Back to Kindergarden

As of 10:26 this morning, I have officially completed my first week of classes. This sounds like an easy thing, but let me assure you, it is not. Despite being an exceedingly small school, things are very disorganized here. For example, I couldn't find my class. Twice. That is, I went to the room at the correct time, and no one showed up. After five minutes, I went to consult with the nice lady responsible for keeping track of my academic process. She looked up the class, consulted with her coworkers, went to the empty classroom, and finally called the teacher. Oh, it turns out that the class has been moved into his office. How nice of him to tell ANYONE ELSE! I was okay with this the first time, but when it happened again yesterday, I was pretty mad. Especially since when I went to ask the nice lady again, all I wanted was to know the professor's office number, since I assumed that is where the class probably went. But no, she would not believe the foreign girl and had to go through the whole process again, just to find out, sure enough, the class is in the professors's office. Ridiculous. And of course, since I can't find my way to the next building, nor could I possibly have the skills required to read the office numbers, I had to be accompanied like a little kindergardener to the class.

But now that is all over, and I only have to deal with the fact that I can in no possible way read all 150 pages a week assigned for my Chinese Buddhism class, I can't get past 4 lines in my Kanbun (Chinese writing of Japanese) class, and my Shugendo teacher I think assigned homework, but I don't really know. The only class I am certain to succeed in is the independent study with my advisor. Really, the largest problem here is time. It wouldn't be so bad if I had endless hours between classes, but at the rate of one page an hour (how long it takes me to read academic Japanese), I only get about six pages done a day. And this of course leaves me no time to do any of my own research.

I shouldn't be complaining too much, though. It is only the first week. My Japanese will improve, and soon I'll be able to read two pages an hour! On a very happy note, apparently everyone shows up to class late, so if I sleep in a little longer than I should, I don't have to worry about it.