Crazy Thursday, Nothing Friday
Right, so, man, Thursday was nuts.
It started out in the morning with me getting the call about getting my JHS job back. Woohoo!
Then I went down to Yokohama for the Fighters-Baystars game. It takes an hour or so to Kannai, so I got into the stadium around 12:30 for a 1pm game, just in time to learn some new cheer songs. Sat with Sakamoto up next to the ouendan; when the Shinozawas showed up they came and joined us since the rest of our posse wasn't there at all. We had a lot of fun cheering, and my only regret is that I didn't run down to yell at Terrmel Sledge, who is now playing for the Baystars. Alas, I should get to say hi to him next week in theory. Anyway, the game was a 0-0 tie, pretty fast, I wrote it up on Marinerds.
Took the train to Ikebukuro after that, got a small kaitensushi snack, like 4 plates or so, and then went to Mint to look at baseball cards (got some of the rookie edition ones, the Fighters set plus Futagami and Takeuchi and Tomura since I watched them so much last year in college), bummed around the arcades a little, also went to Book-Off (found a cheapo old Hikawa Kiyoshi album I'd been looking for -- shush), and basically wasted an hour.
After that, Takadanobaba, where I had a trial lesson at the Sendagaya Japanese Institute. They have a 2-kyuu prep course on Thursday nights. Right now the class has 3 people in it but only 2 show up every week -- both women, one from Brazil, one from Switzerland, and both have pretty high Japanese levels, I think. The way the class is, basically, they have a kanji test to start off every week, and then they spend the rest of the time discussing grammar forms, apparently. (Studying the kanji lists is homework.) What's crazy is that they're using the 2-kyuu prep books I bought last year (and never worked through much of) as their textbooks! The teacher was really nice though, and the class is entirely in Japanese but I could understand most of it. Our class discussion for the time I was there was on the differences between using ～かける、～切る、and ~抜く to describe things you have finished doing or haven't finished doing. It was interesting and she had us come up with examples and whatnot. Then we moved on to some other grammar stuff, and then the 45-minute break time happened, so that was all I got to sit in on. What I found out, though, is that if I wanted to actually start the course NEXT WEEK, I could do that... instead of waiting until April... I'd have to basically pay 10,000 yen as an entrance fee now, and then prorated 2600 or so per class for the remaining two in this "semester" for now, and then pay the whole course fee for the April-June "semester" if I continued. I've got until Wednesday to make a decision for starting on Thursday. There's a good argument for doing it, namely that I wouldn't be as far behind when I did join the class in April, assuming I was going to join it. Plus, the school is moving buildings during the last week of March, so the week that Mike is here, there are no lessons anyway...
On the other hand, I asked the students in the class about how much time it takes -- the class itself is 90 minutes per week, but they were saying that the homework and studying takes them like 7-8 hours a week. Ouch. But I guess this is really what I SHOULD be doing in terms of studying if I'm serious about taking the damn 2-kyuu again, right? Paying money for a class and then using that as motivation to kick myself in the ass to actually work through these prep books, with help?
Anyway, I thought about that on the train all the way to Chiba.
Yes. Chiba. For my third prefecture of the day.
See,![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
the2belo had told me a few days ago that he'd be sent up to Tokyo for his job on Thursday->Friday. Except, as he found out, "I'm actually working in some random place in Chiba instead! You ever been to Kaihin-Makuhari?"
"Jeff," I explained, "THAT'S WHERE CHIBA MARINE STADIUM IS. I KNOW IT QUITE WELL."
So since I had nothing to wake up for on Friday but he had work, it made sense for me to go down to visit him instead of vice versa. I rode the train there, he met me at the station, and we went to Outback for dinner :) We got a Bloomin' Onion and I got a huge salad and he got a burger and beer and it was pretty neat to hang out with Jeff as always! I have to make sure I manage to get down to Nagoya sometime so we can go to a Dragons game together, because I'm not sure if I'm going to see the Dragons up here all that much this year, really, and it's been ages since I've been to a game at the Nagoya Dome.
And then I rode home, getting in a bit after midnight.
Lots of trains, pretty exhausting day, really. And after two days sitting in the cold I was feeling kinda crappy, too.
So, on Friday, today, I did nothing. Literally. I never left the house. I had to wait for a redelivery of my Fighters fan club package this afternoon anyway -- and it turned out to be only my members' card and my 3rd-year pin and dogtag, not the entire normal package of Stuff, since apparently they ran out of Stuff. However, the Stuff appears to be a vinyl "leisure pad" as they call them -- the plastic sheets people spread out on the ground for picnics, or in our case, for outfield seating that is made of grass or turf like the Seibu Dome or Omiya. So I don't really CARE about it all that much.
I did laundry and I talked to Mike on Skype, and then in the evening, rather than leave the house, I made shells'n'cheese for dinner. Ai had invited me to go to karaoke with some of her friends, but I really simply didn't feel like doing anything at all, and am a bit sniffly anyway.
I dunno, though, I've got a pretty busy weekend ahead in theory -- two Fighters games and hopefully some volleyball on Sunday night. So, eh.
