Random thoughts

Wow, have I really been here a week? I guess I have. I haven't had a week of classes, though. I think I'm finally more or less adjusted to this time zone now... at least, I can sleep through the night now and not wake up too much before my alarm. I still get tired a little early, but I think it's getting better.

Speaking of sleeping, I have been using my Japanese even in my dreams. A few nights in a row now... either dreaming that someone is talking to me and I'm trying to understand, or dreaming that I'm speaking to someone. That seems like a good sign.

I find that I've had an easier time meeting people and getting along with them than I'm used to. I can't decide if it's because the situation makes us all more outgoing (we're all foreigners, everyone's here for a limited time so we all just invite everyone to everything, etc.) or because the sort of people who come here to study are inherently interesting people. A little bit of both, I guess.

My fellow students are a mix of English and non-English speakers. We went to dinner last night with a group of our Taiwanese classmates who don't speak very much English (if any). I find the way we all communicate fascinating... it's this pidgin of our shared (crappy) Japanese, miming, and weird roundabout explanations. But we all know enough Japanese to have the "getting to know you" conversations: "Where are you from? How long are you staying here? When did you come to Japan? Why are you studying Japanese?" and so on. It's pretty basic but it feels AWESOME to succeed at communication, as halting and confused as our conversation may be.

I noticed, even taking Japanese classes at home, that studying a language seems to have the unexpected side effect of making me more outgoing. After a few semesters of the class, I noticed that I was more likely to strike up conversations in queues, etc. Totally bizarre. I guess it just inures me to awkward conversations, and also reminds me that most people are nice, and I generally have more common ground with them than I think.

Along those lines, I wrote this on the way to Mt. Fuji: "It's easier than you thought. You laugh at yourself. You remember to smile when interacting with people. And little by little, you start to remember to walk on the left, to take off your shoes when you enter the house. Everything is strange and confusing and wonderful. You remind yourself over and over to try, to make mistakes, to go somewhere new or eat something unfamiliar every day. To step out of your comfort zone becomes a daily habit, and with practice it gets easier."

I don't know why, but I had expected this to be very difficult. The first time I visited here, I remember being very stressed out and frustrated. Of course, that was before I'd studied the language at all (or, for that matter, traveled outside of the country at all), but I don't think that's the only reason it's so much easier this time.

I think, unlike myself of nine years ago, I'm no longer terribly concerned with being "cool" or impressing anyone or even not embarrassing myself. I forgive myself for making mistakes, and just assume that things will be awkward... but, who cares? Life's too short and I'm here to learn, so I want to make the most of it. Of course, it helps that the Japanese are extraordinarily nice, at least here in Okazaki, and very tolerant of us poor confused gaijin. But really, this is probably true everywhere: you make the effort, you learn something new every day, people meet you halfway. It all works out.

There's a certain freedom in it, like being a child again. So much of the world is incomprehensible, and that is completely OK. You do what you can, and for the rest, you trust in the benevolence of strangers... or you let it go. It turns out, in most cases the world won't end if you're "doing it wrong".

On the first day in class, Miyuki-sensei said something like: If you speak and it's wrong, you make mistakes, it's totally okay; but it's not okay to not talk. Which is super true. You have to just open your mouth and try to hack it. You have to challenge yourself and continue to try to say things you don't know how to say. It sounds obvious, but it took me so long to overcome my instinct to keep my mouth closed unless I knew I wasn't going to make a mistake ("and embarrass myself").

Maybe studying this language is finally helping me get over myself in some sense. That's pretty awesome.

This whole adventure is giving me an interesting perspective on myself and, I think, boosting my self-confidence. I keep thinking, if I can do this, I could do anything. And, so far, this has been far more fun than challenging.

I expected to be lonesome and terribly homesick, but so far, I haven't missed New York at all. I love traveling outside of the States, and being here is reminding me that I need to do it more. (Also, yesterday was my second birthday in a row in a foreign country! Definitely a good trend.)

I really like traveling alone. I am not lonesome at all... I love the freedom of not being accountable to anyone or having to negotiate with anyone. And it makes it easier to make new friends and talk to strangers.

What else? Oh, learning to read is super fun. There's this incredible thrill to laboriously sounding out katakana and then realizing it's a word I know. I can vaguely remember doing this with English -- being able to switch from seeing a meaningless jumble of lines to seeing meaning. It's like a magic trick.

Oh, I was going to write something about the placement test. I got placed a little bit back from where I should be (if I'd really learned everything we were taught in my Columbia class), but I'm actually fine with that. Even though I know a lot of the vocab and grammar already, I really need the conversation practice, especially since the Columbia class was so intensive that I didn't really feel like I got to take the time to master what we'd learned before moving on to the next thing.

I'm already getting a lot less rusty, and I have the option of re-taking the placement test in order to maybe move up a level in another week, but I don't know yet whether I'll do it. I also want to spend some time on kanji, which is optional in this particular course (SILAC focuses more on conversation), but they provide us with materials if we want to study it on our own time. I guess I'll see how I feel about it next week.

The way they run the classes is interesting... it's a continuous cycle of (I think) four weeks. Myself, Laura-san and Yolanda-san joined a class that was already in progress. For SILAC, the classes run continuously and you can take it for any amount of time you like, in two-week chunks. So there are some people in our class who are finishing a four-week course, or are here for six weeks or longer. (Though most people in SILAC seem to be doing on the order of 4-8 weeks; I think some of the other programs are a better fit for longer courses of study.) I've met fellow gakusei who are only here for a few weeks and others who are in the midst of a nine-month course, or have been living in Japan for years.

Anyhow, I should stop writing and do some studying.

Being able to just focus on this one thing is so great. I love being a full-time student again. It's astounding how much smarter I feel when I'm not having to divide my attention between eighteen different things.

I feel alive, awake. Having to really engage all my mental faculties every day is amazing. Every day is a series of puzzles to be solved. I can't be as mentally lazy as I normally am, and that feels great. As of right now, I think this may be the best thing I've ever done.

Mata ne! ^_^