in general, it seems like this semester i'll have more homework and a TON more reading to do than last semester. it's only been the first week but i've got:

• 1-2 page-reading assignments
• 25-page (= 1 chapter) reading assignment
• "find a short article and look up all the words in it" assignment
• there might be more i'm forgetting
• (from my swedish school) "write that paper about who knows what, which involves a ton of reading japanese books and japanese research papers"

now for the first time i'm 100% seriously (in fact, more seriously than i've ever read a textbook in my life before) reading a textbook... in japanese meant for native japanese speakers, about linguistics. for my class. now i've gone through and highlighted all the terms that are translated to english (as i assume these are super important for class) in orange erasable highlighter, and have started highlighting in green the general japanese words i don't know, for the first 2 chapters of the book. each chapter is about 25 pages. i have NO IDEA how tough a japanese semester-final exam is going to be so i have to really make sure i know everything in order to pass (i don't give a shit about grades, as long as i pass).

it seems like the japanese students tend to read the entire book first before the class actually starts, because even my friend who ended up quitting the class had still read through both textbooks, but i can't do that as i read way too slowly in japanese!!

anyway. yesterday i went "flower-watching" (= take a short hike and then eat lunch and go back) with a group of old people who're in an english club, all of them except our one friend's husband (who's not really in the club i think) speak amazingly good english, like super fluent. one of them said they used to be an english teacher, another lived in america for a few years, stuff like that. so they all wanted to speak in english, but it ended up with that the one guy who doesn't know english was super left out and now i feel pretty bad and think we should've spoken more japanese.

today we're going to see some kind of festival/show by the JSDF (japan's military-like thing that you always see turning corrupt and shooting people in manga), i think they're going to fly planes or something. i don't care one bit about the military but it's another one of those "things you see in manga!" so i'm still happy about it.

anyway from now on i'll probably be crazy-busy with all this homeowork, until sometime next month when my swedish class ends (for better or worse). sigh.

at some point in the next 3 months we're going to have a school field trip to either kyoto or osaka, i hope it doesn't cost so much for my wife to come this time...