fill out.

Today, we had a language placement test first thing in the morning. The exam was multiple choice and split into 1 hour of grammar, and 30 minutes of kanji. I had a good feeling working my way through the first few sections, but then slowly started failing until I came to a complete halt, thus not being able to answer a single question in sections 7,8 and 10. (9 was a simple mini-essay-ish task) I’m guessing the test was designed to not waste the amateurs’ time trying to get at least some right. Results were published at 3pm the same day, so I now know that I belong into level 4 of 8, meaning intermediate Japanese proficiency. Whether I should be happy about this result or not will be revealed once classes start. For now, I’ll worry about filling out a couple of class registration forms.

The Certificate of Eligibility sent out by my Japanese university arrived in England while I was in the USA, and as the visa application has to be done in person at the designated embassy (London for me), I had no choice but to wait until my return to England. Luckily, the embassy processes the visa right away and it should arrive by mail within 3 working days.

So the day I decide to set out, this is my to do list:

• Copy Certificate of Eligibility in city library
• Print visa application forms in library
• Get prepaid special delivery envelope at post office
• Try to find train station (I got lost and it took 30 mins longer)
• Train ride to London
• Get there at 4pm (embassy closes at 4.30pm)
• Get stressed and barely make it to the embassy

Okay so most of those items weren’t actually planned. Once I’m there, I go through security and take a ticket. When it’s my turn, I realize I haven’t filled out the visa application form yet. So I’m sent back out again. After filling it in, sweaty and wanting to die, I go to the counter again.. hand everything in, look for my passport photos.. gone. I must have lost them somewhere on the journey. The person on the other side of the counter is understanding and tells me to take a reference slip, go have my pictures made and hand them in with the slip at reception. 15 minutes and £10 later, I return for a third time and am welcomed by a laughing security guy. Soooo, back in, hand in stuff at reception. Done! ..right? When I was back outside, I realized that they still had my passport and I didn’t even pay anything. So, back in  again, wave at my new best mate, the security guard, only to find out that American citizens aren’t charged and the visa is sent back in my passport.

Moral of the story: preparation -> less frustration and stress.