The times, they are a changin'

This week, I bought some ground coffee instead of instant by mistake. Lacking a filter, I learnt that you can use a sock instead. It wasn't that bad.

I think this sums up where things stand with me at the moment.

As usual, it's been a while since my last visit. My girlfriend has been and gone, I've got back into the regular routine of lectures and... that's probably about it really. I'll go into detail as I go along until things are up to date again.

Over a month ago now, Monika came to stay in Tokyo for about two and a half weeks. It's not exactly fresh in my memory, but we spent a large amount of that time exploring Tokyo, and I got to have an idea of what it's like to be a tourist here. Needless to say, I'm now of the mindset that Tokyo is best experienced as one. I think the main places I went to that were new to me were Ueno, Odaiba and Disney Land. She had a huge list of places to visit, and I think we did less than half of that, entirely due to time and money limits. It was a busy few weeks, but it was easily one of the highlights. There's not a great deal to say about it outside of the photos that can be seen on my Facebook, I guess.

Classes have been a bit different for me now. I've decided to focus more on preparing for JLPT tests, and as the classes at Hosei do not count towards my grade at Sheffield in any sense, I decided to drop the ones that aren't language. While this does mean I'm getting an E grade, it still means I can pass the year, and not feel like I'm putting a lot of effort into something that doesn't count for anything. In a sense I have more free time, but that time is being put into studying Japanese, so not a great deal has changed there.

I also made my debut on Japanese TV recently. It wasn't anything particulary outstanding, merely impressions foreigners have of Japan, and I was limited to talking about food for the most part, but it was an interesting experience. It was exactly scripted, but it was very directed, with a lot of re-takes and prompts to answer in a certain fashion. What's annoying is that I don't think I'm going to be able to see the show, as I don't have access to a TV at the time the show is broadcasted, what with being in the dorm.

Outside of that, the only real change has been that I've come to the realisation that Japan isn't really for me. I know that I enjoy learning, using and improving my Japanese, but living in this country doesn't suit me. I'd still consider visiting, and maybe applying for the JET programme, as that would entail not being in Tokyo, which I feel might be a major contributing factor to this feeling, but yeah. Not really something I expected to feel this year.

Not sure when I'll update next, doing very little outside of studying from now on.