My last semester in Japan starts tomorrow. I am excited to go back, although I feel like I have a reptilian dislike for school ingrained in me. When class ends, I involuntarily race for the door. Maybe there is some anxiety I should take a look at....

I may go buy a new electronic dictionary today. The money is burning a hole in my pocket.

Did you know Japanese doesn't really have a future tense? It's the same verb as simple present, so usually you stick the time of the occurrence in there to denote that it is in the future. Or use the ubiquitous "korekara", which translates to "from now", a word not needed when you have a future tense.

So I am starting to talk more with my girlfriend's family. I hate making mistakes, but I have to get over it...They are nice people and I can't keep sitting there like a mute, it's just rude.

The hard part is my girlfriend thinks it's cute when I make mistakes, so she giggles. The enlightened guy that I am, I start seeing red.

It's the simple mistakes that make me just mental.

I have been doing some reading and kanji practice. It's strange how there are some kanji I just can't seem to memorize. We haven't even gotten to the real hard characters. After I finish the book I am using, then the next book covers the last 1000.

I feel a little guilty that I can't put more time into Japanese on this break. I admit that I am passing up opportunities to speak Japanese. And it's still because of pride.... I feel like I should be further along, so I am embarrassed to make simple mistakes. But, if I don't speak, I am going to continue making simple mistakes.

I can't really dwell on it. Today I will try to do better. Speaking proper Japanese and overcoming my pride (which is really just fear) are two very distinct issues.

Plus, It's vacation. I will be back in school in a week, (whoops, 4 days!), speaking all the bad Japanese you can eat. In fact, I had a dream last night, a recurring dream, where I am back in high school, but don't know where my classes are. Only, the difference was I was in my new Japanese class, and was happy, then I started looking for last semester's classmates, and realized I had been put in a first grade class. Literally, the other students were 6 years old, and didn't speak any Japanese.

Thanks, my unconscious mind. That's some real confidence there.

My fifth semester has ended. My new class has some great people in it, and I hope we are together next term. I feel that we are at about the same level, I hope the teachers agree. This semester's teacher, Kakinuma Sensei, was a dream. Smart, tough but easy to get along with. She has made my top 5 list of teachers.

This next term involves more report and presentation writing. If I can study Kanji and find some simple presentations to read and study, this vacation have been productive.

I want to come back to America, get my degree and figure out a way to come back to Japan, as soon as possible. I never thought of myself as an English teacher, but I actually really like the kids (maybe more than adults), and think this might influence what I get my degree in.

I still feel like a dork in a suit, though.

The way we are taught is more similar to the Japanese method of teaching than the Western method. Here we are crammed full of grammar, vocab, etc; more than we could possibly retain. I think the theory is that a higher percentage will stick, but I think a side effect is that I now know so much grammar that I have a hard time knowing how to say things. My solid foundation of Japanese is about 3-6 months behind what we are studying.

I have a feeling that's why there are a million conversation schools here. Japanese people learn probably as much English grammar as I did, but don't use it, and have little confidence in their English, for the most part. It's almost a racquet, the eikaiwa thing here. If they spent more time in conversation, would they need this many conversations schools? Compare this to Mexicans living in America, who learn little grammar, and have a smaller vocab, but seem to have an easier time. Granted there are more similarities between Spanish and English.

I don't really know what is a better way. When we are babies, we are crammed full of our mother tongue. When things slow down I can review, I guess, although my friends, who have been in similar scenarios, all say, "Yeah, I thought that too.."

On one hand, I am nervous about the next semester. On the other, I know this will all be over in 3 months, so I want to enjoy it.

Lately on Fridays, after the tests are done, I have been going out with 3 or 4 classmates, all of which are women married to Japanese guys, and usually a few other classmates tag along. Today we went out to a Singaporean (?) restaurant, last week a Taiwanese place. I like hanging out with them, because their level of Japanese is not too much better than mine, so it is a challenge, but I can keep up. Plus they are pretty cultured and smart. One is Taiwanese, one is Chinese, and one is from Myanmar. It's interesting to see people's faces on the train, as we babble away in Japanese.

