Semester 8 Rundown

It's now almost halfway through the semester. My schedule has solidified (but not my sleeping habits) and I have gotten into the general groove with my classes enough to make a pass at guessing my grade in each.

Japanese 401 - Advanced Japanese Reading
What was I thinking?! This is a class similar to the one that DESTROYED me in Japan, and by destroyed I mean that it caused so much mental anguish that I developed a severe case of insomnia and was wandering the city like a madman during class hours because I could no longer bring myself to actually go.

Well, it seems that history is repeating itself. The chances of me getting a good grade in this class are next to none.

Chado Practicum
Talk about a neat class! Twice a week about 15 of us make our way to a teahouse build by a prior grand tea master of Japan and learn the art of the tea ceremony through hands on practice. The class is fun, it's a real education, and you get to drink lots of tea.

Literature and Philosophy
Another great class. So far I have been introduced to Borges, Kafka, and Calvino through it. It would be nicer of more than say 3 or 4 people spoke in class, but that's generally how classes like this go. A few of us will be willing to put our opinions on the line, and the rest will either listen quietly, too afraid to say something wrong, will not know what the hell is going on and thus not speak, or, and these are always the frustrating ones, will not know what the hell is going on but not know that either and end up talking a lot anyway.

Luckly we have very few of that last catagory in the class.

Modern Japanese Society
This class is difficult to suffer though. The professor's lectures leave me cringing constantly, with her constant mangling of grammar and her tendancy to repeat the last pharase of whatever she says multiple times.

And example of the crap I have to sit through involves phrases like "As far as to the others, there were much warriors who did not acustom well to the change in government, the change in government."

For an hour and fifteen minutes I have to listen to that. I live in dread of this class, not just because I have to listen to this mangled English, but because I'm terrified that I may adopt some of it as part of my own broken speach. Truely terrifying.

Modern Chinese Politics
This is the exact opposite of my Japanese Society class. Unlike the Japanese class, where the professor is a 'native speaker' but does not know how to speak English, my professor in this class is not a native speaker but is well spoken. He has a heavy Chinese/UK accent, so that even the English he speaks isn't American English, but his grammar is perfect and his lectures easy to follow and easy to remember. I look forward to this class every week, but it can be a bit of a struggle to sit all the way through, considering the fact that it is about 3 hours long.

So that's my final semester. Two classes that drive me nuts for completely different reasons, and three that I love to death. I think that's an excellent ratio considering my previous years' experience.