月曜日から、私は GenkiJACS 日本語学校でフルタイムの学生として勉強を始めました。大学を卒業して以来、フルタイムの勉強はしたことがなかったので、私のような甘やかされたサラリーマンにとってはかなり大きな変化です。私は、比較的快適な場所から、地球の反対側で、まったく異なる経験の真っ只中に飛び込み、すでにカリキュラムの半分が終わったクラスに参加しました。これは、そうでなければ難しい状況に、さらに挑戦の要素を加えています。

Had to get a little bit of Japanese practice in there before continuing on with the rest of the blog! It will be interesting to look back at it in 6 months to see how cringe worthy the grammar is.

First day at school

Hello fellow students, I too am a cool and hip student like yourself.

Here’s the longer-form version in English…

I started as a full time student at GenkiJACS Japanese language school on Monday. I’ve not done any full time study since finishing up at university, so it is quite a significant change for a spoilt office worker like myself. I’ve gone from a place of relative comfort and landed right in the middle of something completely different my experience, on the opposite side of the world, and I’ve joined a class that is already half way through its curriculum. Which adds an extra dash of challenge to an otherwise challenging situation.

The biggest difference I’ve found so far is the amount of attention you have to give to your surroundings. You have to actively think and what you are being taught, digest it as best you can and recall it on demand. You don’t even get the luxury of Googling the answers to the tricky stuff, which is bordering on unreasonable! All this is tempered by having really nice and friendly teachers though. Each of them have very different teaching styles, but it is clear from the start they have giving the students a good education at the core of their values.

Looking back on this post, it feels a little whiny, so I hope you can indulge me a little. This really is a positive-problem sort of thing, in that I was specifically looking for something that will challenge me and test my boundaries. I’m pretty sure that in a few weeks, once I’ve filled in the larger missing blanks of knowledge and established a rhythm, I’ll be a lot more confident and feeling less awed by the gap between where I think I am and where I’m actually at.

Textbook

My pre-intermediate level textbook

I hope anyway.