Today we had our Kanji final exam. I didn't study too hard, but I did okay, I think. I have to write yet another speech, but I haven't decided on a theme. Or rather, I have decided on 2 themes so far, then decided against them after playing around with them a while.

This semester was a bit of a break for me, I really need to do some reading, writing, and preparation for the next semester, there will be a lot more writing. I don't know natural writing style in Japanese, so it's very time consuming, and I tend to put it off because it's so hard.

The word for sarcasm or cynicism in Japanese is Hiniku (皮肉). The first Kanji is Kawa, or flesh, hide. The second is Niku, for meat (i.e. YakiNIKU). I usually have to pay attention to my level of sarcasm. Now that I think of rending flesh, I will be even more careful.

I have been busy living life in Tokyo. The rainy season starts tomorrow, so I am preparing for some wet pant legs. But today Japan is beautiful, and I am trying to keep it simple, though my life is rather complicated lately, full of big decisions and changes and realizations.

School...I made a decision to drop down a grade, which was the right thing, although it hurt my pride. The rest of my life has gotten rather busy and I would be having a meltdown if I hadn't done it.

I will be working more in the near future. They are all teaching jobs, but I do get to use some Japanese, so it will be somewhat effective, I think.

My Japanese is getting better. I would describe it as "functional". I have a long way to go, but I am not to concerned with rushing my progress. Forcing it is pointless.

My main goal lately is to go through life with a little grace. Take it easy. Not leisurely, but not get hung up on little things. This could be my life's work.

I have spent more time communicating with Japanese people on mixi and myspace. Those who complain about Japanese people here using them to practice their English aren't trying hard enough to find help. I have made some good friends, who have gone well out of their way to help me. I am grateful.

I also realize that I am wasting my time by judging myself and others perception of me. Maybe I will go into this in another post. If I just take the next indicated action, I will be okay, or so I am told.

I am a little embarrassed by my naivete when I keep running into words I don't know. I think I didn't expect the Japanese vocabulary to be so, um, large. I wonder which languages have smaller vocabularies. I briefly looked and apparently English has the largest, so I guess I shouldn't complain. There's probably some language in New Guinea that I could be speaking fluently by now, though.

Also, it's nice to see from the stats that people are reading this. Again, a little embarrassing that I happen to be in the midst of a semester long panic attack, but this is part of my therapy.

Tonight, I was struggling with 2 paragraphs that I had to write for class and when I got done, I looked down at them and calculated that it took me 2 hours to write these measly paragraphs.  I thought, "Who would hire someone that writes at a speed of one paragraph/hour, and the paragraph is full of mistakes?"

An insane person, that's who. But tonight, I realized why I hate doing these writing exercises. It's not (as previously grumbled to myself) that the exercize is dumb, or for simpletons, or the theme sucks or I need conversation/grammar/vocabulary practice more. The reason I hate it is because I am not good at it. Yep, brilliant, right? But I have been making excuses, and the reality is, I need a lot of practice.

It felt good to admit this to myself. I want to have a more positive attitude. In class, I fear I have become the Vortex of Dark Matter. Tomorrow is a new day.  I should add one more platitude, but I have homework.

As it stands the level of Japanese that I can understand FAR surpasses the level I can speak at. Can this be the cause? I can understand so much, but when it comes time to speak, I still feel like I am in first level Japanese. Is this a deficiency in my study? Not speaking enough? Is it natural?

In first level, the questions were like, "Which man is wearing a green hat?" Now the questions are "What are the benefits of vegetarian lifestyle?" When it comes time to try and participate, I wish I was still looking for the guy in the green hat. That gave me the satisfaction of being easily answerable.

How come I feel intimidated in class but not with my Japanese girlfriend? Ok, maybe that seems obvious, but if I can confidently speak Japanese with a Japanese person, why does my brain freeze when talking with Chinese and Koreans in my class?

I have to be aware that I am improving, and not give up when it's time to do these exercises in class. This level is hard, and even if I still suck at the end, I want to say, "Well, I did my best, and I suck a little less than when I started."