日本語：「日本での学生生活が楽しみだ」

Sorry about the silence. I’ve been in Tokyo for about 36 hours now. I thought I’d quickly summarize what I’ve been up to. (It’s not very interesting!)

The flight and trains to my friend’s station weren’t so bad. Once I got there though I realized I was never in a million years going to find my friend’s apartment, so I asked for directions at the local police box. After talking me through it one of them suddenly decided he’d walk me to the apartment. Needless to say people watching a tall blonde foreigner being escorted by the police suspect the worst, so I’m probably the bandit of Nogata or something. The policeman didn’t speak any English so it was a case of being ‘thrown in at the deep end’ although in reflection that’s probably a good thing. Regardless, we made it and I was asleep by 8pm. And awake by 2am. Urgh, I hate jetlag.

Today I explored Shinjuku and then met up with a bunch of people from Sheffield, before meeting up with Lynsey (who I’ve known since my gap year in 2006) for some much needed food, beer and Karaoke. It was a great refresher course in the life of the Tokyo party person.

Tomorrow I’m heading over to my student accommodation, and everything including my course kicks off from then. I hope to get online again soon to do a proper update, so consider this really just a ‘I’m still alive, don’t worry!’ update. So until then!

I realise now that if I don’t set myself some goals that I must accomplish before I go, I’m likely to not make 100% use of the time I get in Japan this coming year. So I thought I should post it on here, that way you guys can help me in a few ways; you can yell at me when I forget to do stuff, and more importantly I would really appreciate it if you guys would comment suggesting what else I should get up to!

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200th post on Japan Is Doomed!

僕の大学は、僕が上智大学に留学しに行くことを決定してくれた。去年上智で留学した先輩によると、来年９月からの上智の外国人のための日本語のコースは有名で、すごく勉強にならんだけど、宿題やテストが多いそうだ。

一年間東京に住んだことがあるのに、本当にドキドキしている。日本にある大学に行ったことがあるけど、日本の教え方とイギリスの教え方は違うはずだ。たとえば、日本では、講義で友達に手を貸してもいいのかな。僕の日本の教え方に対するイメージは講義で友達と話してはいけないということだ。慣れろのは難しそうかも。

だが、本当に楽しみだ。今日本語を話せない国で勉強しているので、あまり日本語で話す相手を見つけられないけど、日本に行けば日本の食べ物や飲み物を楽しめるし、もう一度日本に住んでいる友達に会えるし、英語を教える仕事が見つられけるからだ。

もう待てないよ！

英語/English Post: Studying Abroad at Sophia University / 上智大学
(Note: That is not a direct translation of this post!)

So the other day, I found out I’m going to Sophia University (上智大学) for my study abroad year! Woohoo! So I thought I’d do a little research and post what I found out here. This probably won’t be that interesting if you’re not interested in learning Japanese or whatever, so feel free to skip reading this and use the time saved to write a poem or make some flapjack.

Sophia University's Logo

Sophia university is pretty central in Tokyo, I’ll be in Yotsuya. It’s had quite a lot of famous people study there, especially George Takei, aka Mr. Sulu from Star Trek. I’m not saying I’m guaranteed to land a spot in a US TV series, but the chances are higher! (not)

Anyway, I headed over to Sophia’s website (English/Japanese) to find some photos, a bit about what I’ll be doing there, and so forth. The site provides photos of the university in all four seasons, just to prove the buildings don’t blow away in Autumn, or something…

Sophia University in summer

That’s the campus as it is in summer, apparently. Looks pretty great! I had a go at translating the text under each image. Here are my guesses (order: top left, top right, bottom left, bottom right)

• The bustling main road
• The campus overflowing with green
• A quaint hallway on the first floor of building one
• When you get to university, make sure to check the bulletin board!

It’s all very green, white and shiny, kind of the like the future. Let’s just hope winter doesn’t see Sophia become a frozen wasteland…

Sophia University in Winter

Yep, it looks basically the same. I do not remember Tokyo looking that nice in winter… but anyway, translations;

• The entrance to Hoffman hall, where university clubs (circles) meet.
• A path off the side of main street
• “The next lesson is in building number 3″

So there we go. It all looks very nice. Next, I thought I’d have a look at the language course. As I mentioned, I have no idea exactly where I fit into the system yet, but what I found is that Sophia has partner universities all over the world, suggesting there’s going to be a great mix of people in my classes. Aside from the core Japanese, I can also take a few other modules, but due to Sheffield’s rules I don’t have to pass them! Only Japanese! So I might go wild and take something like advanced molecular science, history of the corkscrew and juggling classes, or something.

So there we go! I’m going to be going around September next year. I’ll keep posting blogs as I find out more and more about it. How exciting!