Japanese School!

The Japanese school system works a little differently than back home. School starts officially on September 23, so right now is still summer break for the Japanese students. For the next three weeks we have a pre-semester intensive language program, designed to help us with our language skills before school begins. We took a placement test (which was incredibly difficult, apparently it's similar to the test that's given to people who want to teach English in Japan and have to prove their fluency) and then we were placed into appropriate classes. The teachers were describing the levels of classes as; アドバンス、インタメヂエット and, 日本語をがんばってください！(advanced, intermediate, and 'do your best' at Japanese!) I got placed in the intermediate, which I am perfectly happy with. The teachers are all really nice (so far) and we have class every day from 9:10 - 12:20. The class is split into two periods, the first half we do grammar, vocab, and reading and then we have a ten minute break until the next half begins. The second half is really strenuous... we watch about 15 minutes of a movie and then answer questions and have a discussion. The movie for this week is 千と千尋（せんとちひろ）also known as Spirited Away. The movie is in Japanese, but we have subtitles in English. I haven't completely transitioned out of the summer mindset yet so right now class is fun! There are 8 other students in my level, it's nice having a smaller class size.

Thumbs up for a typical Japanese College classroom!

The kids in the back of the classroom never pay attention, do they?

There is a small courtyard area with benches and tables, if we were at an American university this would probably have been a grassy quad. There is something that looks like a quad, or at the very least some manicured section of grass near the gate of the dorm but I can't read the signs around it yet and I get the feeling that it's just for show. I have yet to see anyone sit out there and read a book, but it is still summer vacation so the campus is pretty quiet.