Back to School

It's been rather variable on the old Japanese language front recently. What with Sean here I've been speaking almost exclusively English and I've noticed a definite decline in Japanese ability. On the other hand, I did get a break while Sean was moving into his Kobe hotel-room to go and have dinner with Mayuko and Ryota, who rather amusingly mentioned they it was weird to hear me speaking English again (on the phone to Sean), which I was very pleased to hear :-)

The quadrennial ritual of the language course placement test came round again today, with the added novelty of a) punch-card answers and b) massive hangover.

Pleasantly short analysis: It was crap and pissed me off. They told me to take the same classes I passed last semester (Better than someone else who got told to take classes 4 levels below what he passed last semester...). I politely told them I disagreed with their assessment.

Back to uni! After being on holiday since mid-February I`m actually quite glad to be back to work and have something to do every day. It also means I can stop pestering every Japanese person in my phone book for conversation practice.

Sean's still around, back from Kyoto and have spent the last few days in Kobe, with a day trip to Nara today, where it rained a lot and we got attacked by the deer as per usual. One of them stuck it's head into my back pocket and ate the tickets and fliers from the botanical gardens...

Cherry blossoms and deer, how stereotypically Japanese...

Went on a quick dinner trip to Osaka as well, took Sean round Umeda and Shinsaibashi (took a detour to the Glico man as well). Perhaps understandably, he was so shell-shocked he's refusing to go back hehehe...

On the other hand, how are my Dad and Stepmum going to cope with it? Turns out Dad's going to be doing a lecture at Osaka University... He gave me the address. WHAT FRIKKIN USE IT THAT TO ME!!!!!!! I TOLD HIM MAP AND DIRECTIONS FROM UMEDA OR JR OSAKA OR NAMBA... groan... Oh, and he phoned me up on my birthday (Yesterday, thanks for the messages everyone!) and called me Sean... cest la vie... (He's also holding my birthday present hostage until I send Granny a postcard written in Japanese)

Worry number 2: Dad likes to imitate the accent of anyone he talks to... this could be embarrassing...

An odd thought I had; given the Japanese believe that all foreigners speak English and only English, why do none of the people you see in Starbucks pouring over English textbooks ask a question or two?