JLP Fails and Meat Love

So yeah, sorry this is late and I didn't post last week. I was working my ass off to get ready for the JLPT. Between work, studying, working out, and trying to cook healthier meals, I pretty much have about 2-3 hours tops of "free" time each day. I put "free" in quotes because if I do anything like cleaning or posting a blog, that time gets cut down even more. Slightly complaining and slightly throwing that out there so I don't feel as bad about missing updates.

Anyways, since last time, what's been up? Hmm.... Oh, I went to an Indian restaurant with some AEON employees from Izumo. It was nice, but it was somehow even hotter and more humid inside that restaurant than it was outside. Not even slightly exaggerating, I felt like I was going to pass out for about half of the dinner. That was the weekend before my test prep began, and I think it was all I did that weekend.

Last weekend was much busier. On Sunday, I had the JLPT in Okayama. Naoko decided to take the day off without telling me in advance, so we both got up at 6 freaking AM to catch the bus out there. I got to see some nice scenery on the ride at least, but, predictably, I got very little sleep the night before. On the bus was one of the co-workers from Izumo who was taking the test, a JET from Izumo who was taking the test, and some dude who was on his way to orientation for NOVA. Once we hit Okayama, we had enough time to grab some food then get on the super packed bus to the university. We met a woman from Italy who is teaching Italian and was taking the same level test as us (the guy was taking the N2, one step above us).

There was a guy helping people find the bus to campus, but once there people were much less helpful. We headed the wrong way, but that led us to an information counter where we got back on track. Cue waiting around for about a half an hour before going into a room full of people to... wait around for another half hour. There was a lot of waiting for this test. It was kind of infuriating. Overall, it was four hours and the staff was super strict. Aside from me and the aforementioned people I met, there was only one other Westerner in our testing room. He's an AEON worker from Tottori, and he's a total tool. How much of a tool? Well, he was one of the last people to show up, just minutes before the test, ignored myself and the Izumo worker (he's met us both) even when she directly greeted him, spent the whole time acting like he owned the place, and showed up after the doors had been closed on the final section, interrupting the proctors explanation, without even apologizing (just for reference, you're supposed to be disqualified from the test for that). This isn't isolated behavior. He always acts like that. Everyone else was Chinese, Korean, or Indian, and some were very interesting. One dude was performing a full on stretching routine before the test. I expected him to get up and do a warm-up jog before the test or something. Another guy came in kind of late with a weird cast around his arm. Except it wasn't really a cast, it was just a thick, white fabric wrapped around his arm, and his hand kept twitching. I expected a horror movie to start at any moment.

As for the test itself, it was actually a bit harder than I had been expecting. I don't think I passed (I was about 50/50 on my chances going in). Overall, everything went as expected (no problem with kanji, grammar and reading kind of tough but okay, slaughtered on vocab) except for the listening section. I spend a lot of time talking to Naoko and, to a lesser extent, my other friends in Japanese. I thought listening would be okay. I don't know if it was because it was at the end of a four hour test, because I was working on less than five hours of sleep, or because I just suck at listening, but I think that section alone sealed my doom. I kept just stopping paying attention halfway through the conversations, and they threw in a lot of curveballs to make "trick" questions. I took a glance around as they were collecting the tests, and pretty much everyone had different answers... Thing is, there's three sections to the test. You need 95 points overall with at least 19 points in each section to pass. Listening only had 27 points. If I missed more than 8, I failed the whole test. At least vocab had 35 or so, so I had more leniency... Oh well. I won't find out until early September, but I'm not holding my breath.

Afterwards, we grabbed some dinner and headed back home. On Monday, Naoko and I were going to go hiking but it rained. Instead, we hit up the department store, watched a movie (Super 8), drove around a bit, ate some yakiniku, and had an annoyingly serious conversation about what may or may not happen when I return to The States for grad school. No Japanese class that day because I'm taking the week off studying. I think I earned it with the JLPT. That's more or less it, except for a whole mess of random shit:

1.)

Another ATM this month, and I saw this at the Yonago station. Apparently it's from last year, but still. A salvia festival? Really? Between this and the pot air fresheners, I'm beginning to think Japan is a nation of undercover stoners.

2.)

This is... I mean, really. What? Yes.

3.)

Couldn't help but notice the ridiculousness of this as I was preparing a lesson. How was my food poisoning? Really? Is that the best example you could think of to teach "how was it?"?

4.)

These pictures show me that apparently Naoko and I went to sushi the week before last. There were a bunch of those awesome pictures. Also, hot dog sushi. WTF Japan?

5.)

Oh yeah, this. This is part of my disappointment with myself lately. Naoko and I have started jogging. In typical fashion for things that other people get me to do, it was her idea but she has only jogged once while I've kept to a strict jogging schedule. What is making me sad is I enjoy it. I look forward to the days when I jog after work, and I have to stop myself from jogging extra days. WTF Thomas?

6.) Compounding my above disappointment was a series of thoughts I had while making dinner last week. Not only did I choose juice over beer as my drink of choice for the night, I actually had the thought "I should stop eating hamburgers. They're too greasy." pop into my head. Now, let's get one thing straight here: I love meat. I love meat so much that I wish it was there to welcome me home every night after work with a hot meal. Made of meat. If the Green Goblin dropped meat and a bus full of children off a bridge, I would save meat and let the kids plummet to their screaming doom. If I was a politician, I would have a sordid affair with meat and have to leave office when the scandalous photos arose. If I had to choose between my loved ones and meat... okay, well, I'd choose my loved ones. But I'd think of meat every day thereafter and, sometimes, when they night was still and I was lying alone in bed, I would sit up and wonder if I had made the right choice. It would be heartbreaking. I love meat so much I, I don't even care how incredibly homosexual this entire rant has sounded. Hopefully this gives you some insight into why I was so deeply disturbed when I thought of cutting one of the purest forms of meat out of my diet. Shame on me.

7.)

Been meaning to snap a picture of this for a while. View of the rice field below the bridge near my house. Got it on the way to the station on Sunday.

8.)

Speaking of awesome, here's one of the many great scenes I got going through the mountains on the bus. Not pictured because I couldn't get my iPhone to bear in time: the big yellow sign with a monkey scratching its head and the warning "beware of monkeys" below it. No, that is not a liberal translation. Entirely literal. No "b" in this spelling.

 9.)

Coming into Okayama. Big American Shop? I... what? What do they sell there? Also nearby and not pictured: a store called Love Drugs. More proof. Damn Japanese stoners.

 10.)

They has Magic cards here! These next few pictures are from me and Naoko gallivanting around the department store.

Awesome party costume.

This is actually from the biggest book store in Matsue (about the size of a normal-sized Borders in The States). This is their entire foreign language book section.

Awesome book marks from the department store again. I feel like my mom would like these. They're kind of her sense of humor.