First day of classes

Today my classes began. The way it works here is this: Five days a week in the mornings I have Japanese speaking, three days a week in the mornings I also have Japanese reading/writing. In the afternoon, I take my culture classes. I have three of those, and they run twice a week. So the schedule is a little funky, but here it is:

Monday
9-9:50 Reading/Writing
11-11-50 Speaking

Tuesday
10-10:50 Speaking
12-12:50 Reading/Writing
1-2:20 Asian Psychologies
2:30-3:50 Japan in Western Film and Literature

Wednesday
9-9:50 Speaking
1-2:20 Survey of Japanese Art

Thursday
9-9:50 Reading/Writing
10-10:50 Speaking
1-2:20 Asian Psychologies

Friday
10-10:50 Speaking
1-2:20 Survey of Japanese Art
2:30-3:50 Japan in Western Film and Literature

So the only class I haven't had so far is Survey of Japanese Art. All the other ones seem really good. The Japanese language courses seem like they'll get kind of intense, but for now we're reviewing chapters I learned long ago. I'll have some time to get myself back into "school mode." Asian Psychologies seems like a standard college course, which means for this program it's harder than normal. It seems to me that professors here don't exactly "dumb it down," but they understand that people are here in Japan to take weekend trips and go karaokeing, so they don't make things unnecessarily hard. Asian Psych isn't like that. It's a regular class, which is kinda nice. Japan in Western Film and Literature, though, is gonna be a piece of cake, I think. (Watch, just because I said that it'll be really hard!) It's such an interesting class, though. The prof is awesome, and today after we went through our syllabus, we watched the episode of the Simpsons where they go to Japan. Totally hilarious!

Anyhow, classes were good. It'll be really nice to have a routine, too.

I have made friends with some girls on my floor. April is from New York, Jessica is from Detroit, and Melissa is from Columbus (Westerville--yes, I checked). We went out to eat tonight to this little hole in the wall place that is practically 100% supported by Kansai Gaidai students, probably. They give you SOOOOO much food for really cheap. For 500 yen (a little less than $5), I got ice water, black tea, sticky rice, miso soup, pickled veggies, salmon tempura, chicken curry, and cold noodles. I only ate about a quarter of everything, and I'm still stuffed. Yum.

When it cooled off a little this evening, I exercised a bit in the park across the street. It's such a nice place. There were a lot of families there taking walks and playing ball. It's basically an open field with a playground and a small track around it, and I just walked and jogged for about half an hour. It was nice to excercise. This was the first time in I don't know how long. >.<

In any case, I'm pretty wiped out. It was certainly a full day.