When I was first interviewed while still living in Sweden the teacher told me that my conversation skills were pretty high, but since I still had some problems with kanji she suggested that I start on the fourth level in their eight level system. I have constantly been worrying that it would still be too difficult or that my kanji knowledge would be completely in the toilet, but as usual all my fears and worries were unwarranted.
I had my first class today. We'll be seven students in my class this term, two Italians, one Chinese, one Korean, one American born Taiwanese and two Swedes. All of us were newcomers to the language level except the other Swede. He had already been here for nine months and was insanely homesick. I wonder if I will feel the same? I try to keep an open mind and let whatever happens happen.
We also got to buy our school books during first class as our teacher introduced us to how the classes would be split up. She was an incredibly energetic, fast talking, speed reading woman. The pressure is on me, but in a good way. We practiced spead reading, information searching in blocks of text and some reading. The four hours flew by so fast I barely noticed it was ten past five.
One of my classmates showed me a different train station close by that meant I could skip switching trains in Shinjuku. She also reminded me that it is best to buy the commuter pass as soon as possible to save money. I choose two stations and pay for one, three or six months. The longer periods of time I pay for the more I will be able to save. The pass also lets me stop at any station between my chosen stations for free. If I choose the six month pass I will at most pay half price on all train rides during that period of time and that does not include using the pass during weekends or more than once per day.
It looks like this and you can read more on the Tokyo Metro homepage.
A pretty painless trip back I swung by the grocery store and bought a microwave dinner composed of Carbonara some Japanese sauce on top and grapefuit something called Hyouketsu(氷結). Most likely cider. 6% alcohol and 4,2% fruit juice. You can get both for 300 yen.
Expenses
- Schoolbooks 6890 yen
- Microwave carbonara and cider 300 yen
