I'm still taking the mandatory Japanese classes four times a week. I don't really like them but at least they aren't as crazy difficult as the ones in my school in Belgium. Honestly, these classes are way too easy. But I shouldn't complain. I just hope I haven't forgotten how to properly study because I still need to retake some Japanese exams when I get back home.
Aside from Japanese I picked three other classes from a list.
One is Kendo, which I love! This is the follow up of the Naginata class I had last semester. Kendo and Naginata are both martial arts. The most notable difference between the two is that the stick you fight with in Kendo is much shorter than the staff-like stick in Naginata. I think I prefer Naginata in the end, just because I think it looks more elegant BUT I'm really enjoying Kendo as well!
The world championship Kendo was held last week in Tokyo and for this event, the New Zealand national team came to our school for a while to practice before the actual event. This, because my teacher, Alexander Bennet, coaches the team. We were actually lucky enough to watch the team train and to even train with them and learn from them. That was a really cool experience!
The second class I chose is a class about Geisha. I picked this one because I realized that, even though I'd seen geisha walk around Kyoto, I knew virtually nothing about them and the things I thought I knew were most likely wrong assuptions. The class is taught by this Canadian guy who's job is to hire geisha for other people. He's supposedly the best foreigner geisha expert in the world. He worked on the movie Memoirs of a Geisha as an advisor but he despises the actual film. We watched it in class as he pointed out every single thing he hated about it, which was pretty amusing. At the end of the semester we're going to have a real geisha party too, which is a ridiculously cool opportunity and I'm really excited for it!!
Lastly, I chose a class called Learning Kansai. To be honest, I didn't really know what this class would be about but I picked it because it fitted great in my weekly schedule, plus it was taught by Alexander Bennet so I figured it would be cool.
I now call this class: the vegetable class.
Why you ask?
Basically, this class is a collaboration of Japanese students and exchange students. We got paired into groups and now we have to grow and sell vegetables. I'm not kidding. On the weekend, we travel to the countryside and do farming. I quite like this because it's a lot more fun than sitting in class listening to a lecture. However, on Monday we sit in class and discuss business techniques to sell our vegetables. It's all very business/economy related and I don't understand any of it! On top of that it is taught entirely in Japanese. I mean, I wouldn't even know what they were talking about if it were taught in English or Dutch, let alone Japanese. So yeah, that's... something else..
But I'm having fun! I don't have that much class since I do need to work on my graduation paper.
That's about it.
Bye!!!!!
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