Day 200 - 18th of March

11:25pm　セミナーハウス

天気：晴れ、雨天

Wow; my 200^th day in Japan!!! And what have I been doing; work. Just finished my mid-term essay for Gender and Sexuality; such a good feeling! I’m very happy with it, and it’s the perfect length too. Now I just have to proof read it, which I will do tomorrow after my Reading and Writing exam… I got up at 9 this morning, and after getting ready, studied for the written portion of my Speaking exam. Getting to uni, I met up with Jo, Kim, and Nathan, and we went up to the second floor of the CIE building to room 3208, where the exam was being held. This was a first for us, so it’s either just the way they do it in level 4, or a new idea. At any rate, it was all 6 classes spread out in this room, much larger than any of the regular classrooms. After a bit of technical set up, we were given our exams. Well, I thought I did pretty good; the study this morning certainly payed off. I remembered all the grammar patterns; I did however forget some of the vocab. The listening part was the most difficult, as it used a lot of 敬語 (honorific language), and the first question was one of the stupidest I’ve ever come across. It went something like, “What is the linguistic phenomenon that shows that Mr. Tanaka is nervous when he speaks”; I was seriously confused by this. But when I heard the recording I was like, well he has a stutter; is that really the answer? It seemed way too obvious, but I talked to the others afterwards and also put that as their answer; we’ll just have to wait and see.

Anyway, after that I went home and had lunch straight away, only to turn around again and head back to uni at 1; I had Religion. We watched a documentary for most of the class, which was good because it didn’t require me to think very much; my brain has been pushed to its breaking point. It was produced by a freelancer, and looked at the lives of AUM Shinrikyo members after the sarin gas incident. There was much prejudice against them, and while I found some of their practices to be a little weird (such as drinking a vast amount of salt water and then spewing it up again to “purify” themselves), the members seemed friendly and down to earth. I thought the freelancer was very game, entering the lives and homes of the members, and even getting involved with the Yakuza at one point; who really didn’t like AUM Shinrikyo, and wanted them completely disbanded. Overall it was very interesting, and really presented to me a very different side of Japan. The weather had turned foul during class, and I rode back home in the rain; I really did jinx it.

Getting back, I had a nap, and woke up feeling a lot better; I had had a headache. Then I got stuck into my essay. At 7, I went up to have dinner, and for some reason decided to put eggs in my spaghetti bolognese; it actually tasted pretty good. One thing I had to do though was drain it after I’d already dished it out. Because I had used canned tomatoes, there was just too much liquid; so I just tipped the whole plate of food into a strainer. It all turned out fine though, and it was certainly very filling. Ash had brought her laptop into the kitchen, and she too was working on an essay. Rachel, on the other hand wasn’t, even though she should have been; she kept on finding excuses to stay in the kitchen and not do it. I soon left them, and got back to my essay, finally finishing just before 11.Hugo, had informed me that I wouldn’t see him tonight, and he was true to his word; I wonder where he went? Well, I’m going to get some sleep now, so I can get some last minute study in for my Reading and Writing exam tomorrow; one day left…