It started out in the morning with me getting the call about getting my JHS job back. Woohoo!
Then I went down to Yokohama for the Fighters-Baystars game. It takes an hour or so to Kannai, so I got into the stadium around 12:30 for a 1pm game, just in time to learn some new cheer songs. Sat with Sakamoto up next to the ouendan; when the Shinozawas showed up they came and joined us since the rest of our posse wasn't there at all. We had a lot of fun cheering, and my only regret is that I didn't run down to yell at Terrmel Sledge, who is now playing for the Baystars. Alas, I should get to say hi to him next week in theory. Anyway, the game was a 0-0 tie, pretty fast, I wrote it up on Marinerds.
Took the train to Ikebukuro after that, got a small kaitensushi snack, like 4 plates or so, and then went to Mint to look at baseball cards (got some of the rookie edition ones, the Fighters set plus Futagami and Takeuchi and Tomura since I watched them so much last year in college), bummed around the arcades a little, also went to Book-Off (found a cheapo old Hikawa Kiyoshi album I'd been looking for -- shush), and basically wasted an hour.
After that, Takadanobaba, where I had a trial lesson at the Sendagaya Japanese Institute. They have a 2-kyuu prep course on Thursday nights. Right now the class has 3 people in it but only 2 show up every week -- both women, one from Brazil, one from Switzerland, and both have pretty high Japanese levels, I think. The way the class is, basically, they have a kanji test to start off every week, and then they spend the rest of the time discussing grammar forms, apparently. (Studying the kanji lists is homework.) What's crazy is that they're using the 2-kyuu prep books I bought last year (and never worked through much of) as their textbooks! The teacher was really nice though, and the class is entirely in Japanese but I could understand most of it. Our class discussion for the time I was there was on the differences between using ～かける、～切る、and ~抜く to describe things you have finished doing or haven't finished doing. It was interesting and she had us come up with examples and whatnot. Then we moved on to some other grammar stuff, and then the 45-minute break time happened, so that was all I got to sit in on. What I found out, though, is that if I wanted to actually start the course NEXT WEEK, I could do that... instead of waiting until April... I'd have to basically pay 10,000 yen as an entrance fee now, and then prorated 2600 or so per class for the remaining two in this "semester" for now, and then pay the whole course fee for the April-June "semester" if I continued. I've got until Wednesday to make a decision for starting on Thursday. There's a good argument for doing it, namely that I wouldn't be as far behind when I did join the class in April, assuming I was going to join it. Plus, the school is moving buildings during the last week of March, so the week that Mike is here, there are no lessons anyway...
On the other hand, I asked the students in the class about how much time it takes -- the class itself is 90 minutes per week, but they were saying that the homework and studying takes them like 7-8 hours a week. Ouch. But I guess this is really what I SHOULD be doing in terms of studying if I'm serious about taking the damn 2-kyuu again, right? Paying money for a class and then using that as motivation to kick myself in the ass to actually work through these prep books, with help?
Anyway, I thought about that on the train all the way to Chiba.
Yes. Chiba. For my third prefecture of the day.
See,
the2belo had told me a few days ago that he'd be sent up to Tokyo for his job on Thursday->Friday. Except, as he found out, "I'm actually working in some random place in Chiba instead! You ever been to Kaihin-Makuhari?""Jeff," I explained, "THAT'S WHERE CHIBA MARINE STADIUM IS. I KNOW IT QUITE WELL."
So since I had nothing to wake up for on Friday but he had work, it made sense for me to go down to visit him instead of vice versa. I rode the train there, he met me at the station, and we went to Outback for dinner :) We got a Bloomin' Onion and I got a huge salad and he got a burger and beer and it was pretty neat to hang out with Jeff as always! I have to make sure I manage to get down to Nagoya sometime so we can go to a Dragons game together, because I'm not sure if I'm going to see the Dragons up here all that much this year, really, and it's been ages since I've been to a game at the Nagoya Dome.
And then I rode home, getting in a bit after midnight.
Lots of trains, pretty exhausting day, really. And after two days sitting in the cold I was feeling kinda crappy, too.
So, on Friday, today, I did nothing. Literally. I never left the house. I had to wait for a redelivery of my Fighters fan club package this afternoon anyway -- and it turned out to be only my members' card and my 3rd-year pin and dogtag, not the entire normal package of Stuff, since apparently they ran out of Stuff. However, the Stuff appears to be a vinyl "leisure pad" as they call them -- the plastic sheets people spread out on the ground for picnics, or in our case, for outfield seating that is made of grass or turf like the Seibu Dome or Omiya. So I don't really CARE about it all that much.
I did laundry and I talked to Mike on Skype, and then in the evening, rather than leave the house, I made shells'n'cheese for dinner. Ai had invited me to go to karaoke with some of her friends, but I really simply didn't feel like doing anything at all, and am a bit sniffly anyway.
I dunno, though, I've got a pretty busy weekend ahead in theory -- two Fighters games and hopefully some volleyball on Sunday night. So, eh.