Well the test is over. Maybe I passed. It was strange taking it in America, but it was nice to hear Japanese being spoken.

Writing and Vocab - I did good; listening was okay; reading, well, as expected. I did about as well as could be expected. If I had to guess, I probably didn't pass, I think about 55%, but maybe I'll get lucky and 5 points will blow my way.

I am so hungry to level-up.  I want to start tomorrow. I feel really energized. I have had my concerns about what others think of me lifted. I want to spend every minute here on this Earth learning and filling my head with Japanese, Programming, Math, my (private) spiritual path, Korean, Chinese, and other things I love. I have lost interest in TV, one night stands, politics, getting drunk (today is 8 months, btw), and my greed for acceptance and to be envied is gone.

I am grateful and ready to eat life up.

To anyone coming to Chicago to take the JLPT, I hope the weather is better tomorrow than it is now. It's freezing, raining, windy, and icy. That's the Four Dwarfs of the Apocolypse, I think.

I'm not going to get too worked up over this, I don't think I am going to do to well on the reading.

More importantly, I was thinking about why I want to pass. It has something to do with how others view me, and the perceived status, more than learning Japanese. If I take that out of the equation, it becomes less stressful, and more fun. I have to learn to stop thinking of what I will gain by passing. But I do that all the time. I think of getting a good job, and the next thing I know, I am imagining my new loft and Audi, or whatever. It's all craving.

Anyway, back to studying.

I registered for classes today, and started my new job. I was at school hours before anyone, and got all the classes I asked for. Five classes. The adviser looked at me and said, "That's a pretty heavy load". Buddy, I had 4 hours a day of Japanese, followed by 3 hours of study, and 2-3 tests a week. I've been running in Zaire, I've been living with Sherpas, I've been swimming in Alaska for the past year and a half.

The job seems perfect, relaxed, street clothes, 2 minutes from my apartment. And I'm off tomorrow, so I can study Japanese all day.

From Jgram, The Japanese Database：

ex #3703   問題の中にはゴリラに不公平なものがある。
Some test questions are unfair to gorillas.

I start Monday at a former co-worker's art gallery. I hope it goes well, I had two short lived disasters, it can't happen a third time... It's too good to be true, literally next door to where I am living. How could that happen??

Four days of not smoking. I miss it, but it's nice not stinking. It really illustrates the power of tobacco over me, I really have to weigh the downside of smoking, which are by no means trivial; bad breath, stink like smoke, can't breath well, spend almost 10 bucks a day, have to carry gum around, have to smoke every chance I get. I don't even like making eye contact with people when I smoke.

Now I can googley-eyeball everyone indiscriminately.

I haven't spoken Japanese at all, outside my lesson. I said something incorrectly to my girlfriend in Japanese when we were talking this morning, and she laughed at me. I wanted to hang up, I felt myself turn red with anger. I never laugh at her crappy English, I always patiently wait for her to finish simple sentences. Oh, well, no point in feeling self pity. I like my Japanese:)

I got an unexpected letter from a classmate. I miss Japan. I miss my classmates.

I don't feel ready. But I am forging ahead. I finished the grammar book today, but I still need to review a bunch. Kanji, I will be working on that until the day before the test. Same with vocabulary and reading.

About 8 months ago, I traded drinking for smoking, and 2 days ago I quit smoking. It's not too bad this time, quitting. About 2 or 3 more days, and I won't crave too much. Already, things smell better. Chicago was wet, but warm, and smelled like Autumn.

I had yet another interview today. The first part went well, the second part, not as great. Yes, I am overqualified. Unless they are a anteater, anyone is overqualified for this dumb retail job.  Just give it to me.

Have a good Thanksgiving everyone.

My gig at the French restaurant lasted 2 days. I think I am done with the service industry. The manager was sketchy to begin with, then got real sketchy on my first night on the floor. I don't really go to French restaurants, mainly because I am not used to food taking that long to cook, and I always felt like someone was in my space, taking plates, moving forks, etc. Well, that's what waiting tables at that French restaurant entailed. He showed me for an hour or two, then berated me for not getting it right on my own tables. It's not worth going into, the point is, I thanked him and told him I wouldn't be back.

Finding a part time job that doesn't suck might be harder than I thought. Oh well.

I went to 5 restaurants today, which may not seem like much, but it's tiresome work, applying for jobs is. 3 just took my application, one said he'd call me tomorrow. The owner of this one French restaurant may have hired me, but I couldn't get a straight answer out of him. He said, "I like you, you come in, try it out, bum, bum, bum. Tomorrow at four. But tonight we have a new girl coming in, so I will let you know. I'll call you tomorrow. Or tonight. Very simple, bum, bum, bum.

I am lost in the vortex. My empty inbox and mute cellphone mock me. I wonder if all these places just want pretty girls. It's not crazy talk, that's the restaurant business. I spent $50 on cuff links this morning, and I didn't even take off my jacket. Damn. Tomorrow, maybe I'll just wear a sleeveless shirt.

Ashita mo Ganbaru.

My uncle uses this room I am staying in during the day, so I spend usually about an hour or two everyday at the library, sending out resumes, checking email, re-checking email, etc. I either go to the big one downtown or another rather large one closer to where I am staying. Chicago has a pretty good system of libraries, I have to say.

The only thing that sucks is, there is something weird going on in every bathroom I go in.  Either a homeless person has set up camp in one of the stalls, or people are drifting about, or people are just sitting in a stall with the door cracked. Everyone has a "wide stance" or has brought a big suitcase in there. I hear murmuring and who-knows-what kind of creepy semaphore going on. I miss the clean, quiet bathrooms at Ikebukuro station, and the little old lady that would clean around me as I peed.

After the library today, I went to a Korean restaurant for lunch. Kimchi chigae. Scalding hot, but delicious. It was nice to hear Korean, and the waitress reminded me of a classmate. I wanted to hug her, because I miss being around Asian people, but that might have been inappropriate, especially since she was rather cool to me. Anyway, I have been fighting a cold, and I think chigae is good for that. I ate until I started sweating on the back of my neck, left a big tip, and split.

I wonder if I can double my reading speed in 3 weeks. Then I would be safe for the test. I hate that feeling of looking at the clock run out of time from my classroom desk. Someday I will take a test and have plenty of time left over. I used to think I was a genius, but my test taking speed seems to prove otherwise. Oh well. Back to the studies.

I think I told too many people about this test, I'm starting to feel a little pressure. On the other hand, I finished studying the kanji I need to know, so I downloaded the vocabulary. I whittled it down by more than half to about 2300 words I need to review, so I will use flashcardexchange.com to cram them into my peanut brain. It may seem like a pretty massive undertaking, but if I cover about 200 words a day, I should be okay for the test. Even with only a day or so of reviewing, I am doing better on the reading quizzes. This series of books are excellent!

So I wrote out a pretty aggressive schedule that will allow me a few days to review everything for the test. About 21 days...

I don't want to make this bigger than it is. No matter if a person passes or fails, I think if you can communicate properly it may not matter if you have this on your resume, although many Japanese people I met are nuts about taking the TOEIC, so it's a good conversation topic, and you can moan and groan together about how hard learning a foreign language is.

It's more of a personal thing for me. And it is helping my Japanese, there is a lot of review I am getting to do, as well as some stuff we didn't cover in class. Plus, I used to resist goals and tests and that sort of thing, so it's nice to challenge myself to approach this kind of thing in a more positive light.

But if I don't pass, let me say for the record that all tests are bullshit. See yesterday's post about my job interview.