Midterms

Today has been really, really nice.

Because of midterms I didn't have class until noon, so this morning when I woke up I was able to have a fantastic Skype date with David, which was a great way to start the day. Then I went to campus and had a bowl of noodles for a really early lunch while I reviewed one last time for art.

My writing midterm was pretty easy, I thought; I definitely kicked its butt, particularly the first page. It was interesting, though, how we took it. All the Level 3 kids took the same exam in the same huge room, although we normally are split up into six different classes. There were a lot of us! I was really surprised. Anyway, the test took me the whole hour to complete, which is longer than I usually take with these things, but I was going slowly and checking my answers and being careful, so it doesn't surprise me that it took a while.

And as soon as I spilled out of that midterm, I headed down the hall for my art exam. This was basically the most sensible test I have ever taken in my life. The professor gave us nice worksheet-type papers to write our responses on, so I had a good idea of how long he wanted us to write. Much less intimidating that those blue books. (Don't get me started on those--Why are the lines spaced so big? We're not in fourth grade, we can handle college-ruled paper, people! And really, profs, I know they're handy, but how long do you want our responses to be? Please tell us. Paragraph? Fill up two blue books? And why blue? Are there green books? Is there one blue book company, or many competing companies? Why do all colleges use them, but I never used on in high school?) There were few questions, they all had clear answers that we had frequently reviewed in class, and there wasn't an excessive amount of writing or detail required. It was a really good review test, I thought. I do feel like I over-studied for it a lot, what with my flashcards and charts, but that's okay. Now I just know more about Japanese art than you do. ^_^

My last class--and my only testless one today--was Film and Fiction. Today we watched excerpts from Know your Enemy: Japan, another Capra propaganda film from 1945. It was amazing effective and offensive. Particularly disturbing was the "pounding the humanity out of children" montage of little Japanese boys in PE classes, playing during recess, going to the doctor, and doing martial arts clubs, mingled in with images of military officers barking orders and the loud banging of iron work in a smithy. It was really very disturbing, especially considering it was released on the very day that we bombed Nagasaki.

After class, since I hadn't properly eaten lunch, I grabbed a fish sandwich from McDonald's before leaving school, napped, and here I am.

On the way home from school, on the same street where I had my accident yesterday but in a different spot, a motorcycle had a wreck. I came upon it afterward, when the person who had crashed was up and moving about with a bloodied finger, and several of the neighbors and other bystanders were helping him right his bike. It looks like he just took a turn too fast and crashed into a pile of flowers and cinderblocks. He was okay, and so was his bike. Still, it freaked me out, and I'm thinking of walking more rather than biking in the near future.

Also, I forgot to mention that the other day there was a small green tree frog stuck to the outside of my dorm's main sliding glass door. It was pretty cool. Red-Eyed Tree Frog Man, anyone?